Asia & Pacific

The Asia Pacific region contains the majority of the world’s poor, most of whom are women. Economic, trade, and financial policies globally and in the region have further exposed Asia Pacific women to exploitative labor, labor migration, landlessness and trafficking. Some key issues in the region are poverty, decent work and living wage, land rights, climate change, migrant rights, peace and security, as well as voice and political participation.

Since 2014, Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) was elected as the Women Constituency focal point and the Co-Chair of Asia Pacific Regional CSO Engagement Mechanism (RCEM), a civil society platform of more than 450 organizations aimed to enable stronger cross constituency coordination and ensure that voices of all sub-regions of Asia Pacific are heard in intergovernmental processes in regional and global level.

The platform is initiated, owned and driven by the civil society organizations (CSO), and has been set up under the auspices of UN-ESCAP and seeks to engage with UN agencies and Member States on the Post-2015 as well as other development related issues/processes to advance its’ political unity of Development Justice.

This is the principal CSO platform that engages with the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) as the regional meeting for the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) organised by UN-ESCAP. Currently, there are more than 200 members listed in the Asia Pacific Women Major Group list-serve.

The WMG OP focal point for Asia and the Pacific is Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD). To join the regional listserv please contact leanne@apwld.org and rina@apwld.org