Implementing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has long been recognised as essential to achieving sustainable peace and prosperity in the ASEAN region. ASEAN member states remain committed to gender equality and the full protection of women’s rights. They also remain steadfast in their aim to maintain regional peace, address shared security concerns and advance development and prosperity for all citizens. Member states consider the development of this Regional Plan of Action on Women, Peace and Security (RPA WPS) as a critical step to making progress on these commitments. The RPA WPS aims to mobilise the whole of ASEAN to advance implementation of the WPS agenda to promote sustainable peace and security for all citizens.

The Project Empowering women for sustainable peace: preventing violence and promoting social cohesion in the ASEAN aims to support ASEAN in advancing the implementation of the WPS agenda, including preventing violence against women and promoting social cohesion in the region. This report is a simplified and infographic version of the annual donor report 2021.

UN Women and UNDP have piloted a training programme on Non-Violent Communication – a method which has found success in international mediation and conflict resolution settings – in Bangladesh, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. The project was generously supported by the Government of Australia and the European Union. This brief provides an overview of the approaches used in the pilot project and presents results from the evaluations of the trainings.

This report identifies both the persistent trends and changing gender dynamics of violent extremism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, based on an expert survey and interview research conducted between July and November 2021. It examined how and to what extent misogyny and hostile beliefs are fuelling violent extremism in the Southeast Asian region during the pandemic, the degree to which misogyny and hostile beliefs in the ASEAN region are fuelling violent extremism, and how these manifest themselves in the offline space.

The Peace Village Initiative, implemented by the Wahid Foundation since 2017 with the support of UN Women and other donors, is an ambitious initiative that aims to address the drivers of extremism among women by mobilizing community members, especially women, to promote social cohesion across Java Island in Indonesia.

Human trafficking is an issue that transcends national borders. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by this crime. Although research shows that increasing the number of women in law enforcement results in law enforcement that is more responsive to women’s needs and more operationally effective, women represent a small share of law enforcement officers in the ASEAN Region ranging from 6% in Indonesia to 20% in Lao PDR. In 2017, UN Women and UNODC set out to jointly mitigate these challenges, leading up to a four-year partnership between the agencies.

This report on the proceedings of the global conference “Gender-inclusive peace processes: Strengthening women’s meaningful participation through constituency building” explores current challenges, best practices, and recommendations on how best to leverage the practice of constituency building to further gender-inclusive peace.

In order to become a Peace Village, members within a community commit to promoting and fostering tolerance and peace within their communities. Starting with making peace within the family, members then agree on guidelines to enhance social cohesion in the community.

Beyond Kabul: Women peacebuilders’ reflections on the peace process and the impact of COVID-19

Bringing together the views of over 800 Afghan women, from eight provinces and various social groups, this study aims to highlight the perspectives of the Afghan women on the peace process, to better inform political elites and decision makers of their concerns; thus, facilitating informed decisions during the intra-Afghan peace negotiations with the Taliban.

Women play diverse roles in the context of armed conflict; as culturally designated caregivers, women must struggle to support their families and keep their households together while the breadwinners fight, or are apprehended or killed. Women and girls are equally affected in a fragile environment where social services and other basic needs become harder/impossible to fulfil. As a primary provider, women are exposed to further abuse.

The 20th anniversary of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is a critical moment for the agenda and its relevance, which has been tested by the extensive impacts of COVID-19. This publication takes stock of the progress as well as the gaps in implementing WPS in the Asia Pacific region over the last 20 years, and builds upon the lessons learned to move the WPS agenda forward in the years to come.

This training package on Gender and Preventing Violent Extremism is designed to increase the understanding of the critical role gender can play in understanding, addressing and preventing violent extremism (PVE). It is intended to support women’s organisations and civil society in their ongoing work on PVE, and related fields of women, peace and security. The training package is designed for use in Indonesia and Bangladesh, as well as South and Southeast Asia.

This brief explores recent research, which examines the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of women and men students of two universities in northern Bangladesh. It found that young women and men in northern Bangladesh identify gender equality and equal opportunities for women and men as the single most critical element for social cohesion in Bangladesh.

The linkages between organized crime, including trafficking in persons, and violent extremism are a global concern. These linkages are starting to receive some attention, but this is limited to specific conflict contexts such as Iraq and Syria. In recognition of the link between violent extremism and trafficking in persons and the gendered nature of both, the UN Security Council adopted its first resolution on trafficking in persons in areas affected by armed conflict in 2016 (UNSCR 2331). But overall, there is little understanding of the relationship between violent extremism and trafficking in persons, or of how gender informs this interaction.

This alert focuses on a pillar of the women, peace and security agenda of particular relevance in Afghanistan today – participation. Specifically, the alert engages stakeholders on how to collectively ensure women’s meaningful participation in an intra-Afghan peace process.

This report presents novel research findings – possibly the first such robust findings to date – on the relationship between support for misogyny, violence against women, and extremist violence in Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines.

This report presents research findings on gender and violent extremism in the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The aim of the research is to examine women’s roles in supporting, countering, and preventing violent extremism and how gender identities and relations may be used to garner support for intolerant social attitudes and groups as well as recruitment to violent extremist groups.

Violent extremism has emerged as one of the leading challenges to the realization of sustainable peace globally. Across South and South-East Asia, violent extremism poses a direct threat to inclusive development by fuelling intolerance, forcibly displacing communities, exacerbating cycles of insecurity and armed conflict, exploiting existing inequalities, and obstructing the enjoyment of human rights and the rule of law. Underpinning this violence are gender stereotypes that are used to radicalize and recruit men and women, as well as girls and boys, to violent extremist groups.

The Peace Village Initiative is a women-led initiative to promote peaceful and resilient communities. The idea of Peace Villages was conceived by UN Women and the Indonesian NGO Wahid Foundation, and implemented under UN Women’s regional programme “Empowered Women, Peaceful Communities”, funded by the government of Japan. There are now ten Peace Villages across Indonesia, and the idea continues to spread.