Outcome APA_D_1.1

Women and girls in all their diversity, effectively contribute to, and benefit equally from the full operationalization of global normative frameworks, policies, laws and financial instruments and inclusive governance systems and institutions, at all levels (across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus).

In 2023, the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) attained significant progress in ensuring women and girls' effective contribution to and equal benefit from global normative frameworks, policies, laws, financial instruments and inclusive governance systems and institutions. The office achieved specific and measurable results across various thematic areas through targeted initiatives, leading to transformative impact and tangible changes. Key achievements include: ROAP made significant contribution in advancing normative work related to gender equality and women’s empowerment by strengthening collective and coordinated action of key actors by engaging 36 member states, Civil Society Organizations (CSO) and United Nations regional colleagues at the CSW 67 regional consultation on the “Priority Theme Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls”. The regional consultation provided an interactive space for governments, CSOs, and other relevant Asian and Pacific stakeholders to collaborate and accelerate progress on key frameworks, such as the Beijing Declaration, Platform for Action, and SDGs. As a result of regional consultation on CSW67, the region has developed a set of recommendations on areas for accelerated action in line with the priority theme. These recommendations were shared as regional priorities to UN Women Headquarters to be shared with the CSW secretariat to adopt in the CSW agreed conclusion. Prior to this, ROAP’s strategic engagement of 90 CSO representatives in a similar regional discussion led to a statement on the regional priorities in line with the CSW67 priority theme, which contributed to shaping regional priorities for CSW67 and influenced the draft agreed conclusion. Multistakeholder dialogues created new space for awareness raising, resulting in stronger commitments to ensure that women and girls will benefit from implementation of normative frameworks. Organizing 18 dialogues, including the WEPs Forum and Care Economy Forum, ROAP engaged diverse traditional and non-traditional stakeholders such as the private sector, governments, and civil society, to create spaces for awareness raising and commitment for gender-responsive policies. The Care Economy Forum, in collaboration with AVPN and Kiddocare, attracted over 200 participants from 15 countries, sparking effective investments and establishing an Asia-Pacific care stakeholder community. UN Women's support enabled 12 care enterprises to expand networks, triggering a ripple effect to the national level, evidenced by the Group of 20 (G20) in India launching a Care Entrepreneurship Accelerator and the 'Empower Care Initiative.' Additionally, ROAP's initiatives since 2020 garnered 2,400 WEPs signatories and 100 companies reporting on weps.org in the Asia-Pacific. This culminated in the Asia-Pacific WEPs Forum in 2023 bringing together 165 leaders to make commitments for safe workplaces, gender equality, learning application, bias examination, and supporting women in leadership roles, showcasing UN Women's influential role and niche in advancing gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in the region. ROAP influenced migration regional mechanisms, increasing awareness of gender considerations in labour migration policies. In advancing safe labour migration for women migrant workers, migration regional mechanisms, particularly the Colombo Process and its Thematic Area Working Groups (TAWG), demonstrated increased awareness in reviewing labour migration-related policies and procedures from a gender lens through UN Women’s influence and technical expertise. As a result, gender is integrated as a regular agenda of the TAWG meetings, and the Member States presented progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment in their national updates in the meetings. In addition, Colombo Process Member States have also shown changing attitudes towards the engagement of non-state actors, particularly civil society organisations (CSOs) and trade unions in TAWG meetings as a result of collective advocacy and facilitation of the participation of CSOs and trade unions in the meetings by UN Women in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) under a joint UN programme in line with the Global Compact for Migration’s Whole of Society approach. With UN Women’s technical assistance and brokering, civil society organisations, especially women’s rights organisations, were able to actively take part in the targeted intergovernmental discussions. ROAP played a pivotal role in shaping climate related policies to address key regional challenges affecting women and girls. Key achievements include influencing the 'Review of Climate Ambition in Asia and the Pacific' report, stressing the importance of gender mainstreaming in Nationally Determined Contributions for inclusive climate action. ROAP also made gender integrated in the SDG13 Brief, enhancing the effectiveness of climate policies. Active participation in global and regional forums, such as the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development and the UN Responsible Business and Human Rights Forum, showcased ROAP's engagement in addressing regional challenges. During the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, ROAP supported Gender Day events, which helped sensitize delegations and participants on gender-responsive climate action strategies. "Safe and Fair", a Joint Programme with ILO and UNODC, has played critical role in bridging the gap between voices of rights holders, namely women migrant workers, and duty bearers, namely, policy-makers, governments and law enforcers. As a result, cumulatively and regionally the adoption of 62 laws advancing gender equality and ending VAW happened in 8 countries, 7 national and 1 regional action plans concerning VAW and trafficking were adopted, as well as the 14th standard operating procedures.

