Outcome APA_D_1.3

Women and girls in all their diversity, benefit equally from opportunities, goods, services and resources, in full enjoyment of their social and economic rights and freedoms

In 2024, more women and girls now have equitable access to high-quality goods, services, and resources that are responsive to their needs. This includes i) utilization of HIV/AIDS prevention and care services among vulnerable women and women living with HIV, ii) access to child care services through integrated vocational training and child care centers as well as those driven by care enterprises iii) access to clean energy technologies and decent work opportunities iv)skills to navigate the green economy v) improved digital AI skills for women and girls as well as vi) increase knowledge and capacity on ending violence against women for 19 country offices in the region. In the area of gender responsive climate action , UN Women also secured USD 17.5 million through strategic partnerships with financial institutions, enabling the creation of nine financial mechanisms to finance renewable energy initiatives benefiting 40% women-led and marginalized enterprises to access clean energy technologies and decent work. By collaborating with various financial actors, EmPower has improved access to financing for micro to medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), promoting gender equality in the renewable energy sector. EmPower also developed a Guidance Note on ESG assessments, which partner institutions are integrating into their due diligence processes, with planned ESG training sessions to further embed these standards. Additionally, the Girls Go Green Asia Pacific Summit (23-25 October, Bangkok), co-organized by UN Women ROAP, UNICEF, and UNEP, significantly enhanced the capacity of state and private sector actors to promote gender-transformative pathways in the green economy and reached 32 adolescent girls and young women from 20 countries to provide essential tools for navigating gender barriers in green jobs and STEM, resulting in Joint Recommendations on Green Skills . These recommendations will promote inclusive opportunities and gender-responsive green transition policies, with an emphasis on women's economic autonomy and resilience, particularly in renewable energy and green innovation. Additionally, a youth-led session on green ecopreneurship fostered peer learning and innovative thinking. During the year, UN Women continued to work with different stakeholders including UN Agencies, CSOs and Women’s groups to ensure that needs and concerns of women living with HIV/AIDS are reflected in HIV/AIDS progarmmes implemented at country level. In partnership with UNAIDS and UNFPA, support was provided to Government participants and CSOs in ensuring that country level HIV/AIDS prevention plan developed during Regional HIV Prevention Meeting include focus on addressing GBV against WLHIV and vulnerable women including FSWs. UN Women also supported improvement in utilization of HIV/AIDS services among girls and women through reviewing and ensuring that needs of girls and women are addressed through work plans developed by Country level Joint Team. In the area of Women’s Economic Empowerment, UN Women has increased or suppo rted labour force participation for women through driving access to childcare services and encouraging decent jobs in the care sector . UN Women supported Gender-Inclusive Care Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (GICEEP) programme which enabled 3,075 women to enter and stay in the labor force, while reaching 9,683 individuals across Asia-Pacific through 14 care delivery models. A cohort of 11 Care Entrepreneurs have become more gender inclusive in their policies and practices through the GICEEP programme while increasing their revenue with 46.4%; improving their business models and leadership skills and driving decent jobs for women. These enterprises have positioned themselves as gender impact businesses for the first time, developed policies for preventing sexual harassment in their workplace and new partnerships, advocacy modalities and funding opportunities using new messaging with gender equality have been firmly integrated as part of their model. Additionally, UN Women supported the setup of 3 new care enterprises catering to 164 families and 45 women to access integrated skilling and early childhood and education childcare services through “Better Skills Better Care”, to enhance women’s economic participation through an integrated vocational skilling for women and Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) intervention targeted at low-income families in India. Through UN Women's support, implementing partners SAFEEEM and Dharma Life have integrated gender into implementation and also supported partners to become more gender responsive. UN Women played a pivotal role in promoting the gender and climate change discussions, particularly at the Beijing+30 regional review where a grant for feminist journalists to cover the intersection of gender and climate change was announced. This initiative will be crucial moving forward to develop critical stories that illuminate the challenges faced by women and other marginalized groups, such as Indigenous Peoples, persons living with disabilities, and persons with diverse SOGIESC, in the Asia-Pacific region due to climate change. Initiatives such as the UN Women AI School 2024, a groundbreaking program were piloted to provide access to and skills in AI to more than 600 UN/UN Women staff and youth and and civil society partners. This initiative demonstrated tangible, transformative impacts by enhancing AI literacy, technical capacity, and the ethical adoption of AI across diverse stakeholder groups. The program demonstrated tangible impacts, including a 100% satisfaction rate and a substantial increase in participants' AI literacy and confidence in applying AI concepts. The school also produced innovative outputs like the CSW Beijing+30 GPT, which simplified complex gender and climate issues for users, further promoting the organization’s commitment to gender advocacy through digital innovation. Additionally, UN Women’s Center of Excellence (COE) supported a national workshop in Manila, Philippines, “Building Bridges: Gender-Responsive Climate Action and Disaster Resilience Training Workshop”, bringing together 44 officials and CSO representatives where strategies to integrate gender into DRR and climate initiatives were discussed and the EmPower Programme’s contributions to fostering gender equality and strategic partnerships were highlighted. This will support in advancing the discussion on gender responsiveness of the DRR and climate actions in the Philippines (TBC/to be edited). Through the UN Women PROTECT project support under EVAW, ASEAN launched the ASEAN Guidelines for Developing National Standard Operating Procedures for a Coordinated Response to Violence Against Women and Girls , enabling survivor-centred, multi-sectoral coordination across health, police, justice, and social service sectors. By establishing clear SOPs and performance standards, it strengthens service providers’ capacity to respond effectively to violence, ensuring women receive timely, coordinated, and survivor-centred support from essential services, reducing barriers to access and promoting their safety and well-being.

