Asia-Pacific Regional Commemoration of International Women’s Day 2022 (IWD 2022): “Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow”

The theme ‘Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow’ will discuss the gendered nature of climate change as well as women and girls’ involvement in climate change adaptation, mitigation and response. This also aligns with the priority theme of the 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, ‘Achieving Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls in the Context of Climate Change, Environmental and Disaster Risk Reduction Policies and Programmes’. 

The objective of the Regional Commemoration is to provide a multistakeholder platform for the exchange of knowledge, good practices, and lessons learned with respect to the progressive implementation of Beijing+25 commitments on ‘Women and the Environment’ in Asia and the Pacific, including within the context of worsening climate change impacts and the COVID-19 pandemic. This encompasses the sharing of progressive policies, promising practices and forward-looking initiatives on incorporating women and girls into all levels of environmental decision-making within Asia and the Pacific, and focuses on how to help them mitigate, adapt and respond to disasters. Specifically, this Regional Commemoration is to facilitate ideas among state and non-state actors in order to: 

• Enhance the knowledge of participatory gender-responsive approaches to the design, implementation and monitoring of gender equality within the context of climate action, and broaden the assimilation of a gender-climate lens.  

• Share lessons learned and discuss prevalent challenges faced by women and girls in the context of climate change adaptation, mitigation and response, and discuss national priorities for advancing gender equality, with a particular emphasis on disaster risk reduction.  

• Promote the sharing of experiences and good practices related to collecting gender-disaggregated data within the context of climate change, and valuing of women and girls’ inputs in the Asia-Pacific, with a view of providing recommendations for concrete future policy initiatives related to the above regard.