Region:Asia Pacific
Current UN Women Plan Period Afghanisthan:2018-2022
World Bank Income Classification:Low Income
The World Bank classifies economies for analytical purposes into four income groups: low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high income. For this purpose it uses gross national income (GNI) per capita data in U.S. dollars, converted from local currency using the World Bank Atlas method, which is applied to smooth exchange rate fluctuations.
Least Developed Country:Yes
Since 1971, the United Nations has recognized LDCs as a category of States that are deemed highly disadvantaged in their development process, for structural, historical and also geographical reasons. Three criteria are used: per capita income, human assets, and economic vulnerability.
Gender Inequality Index:0.575
GII is a composite metric of gender inequality using three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market. A low GII value indicates low inequality between women and men, and vice-versa.
Gender Development Index:0.723
GDI measures gender inequalities in achievement in three basic dimensions of human development: health, education, and command over economic resources.
Population:209,497,025
Source of population data: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2022). World Population Prospects: The 2022 Revision
Male:19,976,265 (9.5%)
Female:189,520,760 (90.5%)
outcome XM-DAC-41146-ECA_D_1.1
Duty bearers implement and finance evidence-based gender-responsive normative frameworks and policies, including in the context of crisis response and recovery.
The outcome was not fully achieved, duty bearers made significant progress implementing and financing evidence-based gender-responsive normative frameworks and policies. Albania and Serbia remain regional leaders in the integration of gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) in national and local public finance management (PFM) systems, among 19% of countries with systems to track and make public allocations to gender equality and women’s empowerment (SDG target 5.c.1.). National and particularly local governments in the region increased their capacities to integrate GRB in mid-term budget frameworks. Supreme Audit institutions in the region, non-traditional stakeholders in gender equality, developed the first two sub-regional parallel gender audits after enhancing their capacities to do so through a regional exchange of knowledge facilitated by UN Women. By acknowledging and designing plans to respond to SAI audit reports, governments in the region strengthened their knowledge and skills to plan and monitor GRBs. Other countries in the region (Türkiye, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan) continued to formulate policies to mainstream gender in the PFM. The Governments of Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Kosovo enhanced their capabilities to plan and generate gender data on emerging issues, including unpaid domestic/care work and violence against women. The newly acquired gender data positions Armenia to report on the progress towards achieving SDG target 5.4, and Kazakhstan and Georgia are now among the few countries in the region that completed two rounds of VAW prevalence surveys since the adoption of Agenda 2030, providing more than one data point to monitor the progress on SDG target 5.2. UN Women ECARO provided methodological guidance and financial assistance to the National Statistical Offices of these countries, which resulted in the development of in-house gender data collection capacity. While 15 out of 18 UN Programme countries/territory in ECA region had National Action Plans on WPS by the end 2023, some partners joined WPS international platforms in 2023, namely 1) the Kazakhstan Government and Women Information Center in Georgia (NGO) made commitments and signed the Compact on WPS-HA in June 2023; and 2) seven countries, as members of WPS National Focal Points Network, contributed to consultations on the role of WPS National FPs, WPS Center of excellence, etc. Ten CSO partners shared their perspectives regarding inclusive implementation of WPS commitments by attending the Network’s meetings with UN Women technical and advisory support. Additionally, the Central Asian Women Leaders Caucus (CAWLC) decided to develop its first regional action plan (RAP) on WPS (roadmap forthcoming in 2024).UN Women ECARO reviewed NAPs for Central Asian countries to identify common challenges to translating WPS international commitments into national actions and provided a ground for discussions key priorities to be jointly addressed by the RAP. UN Women shared knowledge on mechanisms and tools for WPS localization and engaging with the civil society organizations to address gender and human security. CAWLC members agreed to conduct an annual Central Asian Forum to monitor the progress in the implementation of the WPS Agenda with the involvement of all stakeholders. Also, women-led organizations, women human rights defenders, and WPS experts from Central Asia and South Caucus agreed on a vision and objectives for a multi partners WPS platform. UN Women held the WPS annual expert gathering in Almaty, facilitated the discussions, and provided access to best practices on women’s participation in peace processes. Given these results, the original strategy and theory of change for this outcome remain applicable. Despite this progress, significant challenges remain, such as lack of technical capacities of the government to conduct gender analysis as well as low human and technical capacities of the local level government to implement gender-budgeting. Additionally, increased political will is needed for enacting meaningful legal frameworks that promote gender equality in decision-making institutions and processes. UN Women ECARO advocated to member states to consider various forms of temporary special measures that have proved effective, including gender quotas for elected and appointed positions, and provided technical support to UNCTs in advancing temporary special measures and gender responsive legal frameworks.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-ECA_D_1.2
Women and girls fully and equally participate in leadership and decision-making processes and benefit from gender-responsive governance.
