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| Promoting Women's Participation in Decision Making in Cambodia
Collective efforts between the Government, NGOs and international community have helped the number of women councilors jump from 8 to 15 percent in the last commune council elections. More...
|  | Report (890kb pdf) | | Cambodia Website |
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| Quick Facts | | Figures show the most recent available data and the year. | | | | Source: World Development Indicators 2006 |
| | | | | | | | | | | GENDER & YOUTH | 
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 Overview
The World Bank's Gender Program in East Asia
Operations
Implementing the World Bank’s Gender Action Plan in EAP
Overview In recent decades the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region has made tremendous strides in human and economic development, and poverty reduction. Probably more so than any other developing region, it has invested in human capital, successfully raised human development indicators, and narrowed the gender gaps in education and health. Today, it is reaping the benefits of these investments, with record economic growth, and a population that is healthier, lives longer, and is afforded with greater employment opportunities than previous generations. Primary education levels are close to parity, and all but a few countries have brought down maternal mortality. Laws highlighting legal reforms in the areas of land, labor and violence have been enacted and institutional reforms and policies for mainstreaming gender have been introduced. Despite these gains, important challenges remain: - Maternal mortality rates are still strikingly high in some countries in the region. This is linked to the shortcomings in health systems, poor nutrition, the cost of health care, the lack of infrastructure and skilled personnel, and persistent cultural attitudes and practices – such as boy preference and limited contraception – that continue to impose a cost on women’s reproductive health.
- The epidemic proportion of gender-based violence underscores women’s overall vulnerability, the persistence of cultural norms, the bias of current legal systems, the despair associated with poverty or economic shocks, skewed power relations, and the limited protection that exists for women.
- The increase in the trafficking of women and girls as a result of more integrated markets and the increase in labor migration opportunities. Each year, 200,000-225,000 women and children are trafficked in East Asia, representing a third of the global trafficking trade. Many are forced into the sex industry and subject to violence.
- Representation of women in decision-making in East Asia falls short of meeting Millenium Development Goals targets. The number of women in elected parliaments in East Asia has only increased by less than 2 percent since the early 1990s.
As women’s participation tends to decrease at provincial and district levels, their participation in decentralized structures is proving a challenge. On the other hand, the women’s movement in civil society has been effective in voicing women’s concerns and has helped to bring about changes in legislation to reduce inequalities in many countries.
- Getting laws and institutions in place is undoubtedly an important step for women in East Asia. However, impact is limited unless these can be implemented and used effectively. Until then, traditional rights of marriage and inheritance will continue to undermine women’s access to land in many parts of the region, violence against women will continue to increase, and women will remain vulnerable in the workplace. And in a region of large scale labor mobility, the opportunities for human trafficking will increase almost unchecked.
Back to top The World Bank's Gender Program in East Asia Diagnostic Work The World Bank has been increasingly incorporating gender in its analytical work, and developing separate diagnostic pieces on gender in the region.  Country Gender Assessments
Country Gender Assessments evaluate the priority gender gaps or issues in each country, and are prepared in partnership with governments and other development organizations. Back to top Gender Mainstreaming in Analytical Work The World Bank also mainstreams gender issues into other core and analytical work, such as the Country Assistance Strategies, Poverty Assessments and the Public Expenditure Reviews. Examples of these activities include the Country Assistance Strategies for Vietnam, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Mongolia.  The Public Expenditure Review for Lao PDR include an analysis of distributional impacts on women and ethnic minorities; and the Poverty Assessments undertaken in Vietnam, Lao PDR and China, all include gender analysis.
In Vietnam, the on-going Country Social Analysis (CSA) includes a focus on ethnic minority women. Based on primary data collected carried out in three field sites in the country, the CSA will provide information on national gender policies and their impact on ethnic minorities, role of women in different ethnic minority groups studied; ethnic minority women's roles in livelihood strategies. The fieldwork report will attempt to answer questions some main questions including: do women's relatively lower status in some ethnic minority traditions affect their social standing and mobility; what impact do ethnic minority women have on economic development; or how can women's access to and use of services improve in the future.
