Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions 1. Introduction The Asia Pacific Forum for National Human Rights Institutions (APF) is a network of national human rights institutions (NHRIs) in the Asia and Pacific region. The APF provides its 24 members with advisory, networking and capacity-building services as well as supporting them in their efforts to comply with international standards and to promote and protect human rights. NHRIs are official, independent legal institutions established by the State and exercising the powers of the State to promote and protect human rights. They have broad mandates for the promotion and protection of human rights. They are subject to international minimum standards for NHRIs, the Principles relating to the Status of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (the Paris Principles). In recent years, NHRIs have undertaken express commitments at the international level and regional level to integrate gender equality and women’s and girls’ human rights across all aspects of their work. This commitment is reflected in the APF’s 2015–2020 Strategic Plan as one of the APF’s five objectives; gender equality: The APF promotes gender equality and mainstreams gender across all its work. The APF defines gender mainstreaming as a process of assessing and operationalising the implications for women and men of any planned action, activity, advice, policies, programmes, budgeting in its operations. Its goal is to achieve formal and substantive equality between women and men. The APF recognises that gender is non-binary and does not restrict its policies or activities to a female/ male binary. It seeks to incorporate this inclusive understanding of gender into its gender mainstreaming policies and processes. To realise this commitment to gender equality and mainstreaming, the APF has a gender policy, a gender focal point within its secretariat and is currently developing a gender strategy. Additionally, the APF has developed a manual for NHRIs on ‘Promoting and protecting the Human Rights of Women and Girls’ and a complementary blended learning training course on the human rights of women and girls for NHRIs. Although there is a specialised APF training program on the human rights of women and girls other APF training programs do not necessarily adequately address gender considerations. Recognising this gap, the APF will progressively integrate gender mainstreaming across all its existing thematic, functional and operational training programs and will aim to address gender considerations in all future training products. Where possible, trainers engaged for existing APF training programs that do not adequately address gender issues, should refer to these guidelines to ensure gender sensitivity. Trainers should also seek support of the APF secretariat if they feel they require additional assistance. It is important to note here that these guidelines will be regularly reviewed1 and amended to keep improving them as an evolving resource guide. They represent the initial stage in a process to provide a practical framework of guidance on how to incorporate a gender perspective in the development, implementation and evaluation of training courses. The guidance and its checklist is aimed at APF trainers, including trainers within NHRIs. 4