UN Women ECARO made important progress towards achieving this Outcome. Under WPP, progress has been made towards women and girls fully and equally participating in leadership and decision-making processes and benefiting from gender-responsive governance; 657 women in the region are more prepared for greater leadership roles and to run for elections through UN Women Campaign and Leadership Curriculum implementation in Moldova, Türkiye, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, of which 77 have been elected thus far. Policymakers, the media, and civil society in Georgia, Türkiye, Albania, as well as in the wider region better understand the how to end violence against women in politics (VAWP) through UN Women training on media and violence against women in elections. In six countries from the region was observed, more use of gender statistics, analysis, and policy relevant research for better policies toward addressing human and women rights. Thuse, the People’s Advocate, Parliament (Albania) are more aware about gender data on human rights violations, including those in detention centers, due to the annual report . Public Authorities from Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, North Macedonia producing and made available more gender indicators , publications , surveys and data portals on diverse gender statistics and by applying different ways of reaching public at large ( ex. Gender Data Bootcamp ). Women entrepreneurs (1,047) and 75 investors shared their opportunities discussed potential long-term partnership during, and hosting over 15,308 participants within 10 satellite events across the ECA region, following EXPO 2023 hosted by UN Women in Istanbul. ECARO partner with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Yildiz Holding and Mary Kay Inc through the Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator. Buyers spent $1 million on gender-sensitive procurement from agricultural entrepreneurs, while investors spent 150,000 dollars on women's entrepreneurship and leadership training and 4.3 million dollars were invested in for 53 newly established women’s businesses. This resulted from a pilot program Gender Responsive Procurement and Investment launched by Yildiz Holding with UN Women, through which companies and the public better consider gender while purchasing services and goods. The program is one of the first and most comprehensive Gender Responsive Procurement and Investment programs worldwide and was awarded the "Best Global CSR Programme" by Deloitte in Geneva. WPS: UN Women continued to support women-led organizations (WLOs), peace activists and women’s human rights defenders (WHRDs) to have access and contribute to conflict prevention and peace building. It resulted to agreement on a vision for WPS multi-stakeholders platform for Central Asia and South Caucus where WLOs and WHRDs have an equal position, role and a safe space to share experience, raise voice and contribute to policy development. More specifically, the platform is expected to strengthen coordination on WPS and humanitarian assistance across all existing mechanisms, systems, networks, partnerships and capabilities; promote the development and application of the monitoring, reporting and financing mechanisms on the implementation of WPS commitments; ensure links with other agendas, including the youth, peace, and security agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its promise of inclusive and peaceful societies based on principles of gender equality. In November UN Women supported to set-up a Task Force including 18 WLOs’ representatives to follow up on the agreed actions to set up the WPS multistakeholder platform. UN Women continued its advocacy to bring more partners to Compact WPS-HA platform together with OSCE and Global Network of Women Peacebuilders. Jointly supported discussion on the key challenges faced by activists, their priorities and recommendations on how international and regional organizations can continue supporting civil society organizations in times of complex conflicts and crises, had provided better understanding how to operationalize the Compact’s agenda and actions in the region. UN Women specifically focused its interventions on needs to securing women’s civil society activism and making inclusion modalities more responsive to the specific context where people and their needs are. The Compact on WPS-HA will be further used by UN Women as a platform to bring more stakeholders together to find solutions for WPS-HA gaps. The Afghan women shared their position and requests with the international development actors, at one event hosted in Central Asia, which included: support for Afghan women presence in various processes and platforms of a regional nature in their respective host countries; to facilitate the exchange of information between countries on what governments and international organizations are doing to support women in Afghanistan; promote the creation of a new "human rights + security" narrative to protect women and human rights in Afghanistan; support the socio-economic initiatives of Afghan women in Central Asian countries, and joint initiatives with women in the region; and involve Afghan women as equal participants in dialogues and processes regarding the future of Afghanistan. T he ToC remains valid and applicable. ECA will intensify its efforts due to the ongoing war and multiple crisis to advance both WPS and WPP in the region
outcome XM-DAC-41146-ECA_D_1.3
Women and girls live a life free from all forms of discrimination, violence and harmful social norms.
