©UNESCO/ Georges Malempré
Women and children

The following themes will be discussed: gender and peace; gender and post-conflict countries; engendering disaster: women, agency and empowerment in the process of reconstruction; gender and climate change; gender and nature; progress in gender studies in Asia-Pacific.

In recent years, the Asia-Pacific region has shown its vulnerability to ‘natural’ disasters. The most striking example was the 2005 Tsunami which devastated large parts of at least five countries, leaving a death toll, the majority of which were women. In the aftermath, the process of reconstruction presented an enormous challenge for the badly affected coastal communities, and while foreign aid poured in and reconstruction projects were initiated, it was clear that women were excluded from this process. Yet women are the backbone of the reconstruction efforts, given their role within the family. They tend to be extremely resourceful in solving local problems, both individually and collectively, and provisioning their family and the community through their complex social networks.

The Network of Women's/Gender Studies in Asia-Pacific, under the auspices of UNESCO Bangkok's Regional Unit for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific (RUSHSAP), aims to provide a forum where scholars, practitioners and policy-makers in women's and gender studies exchange ideas and plan how their programmes and activities could be assisted by, or support existing UN instruments such as the Convention to the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), UNESCO’s Education for All (EFA) Movement and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The creation of a Women’s/Gender Studies Network in Asia Pacific emerged as an important recommendation from the Regional Consultation on Women’s/Gender Studies Programmes in the Asia-Pacific region held in Bangkok in December 2003. A second Conference was held in February 2009.