Social Protection that Empowers Women

ASEAN Regional Forum on Social Protection to Empower Women

At this forum, hosted by Oxfam, participants from women’s organizations including WIEGO, national and international organizations, civil society, UN agencies and governments, and social protection experts discussed why and how to make social protection more gender transformative. The two-day event was designed to:

• Promote sharing of knowledge and stir discussions among key stakeholders from ASEAN permanent representatives and sectoral bodies, NGOs, development partners, civil society, social protection experts and practitioners about the role of social protection in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment and in addressing UCDW.
• Learn from best practices in creating fiscal space for social protection that empowers women and invests in a care economy as an opportunity to ‘build forward better’ through sustained care systems.
• Distill recommendations for the consideration of the ASEAN and its member states towards promoting a gender transformative social protection approach in the region.

Aura Sevilla, Programme Consultant for South East Asia and Older Workers at WIEGO, was one of the speakers from OXFAM, ILO, UN Women, Development Pathways, Social Watch Philippines and ITUC.