Asia-Pacific Declaration on Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: Beijing+25 Review

The Asia-Pacific Declaration on Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: Beijing+25 Review was adopted at a three-day Ministerial Conference, organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in November 2019.

The Declaration recognizes women as key contributors and vital agents in combating poverty and inequalities and calls upon governments to ensure inclusive social protection systems, public services and infrastructure. With its adoption, countries also committed to ensure women’s economic empowerment and the integration of women into the formal economy. Governments agreed to take appropriate measures and extend legal and social protections to ensure that all women and girls have equal opportunities for education, decent work, favourable conditions of work and financial inclusion.

Countries further committed to work together with key stakeholders to transform negative gender norms, and discriminatory social attitudes and to eliminate structurally unequal power relations that persist between women and men. They additionally highlighted the need to strengthen gender-responsive national statistical systems and data collection for an enhanced understanding of gender gaps in the region.

Governments also called upon ESCAP to continue serving as a regional and subregional platform to promote greater dialogue and cooperation among countries. The Declaration mandates ESCAP, in collaboration with other UN agencies, to support relevant national institutions in monitoring and implementing the global Beijing Platform for Action commitments.

The Declaration will serve as the regional input to the 64th session of the Commission on the Status of Women on the global review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in New York in March 2020.