Women and girls in all their diversity, effectively contribute to, and benefit equally from the full operationalization of global normative frameworks, policies, laws and financial instruments and inclusive governance systems and institutions, at all levels (across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus).

In 2024, the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) made significant progress in empowering women and girls from diverse communities by ensuring their active participation in decision making process and benefit from operationalization of policies, laws, financial institutions, and inclusive governance. The office achieved specific and measurable results across various thematic areas through targeted initiatives, leading to transformative impact and tangible changes. Adoption of the ASEAN Care Declaration and normative national level shifts on care. The ASEAN Care Declaration newly adopted in 2024 is set to benefit women and girls across 12 ASEAN member and observer states to support women’s participation in the labour force as well as promote decent work in the care sector and beyond. In August 2024, the ASEAN Care Declaration on “Strengthening the Care Economy and Resilience Towards the Post-2025 ASEAN Community” was adopted. The Declaration, endorsed at the 3rd ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit, is a crucial step towards transforming care systems for women’s economic empowerment and will guide national laws and policies of ASEAN Member States. Along with ESCAP and Oxfam, UN Women provided technical support in drafting and validation of the Declaration, especially to bring in a gender lens and the crucial interlinkages between care policies and women’s economic empowerment (WEE). UN Women supported drafting sections on WEE, care migration and digitally enabled care enterprises in ASEAN, and emphasized the need for their regulations. Although these are interim results with impacts yet to be fully observed for women and girls, these efforts represent the culmination of UN Women's long-standing engagement in ASEAN across ending violence against women (EVAW), women, peace and security (WPS) , and WEE. On advancing migration governance, in 2024 a major achievement seen that is the initiative to establish of a new thematic area working group (TAWG) on gender equality in the Colombo Process, proposed by the Government of the Philippines to other Member States in November 2024. This initiative marks a major step towards realizing the agenda to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment which could lead Colombo Process Member States (CPMS) to develop dedicated workplan to enhance labour migration policies and practices. Significant progress has been made on WPS in the Asia Pacific region, marked by the adoption of three new National Action Plans (NAPs) on WPS: the First NAP of Viet Nam, the Second NAP of Timor-Leste, and the Fourth NAP of the Republic of Korea. Supported by UN Women, these NAPs were informed by global and regional developments on WPS and address the gender dimensions of non-traditional security risks, including climate change, digital security, and cross-border peace and security challenges that demand innovative responses. Government actors, and women CSOs were equipped with increased knowledge, while women from diverse communities, including young women and women with disabilities, were empowered to actively participate in consultations, contributing their knowledge and experiences. These accomplishments have driven transformative change by advancing an integrated approach to climate, peace and security, fostering sustainable peace and resilience across the region During the reporting year, through UN Women’s normative support, statistics and environmental intergovernmental processes incorporated discussions and decisions on the importance of gender statistics. For example, the outcome document of the 55 th session of the UN Statistical Commission encouraged countries to “apply indicator sets, such as the Asia-Pacific set of gender and environment indicators”; “encouraged the further integration of gender with environment and climate change statistics”; and “encouraged national statistical systems to invest in the development of climate change statistics by enhancing the use of specialized surveys”. All of these initiatives build on UN Women’s technical and methodological work on gender and environment statistics, including the development of a set of guidelines and resources on utilizing surveys for measuring the gender-environment nexus, and a list of Gender-Environment Indicators for countries wishing to measure environmental issues from a gender perspective, including for e.g. SDG indicators, and