Outcome BOL_D_2.1

Women, boys, girls and young people, giving special attention to the native indigenous rural population, Afro-descendants and the population facing human mobility, fully exercise their rights as economic agents for the inclusive development of the country

Significant progress has been made to generating the conditions for women and girls to fully exercise their economic rights, through various strategies. UNW´s support on evidence-based policy advocacy and capacity building for financial inclusion of women, private sector engagement the care economy, and climate change have resulted in more inclusive and gender-responsive decision-making. The wide range of public and private actors have improved their awareness on the importance of including gender perspective and interventions that address the barriers that women confront to reach the equal opportunities as men with due consideration of an intersectional analysis with the multiple factors that affect women in all their diversity. As a result, these institutions have increased capacities to proactively design policies, programs, products and services that address specific challenges that women face including rural and indigenous women. In financial inclusion of women, 2024 culminated in the official launch of Alliance of Financial Inclusion of Women in Bolivia, which led to development of gender-responsive agenda where financial entities committed to a series of actions that contribute to a long-term vision of developing financial products and services that cater for specific needs and challenges of Bolivian Women and to enable their greater financial autonomy and empowerment. Also, a capacity building session was organized on gender tools for financial institutions to share knowledge and tools to improve gender perspective where 32 financial institutions and development partners committed to gender equality including o fficials from regulatory institutions. UN Women supported the Co-laboratorio of solutions in partnership with UNDP and Centre d'étude et de coopération internationale (CECI), a Canadian NGO that mapped out gender gaps in various sectors and identified innovative solutions that proved to effectively close the gender gap. UN Women continued with WEPs accelerator 2.0 with BancoSol where they were supported with reporting tools and gender indicators to better monitor and report progress on gender mainstreaming. In addition, the evaluation process engaged 4,000 diverse BancoSol stakeholders of BancoSol. The preliminary evaluation result demonstrated BancoSol´s progress in its contribution to gender equality. The whole of organization approach of BancoSol prompted it to solidify its position as a pioneer of gender equality in the financial sector in Bolivia, leading various gender initiatives and products including the successful issuance of the social gender bond in the amount of 30 million US dollars in the Bolivian market to finance women-owned and/or led micro and small-sized enterprises. On WEPs, UN Women developed and disseminated a national WEPs guideline, "El Camino Hacia la Igualdad y el Empoderamiento de las Mujeres". The Manual received positive feedback from the Global Compact Regional Office, demonstrating that the expertise provided by UN Women contributed to enhancing capacities of WEPs signatories. To promote women-led businesses' productivity, 6 institutions received 83 machines and pieces of equipment including four Women’s Associations, and two Alternative Education Centers (CEA), which will continue offer training and machinery. These institutions will avail machinery and trainings for small and micro businesses led by women.? A total of 4,104 persons increased their capacities to lead their businesses through business management and technical skills training, reaching 3,851 women (94%). Business management skills trainings reached 2,095 women and Technical Skills Training, 1,756 women. Among these women, 130 women-led businesses received machinery in the textile, wood, food-processing, and other sectors that led to improved productivity. One of the persistent underlying structural barriers to women´s economic empowerment is attributable to the unequal distribution of care work as studies indicate that women still carry double the time than men in care and domestic activities at the expense of their right to education, decent work and self-care. UN Women´s support to care economy was carried out through various interventions: UN Women supported the development of normative frameworks on care in close coordination with national and local governments and by engaging civil society organizations. Two policy proposals are in development at the national level and two at the municipal level. At the municipal level, a policy proposal is available for Santa Cruz de la Sierra and El Alto municipalities respectively. 200 public officials of government institutions have been sensitized on the importance of having public policy for the co-responsibility of care and how to implement them through programs and projects UNW supported the Municipality of La Paz with a business management training strategy, specifically designed to scale small businesses owned by women (80% of the target group). UNW´s efforts in strengthening the capacities of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in La Paz were acknowledged by the Secretary of Economic Development of La Paz where UNW received an award in December 2024. Additionally, awareness-raising workshops were held in Montero and Achacachi on October 29 that reached 187 adolescents, family members and teachers. Further, a national care campaign was launched including a series of webinars with a reach of 5,600 views, focusing on raising awareness of the importance of care work and promoting co-responsibility. Additionally, social media messages were developed to deconstruct the gender stereotypes in care labor. They generated over 2,000 interactions (including reactions, views, comments, and shares). Radio spots in Spanish and Aymara, broadcast by Radio Fides and Erbol, ensured significant nationwide reach. In the case of Radio Fides, the impact was amplified by leveraging simultaneous streaming on its Facebook page. A notable example is the program Antes de Medio Día , which regularly attracts an average of 1,000 live viewers daily. Moreover, the inclusive and consultative process of developing the Climate Change Gender Action Plan (ccGAP) enabled greater participation of women —particularly rural, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant women— in decision-making spaces on environmental and climate change (CC) policies. A total of 600 participants (441 women) from Bolivia’s nine departments contributed to developing a gender-responsive climate policy and strengthened their capacities and knowledge on how to incorporate gender considerations into their own climate action. The ccGAP will serve as a policy instrument to guide the mainstreaming of gender-responsive climate action across Bolivian government institutions and their environment and climate change policies and programs. Also, given that UN Women Bolivia became the host of the Regional Hub for Gender, Environment and Climate Change at the end of 2023, the area made a substantial contribution to organizing three onsite strategic meetings at the regional level in 2024. One with 50 Indigenous women — representing more than 20 organizations and networks — , and another with 34 women human rights defenders in environmental matters — representing 28 grassroots organizations from 14 countries — , both of which aimed to develop consensus-based proposals from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) that were presented to national governments, with the goal of influencing negotiations at COP16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and COP29 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The third meeting focused on providing technical support to the intergovernmental meeting between gender and climate change negotiators from nine LAC countries, which aimed to develop a regional strategy to ensure that gender considerations are sustained during and beyond UNFCCC COP29.

Women, boys, girls and young people, giving special attention to the native indigenous rural population, Afro-descendants and the population facing human mobility, fully exercise their rights as economic agents for the inclusive development of the country

Significant progress has been made to generating the conditions for women and girls to fully exercise their economic rights, through various strategies. UNW´s support on evidence-based advocacy for financial inclusion of women, the care economy, the importance of private sector as a main actor to reach equality, and the inclusion of the gender perspective in the climate change analysis have resulted in more decision-making institutions in the financial sector, the private sector, and the public sector to be more aware of the importance of including women´s perspective and the barriers that women confront to reach the same opportunities of men with an intersectional analysis taking into considerations the multiple factors that increase those barriers. As a result, these institutions are now proactively designing policies and programmes that beneficiate women including rural and indigenous women under that analysis. Furthermore, supporting the efforts to demolish one of the main pillars of subordination of women such as the unequal distribution of care work has been vital for its recognition in the public agenda as a main structural barrier that prevents women from accessing the full exercise of their rights as they still carry double the time than men in care and domestic activities at the expense of their right to education, decent work and self-care. The shift in perceptions and capacities of government officials on care issues can be attributed to UNW´s continuous support to activist organizations and platforms across the country and to the government in understanding the opportunity for economic growth and social justice, where the care work is recognized, reduced, and redistributed among families, public sector, private sector, and the market. Additionally, communication strategies to deconstruct the gender stereotypes in care labor were developed through messages and data in social media. Finally, a pivotal strategy on climate change from a gender perspective has been developed through the technical assistance to the APMT to accomplish the international commitments to include more women especially indigenous and rural women in decision-making spaces about climate change actions.