Across Asia and the Pacific, accelerated action is needed to meet the ambitions of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, including SDG 5 on gender equality and all other SDGs.

Despite significant strides in women's education and health, and some progress made in women’s political representation in the past three decades, progress towards gender equality and the empowerment of women appears to be stagnating, and even regressing in some areas such as labour force participation.

Women and girls in the region continue to face discriminatory social norms and gender stereotypes, high levels of gender-based violence, disproportionate unpaid care and domestic work burden, among other challenges. The level of political will to address these issues remains inadequate. Moreover, women and girls have been disproportionately affected by multiple and inter-related crises that are expected to continue or worsen in the absence of accelerated action. 

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) will convene the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on the Beijing+30 Review in collaboration with the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, in Bangkok, from 19-21 November 2024 to:

• To assess progress to the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) in Asia and the Pacific over the past five years;
• Review current and emerging challenges, good practices, lessons learned, and priority actions required to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and its contribution towards the full realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; 
• Provide a platform for member States and stakeholders to explore policy options and strategies, including innovative approaches, toward realizing gender equality and the empowerment of women;
• Build regional consensus on priority actions to accelerate the implementation of commitments made in the BPfA;
• Consolidate regional inputs to the sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women which will focus on the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the 23rd special session of the General Assembly

The conference will bring together Ministers, senior officials and representatives from relevant Ministries, civil society organizations, youth organizations, academia, the private sector, UN entities, independent experts and other key stakeholders from across the Asia-Pacific region.

For more information about the Beijing+30 Asia-Pacific review, please visit here.