Asia & the Pacific
The challenges
Only a quarter of countries in the region have a law on gender statistics or explicitly cover gender data in a general statistics law. The region with the lowest availability of SDG-related gender data is the Pacific, which lacks data for more than half of the gender indicators. Most countries aren’t collecting sex-disaggregated data, while those that do, may not collect it according to internationally agreed standards. And in many countries, data is not collected in a timely or comprehensive way, allowing limited scope for analysis.
The Women Count response includes
- Working with intergovernmental bodies to improve coordination on gender statistics, including to create an Intergovernmental Group on Statistics on Gender and the Environment;
- Providing on-demand technical support to countries in the region to localize the SDGs from a gender perspective and select a set of priority gender indicators; and
- Engaging with national governments and development partners to establish a roadmap for the production and use of gender data in the Pacific subregion.
The challenges
Although most Asia-Pacific countries run a census every 10 years and produce survey data more frequently, sex disaggregation of these figures is not consistent or multi-layered. Specialized surveys in important areas, such as time use, are not carried out regularly in most countries in the region, either due to limited financial resources, lack of technical skills or both. Similarly, civil registration and vital statistics remain limited due to missing gender-relevant information in most national registries.
The Women Count response includes
- Assisting countries to develop new surveys in key priority areas such as time use;
- Supporting data reprocessing and analysis, including multi-level disaggregation to monitor the 2030 Agenda principle of leaving no one behind; and
- Developing new methodologies, gender statistics curricula and training modules, in partnership with the region’s many quality training institutions, including the UN Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific.
The challenges
National statistical systems are often limited in their capacity to disseminate and communicate data. This limits the ability of media, governments, women’s organizations and other stakeholders to use gender statistics to inform decisions, research, advocacy, policies and programmes. In many countries, there is a total disconnect between data users and producers, with most potential users completely unaware of the gender data available and most producers refusing to cater to the needs of clients beyond ministries and government bodies.
The Women Count response includes
- Enhancing dialogue between producers and users of data, including government, academic institutions, the media and civil society;
- Training data producers to share data seamlessly and to build their communication skills; and
- Working with other development partners in Asia-Pacific towards a better dissemination and use of SDG data, to leverage synergies – including on policy and data integration and on metadata exchange.
- UN Women gained official membership to all thematic workstreams of ESCAP’s Committee on Statistics and jointly developed new methodologies by using data integration techniques and geospatial analysis to assess disaster risk from a gender perspective.
- A sub-group on gender statistics training was established under UN SIAP’s Network for Statistical Training in Asia and the Pacific, providing a space for South-South cooperation on training to produce gender data in areas relevant to the region.
- The gender data production and dissemination skills of more than 250 national statisticians and data users have been enhanced through a series of trainings, with many participants since producing and disseminating gender data in their own countries.
- A regional workshop on “Communicating Gender Data Efficiently” was jointly organized and facilitated by UN Women and ESCAP, on building gender data stories and social media, visualizing data and preparing data-driven publications.
- The “Using Gender Data Series” began across the region – events aimed at training university students in various disciplines to find the right data, interpret and use them in innovative ways. To date, such trainings have taken place in partnership with Hong Kong Baptist University and Mongolia's National University.
- UN Women co-organized, with ESCAP's Statistics Division, an inter-governmental meeting on Gender and Disaster Statistics, following a wider meeting of the Expert Group on Disaster Statistics. The event, which gathered 30 government representatives (national statisticians and disaster management agencies) and 53 participants (including experts, UN agencies and civil society), kick-started discussions on how to measure progress on women’s participation in disaster prevention and management, and how to assess women’s vulnerability and coping capacity. This group’s work continued online after the event and is expected to fine-tune a list of priority gender and disaster indicators for measurement across the region.
