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Gender Counts: South Asia
Gender Counts, a new, first-of-its-kind review, utilizes quantitative data to provide a comprehensive profile of how gender inequality impacts girls and boys, in the low and middle-income countries in Asia-Pacific. This report focuses on South Asia. The reports describe the effects of gender inequality in the domains of health, education and transition to employment, protection and safe environment. The review identifies data gaps for children and adolescents; provides recommendations for priority gender indicators; and calls for investments in data collection, research and action, to better understand and address the key drivers of gender inequality in the region.
Gender Counts: East and Southeast Asia
This review utilizes national-level quantitative data to provide a comprehensive profile of how gender inequality impacts girls and boys, in low and middle-income countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia. This report describes the effects of gender inequality in the domains of health, education and transition to employment, protection and safe environment. The review identifies key data and knowledge gaps relating to gender inequality for children and adolescents provides recommendations for priority gender indicators, and calls for investments in data collection, additional research and action to address the key drivers of gender inequality in the region.
Gender Counts: Pacific
This review utilizes national-level quantitative data to provide a comprehensive profile of how gender inequality impacts girls and boys, in low and middle income countries in the Pacific. This report describes the effects of gender inequality in the domains of health, education and transition to employment, protection and safe environment. The review identifies key data and knowledge gaps relating to gender inequality for children and adolescents, provides recommendations for priority gender indicators, and calls for investments in data collection, additional research and action to address the key drivers of gender inequality in the region.
Ending Child Marriage in South Asia
Child marriage and its drivers are complex and vary within and across countries. Child marriage may be arranged or adolescents themselves may decide to marry before their 18th birthday. It may be a way to unite families, perceived as necessary to secure a girl’s future and safety, a way to protect a girl’s innocence and reputation, and exemplify a boy’s manliness and readiness for adult responsibilities. Whether by choice or coercion, marrying as a child can result in health concerns, remove children from their protective environment, deter them from getting an education, and force them into adult roles such as looking after a household, raising a family, and entering into the labour force.
This report reviews recent evidence on child marriage in South Asia, including the influence of gender norms, economics and societal expectations on child marriage, as well as the relationship between child marriage and health, education, violence and policies and laws. The synthesis of the latest evidence and implications for programming is crucial in ensuring effective programme interventions.
Brochure: Sustainable Development, Rights and Changing Demography
This flagship report for ICPD25 examines the interplay between sustainable development, rights and changing demography and how this impacts the ability of governments, civil society and other stakeholders to achieve the vision set forth in Cairo and reaffirmed at the Midterm Review of the Asia Pacific Ministerial Declaration on Population and Development.
Sustainable Development, Rights and Changing Demography
This flagship report for ICPD25 examines the interplay between sustainable development, rights and changing demography and how this impacts the ability of governments, civil society and other stakeholders to achieve the vision set forth in Cairo and reaffirmed at the Midterm Review of the Asia Pacific Ministerial Declaration on Population and Development.
Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery
Asia-Pacific is the most disaster-prone region in the world and home to a number of long-running conflicts. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) places women and girls at the centre of humanitarian response. This publication shares examples of how we support actions to better mitigate the risks of disasters and support humanitarian response work that is underpinned by UNFPA’s unique mandate encompassing sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, population data and youth empowerment.
Pre-positioning life-saving supplies to improve disaster preparedness
Prepositioning has been a game-changer for UNFPA's humanitarian work across the Asia-Pacific region, improving the speed, quality and efficiency of emergency responses. This publication provides an overview of the Regional Prepositioning Initiative, UNFPA's flagship humanitarian preparedness initiative supported by Australia.
Pakistan Family Planning Cost Benefit Analysis
The promotion of voluntary family planning services can have powerful impacts on the development of a country, kick-starting the shifts and changes needed to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend and improving considerably the health of women and their children. In this policy brief, we provide estimates to guide the Government of Pakistan on the investments in family planning needed to achieve higher rates of contraceptive prevalence, and we estimate the health and economic returns that such investments would yield for the period 2019-2025 in terms of averted healthcare costs and net savings for the national authorities in the country.
Low fertility: A review of the determinants
Classic demographic transition theory assumed that fertility would decline from high levels and stabilize at the replacement level of around 2.1 children per woman. Yet nearly half of the global population now lives in a country with a period total fertility rate (TFR) below 2.1 children per woman (United Nations, 2019)1. Meanwhile, in many countries in Eastern Asia, Southern Europe, and parts of Central, Eastern and South-eastern Europe, fertility is even lower, with period TFR at 1.0-1.4 and completed family size at 1.4-1.6 births per woman born in the mid-1970s. Traditional development and geographic boundaries have been blurred with all major world regions, except sub-Saharan Africa, now firmly set on a decline towards low fertility. By 2050, more than two-thirds of the global population is projected to live in a country with fertility below a period TFR of 2.1 children per woman2 (United Nations, 2019).