Sendai Framework indicators. Furthermore, in Cali, the biodiversity data conference (20 October) co-organized with Women4Biodiversity, IUCN, UNDP, and supported with funding from SwedBio through Stockholm Resilience Center/Stockholm University on the sidelines the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN Conference on Biological Diversity(UNCBD)(21 October-1 November, Cali), brought together governments, civil society and international organizations and advocated for mainstreaming gender in biodiversity data. UN Women’s publication on Gender and Biodiversity was used actively by Parties during UNCBD-COP16 negotiations to advance gender outcomes. This has contributed to the consideration of the inclusion of at least one gender indicator in the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (final decision expected in February 2025). At the COP 16 to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Riyadh, UN Women further leveraged the data brief at the Women Caucus Session organized by the Secretariat and coordinated with Parties who used it to inform their positions during negotiations. Thus, the outcome document ’s references to gender statistics were strengthened with explicit references to the use of gender-specific indicators for monitoring national progress towards the implementation of the convention. ROAP contributed to the integration of the Sendai Gender Action Plan (GAP) into national disaster risk reduction frameworks, emphasizing gender-responsive approaches in disaster preparedness and recovery. Advocacy at global platforms such as COP29 and Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (APMCDRR) 2024 (14-18 October, Manila), highlighting women’s leadership in climate action and disaster resilience.

Women and girls in all their diversity, effectively contribute to, and benefit equally from the full operationalization of global normative frameworks, policies, laws and financial instruments and inclusive governance systems and institutions, at all levels (across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus).

WEE Migration: Significant Progress. Adoption of the ASEAN Care Declaration and normative national level shifts on care In 2024, the ASEAN Care Declaration on “Strengthening the Care Economy and Resilience Towards the Post-2025 ASEAN Community” was adopted. The Declaration, endorsed at the 3rd ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit, is a crucial step towards transforming care systems for women’s economic empowerment and will guide national laws and policies of ASEAN Member States. Along with other development partners ESCAP and Oxfam, UN Women provided technical assistance to support the drafting and validation of the Declaration, especially to bring in a gender lens and the crucial interlinkages between care policies and women’s economic empowerment. These efforts are a culmination of long-standing engagement of UN Women in ASEAN over the years across EWAV, WPS and WEE. In the area of women’s economic empowerment this builds on UN Women-supported initiatives like the ASEAN 2022 Declaration on Women’s Entrepreneurship and advancing gender and business reporting. Shift in norms on care at national level through multi-stakeholder platforms and dialogues. Beyond the ASEAN Care Declaration, 40 stakeholders from Asia-Pacific joined the Global Alliance for Care, a global network of committed stakeholders on care co-convened with the Government of Mexico, including governments, civil society, private sector, unions, philanthropy, international organizations, and academia. UN Women's Regional Office for Asia-Pacific adopts both top-down and bottom-up strategies to drive normative shifts. High-visibility events like the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development, the 2024 Asia-Pacific Care Forum, ASEAN Labour Migration Forum and the Care Special Event at Beijing+30 have helped maintain key government relationships and foster cross-learning on gender-responsive policies. Collaboration with agencies like ESCAP, Oxfam, Global Alliance for Care, ADB, IFC, ILO, AYAT Care and the World Bank has created synergies in efforts. This has translated into support for field offices to drive forward policy shifts. For instance, efforts to share knowledge on the care economy in Asia-Pacific through the 2024 Asia-Pacific Care Forum have motivated key ministries such as Secretary of State for Equality and SEFOPE in Timor-Leste to join the Global Alliance for Care, an important signal on their intent to incorporate a care lens into their national efforts to drive women’s economic empowerment. Engagement with the Government of Nepal through these fora has supported UN Women in validating and encouraging Nepal to consider