Through this programme, UN Women contributed to the implementation of the Secretary General’s Plan of Action on Preventing Violent Extremism and to the achievement of the Agenda 2030 goals, particularly SDG 16 on promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, and Goal 5 on promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.

In this edition, we share updates on our partnership with the Government of Indonesia, local and village administrations, and civil society organizations (CSOs) to protect and empower women migrant workers for safe and fair migration. We worked closely with ASEAN and development partners to promote women, peace, and security in Southeast Asia

The semi-annual UN Women Bangladesh Newsletter: Volume 2, 2022 reflects on the key highlights and major updates of UN Women Bangladesh’s interventions to advance gender equality and women empowerment in the country.

In this edition: [*] UN Women celebrates volunteers [*] Public rally unites Gender Based Violence actors [*] Men and boys play a key role to end gender-based violence [*] Strengthening gender-responsive policing for Rohingya women and girls and more ...

UN Women in Sri Lanka supports the development of national policies and standards, as well as Sri Lanka’s commitments to monitor and report against these international standards, towards sustained global progress.

The last year has posed many hardships from the continued spread of COVID-19 and measures to stop it. Yet solidarity and support for realizing women’s rights never wavered in China. UN Women forged ahead through collective efforts and partnerships. We are proud to share some of our best results from 2022, knowing these are the foundation for much more to come in 2023.

This study is part of WeEmpowerAsia, a joint program of the European Union and UN Women, which aims to increase the number of women who lead and participate in private-sector businesses in seven countries across Asia, including Indonesia.

This Gender Alert concludes that the 24 December 2022 ban: (1) is discriminatory and dictates who humanitarian actors can(not) employ, and who they can reach with assistance; (2) has multilayered implications that go beyond the inability of reaching women and girls with life-saving assistance, including dealing a further blow to the Afghan economy amid the ongoing crisis; and (3) speeds up the erasure of Afghan women and girls from all aspects of Afghan public and private life.

Based on the principles of respect and equality, and lessons learned from evidence-based results on what works in preventing violence from occurring and recurring, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Women, in collaboration with ten other UN, bilateral, and multilateral agencies, have developed “RESPECT Women: Preventing violence against women”. This publication provides a comprehensive framework to inform policy makers and implementers about designing, planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating interventions and programmes on preventing and responding to violence against women.

Findings and recommendations from the RNA are intended to serve as a source of information for actors supporting women’s livelihoods in Afghanistan, including UN agencies and other international organizations.

In this edition: [*] Gulbahar Promotes women’s rights at age of 70 [*] Lucky on Feminist Leadership [*] Women-led team constructing shelters

This Action Brief is based on a set of Standard Operating Procedures provided to local government in 2020 as part of the COVID-19 crisis response.

The project works across the Mekong subregion, namely in Thailand and Viet Nam, where the concept of SD-GRP is still in the nascent stages of development. Despite regional and national initiatives prioritising the financial inclusion of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), there is currently a limited amount of gender-sensitive data available to promote SD-GRP practices and policies in the project’s geographical focus areas.  

Over the last three years, the WeEmpowerAsia programme (WEA) has worked to increase the number of women who lead and participate in business in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam, during which period there has been much progress on gender equality in business in Asia.

Gender-responsive procurement (GRP) is the selection of services, goods and civil works that considers their impact on gender equality and women’s empowerment. GRP is an important vehicle for enriching supply chains by broadening the range of suppliers of goods and services available to businesses and governments and for advancing women’s economic empowerment.

Entrepreneurship is a catalyst for women’s economic empowerment. In China, as in the rest of the world, despite a recent surge in women’s entrepreneurship, women-owned businesses tend to be small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are more vulnerable in emergencies than larger companies are, and many women-owned SMEs are situated in the service sector, which was hit the hardest by the pandemic.

Despite recent progress in advancing economic justice, the world economy still suffers from a gender gap, and China is no exception. The private sector is an important catalyst for sustainable and gender-inclusive development and economic growth.

This Think Piece: Innovations in Childcare to Advance Women’s Economic Empowerment explores the question “Can inclusive Care Entrepreneurship be a pathway to address gaps in the childcare sector in Asia and the Pacific?”. It offers promising entrepreneurship models emerging in Asia and the Pacific that could be replicated and scaled to fill childcare gaps to contribute to efforts to rebuild economies and to recognize the care economy as a vehicle to create more jobs and increase women’s economic participation.

In this edition: [*] UN special envoy on Myanmar visits Rohingya camps [*] On 23 August 2022, Noeleen Heyzer, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Myanmar, met with Rohingya women leaders during her mission to Cox’s Bazar. Women leaders shared their appreciation for ongoing support from the government and people of Bangladesh. [*] Workshop on Gender-Sensitive Journalism in Cox's Bazar , and more ...

The semi-annual UN Women Bangladesh Newsletter: Volume 1, 2022 reflects on the key highlights and major updates of UN Women Bangladesh’s interventions to advance gender equality and women empowerment in the country.