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Annex B: Partnerships with Other APEC Working Groups

Annex B: Partnerships with Other APEC Working Groups

  1. The PPWE has partnered with other APEC working groups to incorporate gender equality and women’s empowerment into their sector-specific public-private dialogues, ministerial meetings, and projects and programs to ensure that barriers to women’s economic empowerment are addressed across sectors.

    2. Human Resources Development Working Group (HRDWG) and Health Working Group (HWG)

  2. Full participation of women in the economy is essential to achieve inclusive economic growth; however, women’s ability to access economic opportunities is sometimes hindered by health concerns. Thus, the PPWE is collaborating with the HRDWG and HWG on the “Healthy Women, Healthy Economies” initiative. A Policy Toolkit was developed to address health-related barriers specific to women so they can join, remain and rise in the work force. The Policy Toolkit includes policy recommendations and practices on: workplace health and safety; health access and awareness; gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health; and work/life balance. The Policy Toolkit can serve as a guide to APEC economies in implementing actions on a voluntary basis and choosing actions appropriate for their economy. In 2016, APEC is working to equip governments and businesses with the tools needed to implement elements of the toolkit. A forum on the toolkit implementation will be held in Augustand will include a presentation of the business and economic cases on application of the toolkit.

    3. Human Resources Development Working Group (HRDWG)  

  3. Recognizing the importance of human capital in achieving inclusive economic growth and development a game based-learning application “WE boss” was launched to serve as an innovative and affordable application for women entrepreneurs to acquire adequate lifetime learning. A concept “Innovation for Women and Economic Development: Building Human Capital for Women Entrepreneurs through Innovative Learning Tools” has been shared with the HRDWG as a cross forum initiative, focusing on developing policy recommendations to assist public and private sector stakeholders in building a gender-friendly business training program for women entrepreneurship that can effectively increase the participation of women in economic activities.

    4. Transportation Working Group (TPTWG)

  4. Women are far less likely than men to work in the transportation sector, both in absolute numbers and as compared to their labor market participation within their respective Economies. In addition, women are more susceptible to economic marginalization if transportation networks, connecting them employment, health services, and educational opportunities, are unsafe for their use.
  5. Working Group (TPTWG) is host to the Women in Transportation (WiT) Task Force which has developed a framework (WiT Framework) for benchmarking and tracking the participation and influence of women transportation workers, entrepreneurs, leaders, and travelers.  The WiT Framework, which was endorsed by APEC Transportation Ministers in October 2015, identifies five key outcome “pillars” that Economies can use to help organize their own efforts to boost women’s opportunities, with 18 specific outcomes listed to support policy engagement in this arena.  The five pillars are:  education; entry into the sector; retention; leadership; and access and use of transportation systems.  By linking the goals of the pillars with concrete activities and metrics that will be carried out by volunteer economies in their own pilot projects, the WiT Framework provides a roadmap to success for policy makers and industry representatives working to facilitate change.
  6. Currently four economies (Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the United States) are leveraging the WiT Framework to structure a pilot project that will produce a policy response to a specific challenge or impediment embodied in one of these five pillars.  It is anticipated that these pilot programs will serve as models of how data, global best practices on women’s issues, and tailor-made policy solutions enacted by government through collaboration with industry can help improve women’s opportunities in all facets of the transportation sector.

    7. Emergency Preparedness Working Group (EPWG)

  7. Recognizing that the Asia-Pacific is the most natural disaster-affected region, the PPWE collaborated with the EPWG to identify and address the needs and concerns of women and girls in emergency preparedness and post-disaster recovery and resilience.
  8. The outcome of the PPWE project “Good Practices of Women Entrepreneurship in Local Communities in the Process of Local Reconstruction” has been shared with the EPWG as a valuable reference for achieving inclusive and sustainable recovery in the post-disaster phase, which can also contribute to the enhanced linkage between the two working groups.

    9. Small and Medium Enterprises Working Group (SMEWG)

  9. The project “Inclusive growth greater involvement of SMEs into B2B and B2G markets”, makes a special focus on promoting and encouraging the participation of women-run SMES in international supply chains in B2B markets and in domestic B2G markets through systemizing opportunities and sharing best practices. An overview of current barriers that prevent SMEs from accessing to public and corporate procurements as well as possible policy recommendations will be shared with SMEWG and PPWE.

    10. Economic Committee (EC)

  10. The project “Capacity Building for the Reduction of Educational Gender Gaps through Structural Reforms” was launched to enhance education with equal opportunities for women in APEC economies. With this purpose, the project focuses on improving the capacity of civil servants to adapt, design, implement and evaluate gender gap reduction policies. The project is directly related to the APEC New Strategy for Structural Reform (ANSSR), as well as the SME and Women Development pillar, which has driven the recent activities of the Economic Committee.