Women and girls in all their diversity, benefit equally from opportunities, goods, services and resources, in full enjoyment of their social and economic rights and freedoms

Increased labour force participation for women through driving access for women and families to care services and improving quality of jobs in the care sector As of 31 December 2024: 3,075 women have entered or continue to be in the labour force through efforts to transform care systems for women’s economic empowerment in Asia Pacific. 9,683 (9445+238) individuals across Asia-Pacific are being served by 14 care delivery models were set up or strengthened in 2024 . 1 4 of these models explicitly benefitting low-income communities (3 Dharma Life + 1 Ubuntu) 3,811 community members including 1,522 women were reached through behavioural change initiatives surrounding social norms on care and encouraging men to engage in care work. 26 entrepreneurs were supported to improve their business models and leadership skills while driving decent jobs for women with a 46.4% overall percentage increase in the revenue of 11 care enterprises. 2 Note: Number of women in the workforce includes 97 women from Better Skills Better Care project who are in jobs or actively seeking work +133 women in employment 3 and 2,845 women care workers retained through the Care Accelerator, partly contributed by UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific’s efforts to advance care entrepreneurship in the region. Supporting Care Enterprises to advance decent work for women through the Care Accelerator: In 2024, A cohort of 1 1 Care Entrepreneurs have become more gender inclusive in their policies and practices through the Gender-Inclusive Care Entrepreneurship Ecosystem programme . As a result of UN Women’s support, t hese enterprises have positioned themselves as gender impact businesses for the first time, developed policies for preventing sexual harassment in their workplace and new partnerships, advocacy modalities and funding opportunities using new messaging with gender equality have been firmly integrated as part of their model. Driving Women’s Labour Force Participation and Accessible, Affordable and Quality care services through Better Skills Better Care Increased access to affordable and quality care services for low-income families: UN Women supported the setup of 3 new care enterprises catering to 164 families and 45 women to access integrated skilling and early childhood and education childcare services through “Better Skills Better Care” which aims to enhance women’s economic participation through an integrated vocational skilling for women and Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) intervention targeted at low-income families in India. UN Women contributed to these results through co-creating the model, incorporating a gender lens into their design and developed modules on prevention of sexual harassment, gendered division of care work and care related social norms as well as developed a gender monitoring and evaluation framework, supporting with programme implementation at all stages. In a short period, the integrated centers became trusted community hubs by combining tailored skilling programs, ECCE services, and multi-use spaces, fostering strong community engagement and shifting social norms. While the theory of change of the model has been validated, the sustainability of these centers remains a key concern. Long-term viability requires addressing funding constraints, ensuring adequate staffing, and embedding the centers into local governance frameworks. Moreover, social norms change takes time and there is a need for continued efforts to maintain the initial momentum built. While there have been promising attitudinal shifts on care through the project, sustained efforts are needed to validate whether these shifts are only temporary and continue incorporating a gender lens into community outreach and implementation activities to meaningfully move the needle towards social norms change. Equally crucial is the role of men and future programmes should include a separate component for specifically engaging men in a range of awareness raising activities. Gender mainstreaming for improved WEE delivery In order to mainstream gender into the GICEEP Care Accelerator 2.0, UN Women worked closely with implementing partner SAFEEM and Dharma Life to integrate gender into the programme implementation as well as to support partners to be more gender-responsive. In 2024, final results from the survey were collected in September 2024, indicating that 87.5% respondents from SAFEEM either agree or strongly agree on having excellent knowledge and awareness on how to design and implement acceleration programmes that are gender responsive. SAFEEM committed to a target of improving their score on the WERISE Tool Assessment and committed: (1) to include Gender sensitive messaging on their company website and all marketing materials not just in gender specific programs (2) to communication of gender specific policies company wide and to new joiners and potential trainings; (3) ensure that their marketing team attend the Care Accelerator trainings relevant to marketing that will be conducted by UN Women and Bopinc; (4) to start reporting on weps.org. Similarly, another implementing partner Dharma Life now has a blueprint for how to run a gender-responsive care model which it will take forward and implement together with UN Women through the new programme funding received from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2025. UN Women did this by integrating a gender perspective across the entire project lifecycle with Dharma Life for Better Skills Better Care and ensured that the interventions effectively addressed the distinct needs and challenges of various gender groups. Dharma Life also adopted UN Womens Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse policy as a template for their own operations.

