Promoting gender equality in the Asia Pacific region Discrimination and human rights violations against women, girls, and people of diverse gender identities remain widespread in the Asia Pacific. NHRIs have made clear commitments at the regional and international levels to promote gender equality and safeguard the rights of women and girls. To support these efforts, we deliver specialised programs and initiatives, while helping our members to integrate gender considerations into their internal operations. By strengthening the international and regional engagement of NHRIs, we ensured that gender equality and mainstreaming were central to both representation and thematic content in addressing issues such as women human rights defenders, climate change, displacement, and disability. In 2023-24, gender was integrated into all APF capacity development activities, with gender checklists applied at the planning, implementation, and reporting stages. Specialised gender content was included in strategic planning, capacity assessments, MEAL, HRDs and torture prevention. Promoting equitable gender representation We continue to track gender representation across all levels of NHRI staffing, monitoring improvements in gender equity. We define a gender-equitable range as 40–60% men and/or women. Among the 24 NHRIs that responded to our Annual Survey, only 24% of Commissioners fell within the genderequitable range, down from 37.5% in the previous year. At the Chairperson level, 70% are men, and 30% are women. Notably, the NHRIs of Fiji, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal and Oman have never had a female chairperson and are encouraged to examine any barriers that may hinder women’s leadership appointments. APF Gender Strategy In early 2023, we conducted an internal Gender Audit of the APF Secretariat to assess our progress and improve future planning. Based on the audit’s findings, we developed an Action Plan and finalised a new APF Gender Strategy for 2024-2027. The Gender Strategy focuses on three key outcomes: supporting APF members to promote gender equality; integrating gender considerations into their operations; and enhancing the APF Secretariat’s internal performance on gender equality. To ensure meaningful progress, a comprehensive MEAL framework has been established, mainstreaming gender across all four outcomes of our Strategic Plan. In the coming months and years, we’ll continue to drive these efforts in line with our Gender Strategy, measuring progress and reinforcing our commitment to gender equality. 76% APF Annual Report 2023-24 of APF members considered the APF’s commitment to gender equality in relation to training and capacity development as ‘very high’ or ‘high’. Source: APF Annual Member Survey 2024 37