The outcome was not achieved, as violence against women and girls remains the most pervasive human rights violation in the region, though some progress was made. Around 17,000 women and men reported increased understanding of gender equality, and around 1,730 people have become local advocates for gender equality. More than 21.9 million people from six (6) countries from the ECA region were reached, through a series of innovative social media communications campaigns and in-person events, with messages of equality and the importance of eliminating discriminatory gender stereotypes in all public spheres, preventing VAWG and increasing men’s involvement in fatherhood. UN Women ECA RO implemented a three-year regional Programme “ EU 4 Gender Equality : Together against gender stereotypes and gender-based violence” that challenged discriminatory gender stereotypes (closed in June 2023). It is the first regional programme covering gender equality in the Eastern Partnership Countries (EaP), funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented jointly with UNFPA. Six (6) EaP countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine covered. Based on insights from over 12,000 women and key stakeholders, the study “ The dark side of digitalization : Technology-facilitated violence against women in Eastern Europe and Central Asia” reveals the types and prevalence of technology-facilitated violence against women in 13 countries of the region and its consequences on women and girls’ attitudes, experiences and access to services. The research was committed by UN Women in partnership with the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Gender-Based Violence and the Action Coalition on Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality under the leadership of the Republic of Iceland and the Republic of Finland. It maps the existing normative and institutional landscape, along with the role and perspective of relevant stakeholders in providing prevention and support services to survivors of technology-facilitated violence ( more info here ). Women and girls demanding decision-makers to establish a femicide watch (independent body for monitoring femicide), to criminalize femicide, and to control arms more strictly in Serbia. As part of ECA RO UN Women efforts to prevent femicide, a regional media and public advocacy campaign entitled #StopFemicide was launched by CSO partner Femplatz to inform the Albanian, Montenegrin and Serbian public about the prevalence and characteristics of femicide. On social media, the campaign's messages have reached over 300,000 people. Moreover, the first regional research on social and institutional response to femicide in Albania, Montenegro and Serbia outlines country-specific recommendations to prevent femicide; establishing national data collection systems and record-keeping of violence against women and domestic violence, and establishing a femicide watch in each country, followed by a regional one. During the reporting year, UN Women made persisting efforts to keep the criminalization of domestic violence high on the political agenda of Central Asian countries. The Central Asian Alliance to End Gender-Based Violence was officially launched on 27 June 2023 with the support of the Spotlight Regional Programme for Central Asia, funded by the European Union. The Alliance will be instrumental to advance criminalization policies and to work on early detection and to prevention of gender-based violence, as well as to include a wide range of measures related to alternative approaches. Independent evaluation positively assessed the regional EU 4 Gender Equality programme. It also concluded partnering with civil society and women’s organizations was very effective and recommended it for further scaling up. The programme’s stories of personal impact show the effect of the programme in changing social norms at different levels. As a result of the successful implementation of its first phase, the EU 4 Gender Equality programme is granted the second phase starting in January 2024. Following this yet the Toc on EVAW areas is still relevant and ECARO will continue working toward achieving the SDG target 5.1; 5.2 to eliminate all form of discrimination and violence against women and girls everywhere
outcome XM-DAC-41146-ECA_D_1.4
The UN System demonstrates greater accountability to advance progress on GEWE across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.