Women and girls in all their diversity, benefit equally from opportunities, goods, services and resources, in full enjoyment of their social and economic rights and freedoms

In 2023, UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) took foundational steps and achieved in creating new spaces to raise awareness on different issue areas such as the care economy, safe and decent labour migration and on implementation of the Women’s Economic Empowerment Principles (WEPs). Engaging diverse stakeholders such as private sector, governments, investors, women’s civil society organizations, trade unions and recruitment agencies through 18 multistakeholder dialogues, UN Women provided an entry point for many non-traditional stakeholders to come together and have a seat at the table for creating more gender responsive policies and practices. For instance, through the 2023 WEPs Forum, UN Women raised awareness of pathways and thematic focus areas for the private sector to address gender equality and women’s empowerment, including through multi-stakeholder initiatives. Many of the participating companies were WEPs signatories and have benefitted from the UN Women engagement with these companies over the years on implementing the WEPs, which has in turn contributed to their progress that was showcased at the Forum. 92 per cent of the survey respondents (N=34) said the Forum inspired them to take further action. Similarly, through the Care Economy Forum, 58.6 per cent of survey respondents who participated in the forum (N= 17) stated that the forum inspired them to take further action. Inclusive Care Economy Forum Held from 22-23 June 2023 in Kuala Lumpur, the Asia Pacific Care Economy Forum organized by UN Women, Asia Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN), a top social investor network in the region, and Kiddocare, an on-demand babysitting platform providing solutions in the care economy, the forum brought together over 200 participants from 15 countries to explore pathways for effective investment in care economy to advance women's economic empowerment, and fostered collaboration and networking among different stakeholders. It sensitized investors to the benefits of gender-lens investing in the care economy and helped raise awareness about this vital sector. As a result of these efforts, participants in the Forum agreed to establish an Asia-Pacific care stakeholder community, to support the Global Alliance for Care movement. By supporting different care enterprises’ participation in this dialogue UN Women provided 12 care enterprises with the opportunity to expand and grow their networks while learning about building an inclusive care economy also created a ripple effect from the regional to country level. The Group of 20 (G20) in India launched a regional and G20 chapter of a Care Entrepreneurship Accelerator and the G20 Delhi Declaration articulated for the first time the importance of investments in care as a means to advance women’s economic participation. This was a result of UN Women’s support the Care Work at the G20 India resulting in the Launch ‘Empower Care Initiative’ aiming to implement a national India. To date awareness raising and resource mobilization has started amongst key embassies, the United Nations partners in India and beyond. Women’s Empowerment Principles Forum With over 2,400 signatories to the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) and over 100 companies reporting on weps.org in Asia Pacific, UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific has since 2020 supported businesses in the region to implement the Women’s Empowerment Principles as well as has documented good practices to inspire other private sector actors to take action for gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. On 7-8 November 2023 in Manila, Philippines, UN Women organized the first ever in-person convening of WEPs Signatories and stakeholders in Asia-Pacific at the Asia-Pacific WEPs Forum. The Forum brought together more than 165 leaders and experts from SMEs, corporates, regulators, policymakers, and other key business ecosystem players from across the region. 89 per cent reported having a policy on prevention of sexual harassment in their organization 80 per cent reported having a non-discrimination policy in place 50 per cent reported having mandatory trainings on gender bias within their organization However, when it comes to more innovative areas, such as companies offering support for childcare through facilities or subsidies, gender-responsive procurement or forging industry wide alliances for impact that go beyond traditional corporate social responsibility measures but also look at building issue-coalitions for transformative action, companies are still at a more nascent stage and require more support and handholding. While a promising proportion of responding companies reported that they report on public platforms (46 per cent), only 34 per cent of participating companies have prioritized setting gender targets and publicly reporting on them in the next three years. At the end of the Forum, participants also made individual commitments to, for example: Advocate for safe and inclusive workplaces Advocate for gender equality in the community Apply what they have learned to their organization Examine their own biases Support more women in leadership roles In the area of migration, UN Women contributed to elevating the quality of service delivery by equipping 18,057 service providers, public servants and community leaders with enhanced skills and knowledge to provide survivor-centred services for survivors of VAW. Over 130,000 members? of community-based networks and women-led services are taking proactive measures to prevent VAW and?trafficking while extending support to survivors (see attachments for examples). Tailored pre-departure information sessions, held by women’s networks and CSOs, have equipped 326,794 women migrants with the necessary knowledge about safe labour migration practices and VAW services available, enabling them to make well-informed decisions and avail themselves of support if needed. In Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam, 14 referral mechanisms and 14 joint task forces were established, with a standardized operating procedure for cross-sector referrals for women migrant workers who have experienced violence.?These results were informed by national dialogues, regional exchanges, specialized expertise and regional technical resources of UN Women, such as the ‘ ASEAN Regional Guidelines on the Development of National Standard Operating Procedures for a Coordinated Response Mechanism to VAW’ ; and ‘ A Guidance Note to Develop a Migration-Sensitive National Action Plan on VAW’ . Collaborating with UNICEF, an online database for women and girls-focused organisations in humanitarian response was made accessible to UN Women country offices and UN agencies and partners, contributing to emergency preparedness.