Will gender equality finally see the light of day in Southeast Asia?

This is the hope of the new partnership between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Signing a Framework for Cooperation Agreement on June 8, 2006, ASEAN and UNIFEM double up commitments to work for the active involvement of women in the social, economic, and political spheres in accordance with the 1988 Declaration on the Advancement of Women in the region.
Under this cooperation framework, UNIFEM’s East and Southeast Asia Regional Office will provide ASEAN with technical expertise in the form of consultations, exchanges, and documentations, among others, as well as funding support for some project activities.

In particular, UNIFEM will provide funding support for the two upcoming ASEAN meetings: (1) the ASEAN High Level Meeting on Gender Mainstreaming on November 15-16, 2006 in Jakarta, Indonesia; and (2) the ASEAN Regional Workshop on Gender Sensitive and Coordinated Violence Against Women (VAW) Services in Khon Kaen, Thailand on November 28-30, 2006.

UNIFEM and ASEAN will collaborate on the ASEAN High Level Meeting on Gender Mainstreaming, bringing together the ministries responsible for women affairs, and the ministries of planning and finance, to better operationalise gender mainstreaming in the context of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Furthermore, UNIFEM will support ASEAN in convening a regional workshop on gender-sensitive and coordinated services to address violence against women, focusing on operationalising and managing one-stop crisis centres. The workshop, to be hosted by Thailand in November 2006, will focus on promoting and enhancing multi-sectoral collaboration towards gender-sensitive and coordinated domestic violence service provision in ASEAN.

With the ASEAN—UNIFEM partnership, violence and discrimination against women will soon have no place in the Southeast Asian region.

Source:
“ASEAN and UNIFEM sign a Framework for Cooperation Agreement to Advance Gender Equality in ASEAN”, posted on August 3, 2006, <http://www.aseansec.org/18627.htm>.