membership in the Global Alliance for Care and explore creating ‘caring cities’ using geo-spatial data. Participation in the 2024 Asia-Pacific Care Forum has also further influenced Viet Nam to explore data-driven care policy approaches and the Ministry of Human Security and Development of Government of Thailand to explore this issue, having invited UN Women to deliver a capacity building session on the care economy thereafter. Additionally, the engagement of the Government of Fiji through the Feminist Finance Forum and the Asia-Pacific Care Forum has led Fiji's Ministry of Social Protection to commit to incorporating care into their National Action Plan on Women’s Economic Empowerment, signaling increased recognition of the importance of care in national policymaking. In Malaysia , engagement through the Care Forum, Beijing+30 and the new programme Gender Action Lab have generated interest in private sector collaboration on care evidenced through an upcoming MOU with Business Advisory Council (BAC) Malaysia and UN Women. Geo-spatial Mapping Care Systems (UN Women Forthcoming). UN Women is supporting the Government of Bangladesh in conducting a geo-spatial mapping of care demand and supply in Dhaka using big data to inform the government’s expansion of childcare services. This is complemented by costing exercises for different care models to develop an implementation strategy for care delivery models. Research on Care Delivery Models for Low Income communities. In Bangladesh, Bopinc and UN Women conducted research supported by IDRC to understand the childcare landscape as well as the needs and preferences of low-income families in Bangladesh for providing accessible, affordable and quality childcare with decent work opportunities for care workers in urban and semi-urban areas. This is forthcoming in 2025. In summary, UN Women has been driving awareness and breaking silos for dialogue on the care economy and facilitating learning in the region. For example, through the Asia-Pacific Care forum, 89.3% participants have gained awareness and knowledge on how to advance gender-transformative care systems. The post-event survey indicated that participants across Asia-Pacific aim to take forward the following actions: Despite these important developments as a result of UN Women’s efforts, it is crucial to translate the ASEAN Care Declaration into tangible actions at all levels in ASEAN Member States. The upcoming ASEAN Draft Guidance Note, with technical assistance from UN Women and partners, aims to facilitate this. Beyond ASEAN, the next step is to strengthen relationships with priority countries to drive national-level action with all members of the care ecosystem, including investors, governments, civil society, private sector, and women’s organizations continuing to leverage APFSD, the Asia-Pacific Care Forum and Global Alliance for Care in 2025. Migration Governance On advancing migration governance, in 2024 major results seen include an initiative to establish a new thematic area working group (TAWG) on gender equality proposed by the Government of the Philippines in November 2024. This has demonstrated significant increased commitment of this regional consultative process to advance gender equality agenda in labour migration. This positive initiative is a result of UN Women’s continued technical inputs and guidance to the Colombo Process Member States (mainly Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam) on improving migration policies and practices through gender lens. In addition, through UN Women’s active participation in regional fora, the role of women’s rights organizations as key actor in improving migration governance and the importance to enhance their engagement and active participation in policy dialogues was highlighted. Also, UN Women particularly supported participation of CSOs and WROs in regional fora such the 17th ASEAN Forum on Migrant Workers (AFML) in Vientiane, Lao PDR; the Regional Review of the implementation of Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) done in collaboration with the Regional UN Network for Migration for Asia and the Pacific ; consultation on the development of a joint General Comment/Recommendation ‘Obligations of State Parties on public policies for addressing and eradicating xenophobia and its impact on the rights of migrants, their families, and other non-citizens affected by racial discrimination’ of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CMW). These helped ensure gendered issues in different stages of migration are highlighted and gender-focused recommendations are proposed and discussed among Member States and other stakeholders leading to improving migration governance to be more gender-responsive.