UN Women ECA RO made strong progress towards achieving this outcome on greater accountability in the UN System to advance progress on GEWE. The Regional Collaborative Platform for Europe and Central Asia (RCP-ECA), the Issue-based coalition on Gender Equality (IBC-GE), and the Regional Gender Task Force (RGTF) continue to tackle gender equality during the regular meetings. A few of these platform’s results include: The targeted advocacy messages delivered by women parliamentarians, UN Women, UNFPA and UNDP with the national partners led critical thinking on designing and effectively implementation of Special Measures and quotas for women political participation. The II Global Forum of Interparliamentary Cooperation discussed the issues of strengthening interparliamentary cooperation to achieve the SDGs, eliminate discriminations and violence against women politicians. Hosted by Uzbekistan, on November 30 and brings the heads of parliaments from China, Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and others. Gender perspective are more present in the regional analysis (2023 MSNA Regional Analysis, 2023 Rapid Gender Analysis, Poland Protection Analysis), podcast series , joint statement as a result of UN Women’s joint work and partnership within the Regional Gender Task Force (RGTF) and regular engagement in Regional Information Management Working Group Meetings, Humanity Hub, CARE and the Ukraine GiHA Working Group, Moldova Gender Task Force under the Refugee Coordination Forum, Regional GBV Working Group, and the Regional Anti-Trafficking Task Force. National Authorities from Poland and Slovakia demonstrating an initial and good commitment to addressing gender issues throughout the humanitarian response. L ocalized Gender in Humanitarian Action Accountability Frameworks (GAF [1] ), identify that the Polish and Slovak response are between a range of fully met 14%- 22 % and partially met of 50% of the GAF criteria. The results of the identified compliances will inform 2024 Refugee Response Planning efforts, as well as feed into global monitoring efforts the collaboration between UN Women and UNHCR in 2023 in both countries has led to the identification of areas of improvement and some of the recommendations regarding gender mainstreaming in the refugee response have already been taken into account in the 2024 RRP processes. Eighty percent (80%) of UNCTs in ECA regions meet/exceed the minimum requirements of the United Nations Country Team System-wide Action Plan (UNCT-SWAP) Gender Equality scorecard performance indicators for the last two years (2022-2023), compared to 55 per cent in 2019.. According to a global revision of the UNCT reports the number of UNCTs that meet/exceed the financial targets for allocations to GEWE doubled in the last 3 years. All UNCTs from ECA region are applying Gender Equality Markers (GEM) to UN joint work plans at country levels to track GEWE allocations, and more carried capacity building events on how to integrate and track financing. UN Women ECA RO supported training sessions for UNCTs representatives (total 80 person -70 women and 10 men) from Albania, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan which bring the UNCT performances from “approaching minimum requirements” to ‘meets minimum requirements “ of the UNCT SWAP performance indicator ( 6.1). UN system colleagues, Resident Coordinators, and UNCTs in the ECA region have access to advise on how to respond to the growing movement opposing gender equality and human rights principles through the guidance provided in “ Key Messages on Gender Equality Pushbacks for the UN System in ECA Region . ” The regional Issue-based Coalition, co-chaired by UN Women and UNFPA, engaged in a comprehensive preparation process to craft this document. RCs, RCOs, Gender Theme Groups and leading academics, practitioners and activists met to discuss, raise awareness and identify joint advocacy measures needed to tackle increased gender equality pushbacks across the region. ECA RO maintain the same TOC with some adjustments at outcome levels, following the mid-term revision of the ongoing strategic note, as part of the bi-annual work planning process for the 2024. This will allow to ensure greater focus on increasing UN Women’s role as a members of regional coordination mechanisms and on increasing inter-agency mechanism capacities to integrate GEWE perspectives. [1] The global GAF tool was adapted to the Polish and Slovak contexts and includes a total of 28 criteria.Showing 1 - 4 of 4
Disclaimer and notes
The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.
References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
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