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Analytical Work on Gender Issues
Analysis of specific gender issues is also undertaken by the World Bank. Some examples in the region include the studies recently carried out inIndonesia onsocial protection for female migrant workers in sending countries, remittances of female migrants, and on women and decentralization.  A Poverty and Social Impact Assessment: Analysis of the Impact of Public Expenditures on Ethnic Minority and Women is currently being undertaken in Lao PDR, and assesses how the government policy of focusing poverty reduction efforts on 47 poorest districts is effective in closing gender gaps, especially for ethnic minority women.
Also in Lao PDR a Gender and Ethnic Minorities Case Study, analyses the links between these two issues in a Khmou village. A Gender Time Use Study among three different ethnic groups discusses the cultural concepts of time and concludes that energy, rather than time, is a deciding factor in adopting new production technologies. Lao was also one of the case studies in the recent global study on gender and land.
In Philippines, examples of analytical pieces focusing on gender issues are the studies on Gender and Conflict in Mindanao and Women and Post conflict.
In Cambodia, two case studies (pdf) were published that looked at the way women perceived corruption and were impacted by it.
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Operations Mainstreaming in Operations  Gender is mainstreamed strategically across sectors in World Bank- funded operations according to the priorities identified in the Country Gender Assessments.
A regional network of Country Gender Coordinators, supported by the Regional Gender Coordinator, help to mainstream gender in the World Bank- funded projects in the East Asia and Pacific region. There are various approaches to gender mainstreaming in the region: In the Philippines, the Bank and government hold annual workshops with staff from all the Bank-funded projects to plan project-specific mainstreaming activities and monitoring indicators, a portfolio review will be undertaken towards the end of 2006.
Priority projects are identified in Vietnam, and specific plans developed for them. A Gender Portfolio Review has recently been completed and will be available shortly. The purpose of the review was to inform the Country Assistance Strategy along with the Vietnam Gender Assessment.
Community Driven Development (CDD) provides a focus for gender-related activities in Indonesia. The Government of Indonesia is currently preparing a nationwide poverty reduction program (PNPM) which will build on two Bank-funded CDD projects: the Kecamatan Development Program and Urban Poverty Project. As part of the activities feeding into the national program, a Bank team undertook a joint donor and government review of how gender had been integrated into five CDD programs in Indonesia: Water Supply and Sanitation in Low Income Communities, ADB's Neighborhood Upgrading and Shelter Sector Project, and AusAID's Australian Community Development and Civil Society Strengthening Scheme.
Gender Action Plan funds are now being used to follow up on the issue of how large-scale CDD programs could be more effective at opening up income-generating opportunities for women by increasing their ability to access credit and other resources.
In Cambodia, cross support was provided to integrate gender into the design and supervision of rural investment, agriculture and land administration, basic education, and public financial management projects.
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Gender Stand Alone Projects The World Bank has also developed and implemented projects focusing on gender issues throughout the region. Others are ongoing projects. In Indonesia, a grant from the Investment Development Fund was provided to the Ministry of Home Affairs to develop capacity to deal with issues affecting female migrant workers. Activities will include building capacity in handling the cases of the migrant workers in host countries; producing audiovisual edutainment to inform the female migrant workers on their journey; and developing a strategy and model of legal protection for these women workers athe Indonesian embassy and consulates in Malaysia. Also in Indonesia, PEKKA (Women Headed Household Program) has targeted areas in conflict, where widows tend to be especially marginalized due to the circumstances of their husband’s death. In Cambodia, the “Gender Sensitive Monitoring, Planning and Budgeting for Implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy” project is aiming to help improve gender-sensitive budgeting within the Ministry of Finance and Economics. The project was also funded by an Investment Development Fund grant to the Ministry of Women Affairs-Cambodia. The following reports were funded under this project: 
Where Did All the Day Care Go? A gender analysis of day care needs in relation to time poverty and employment opportunity for poor women (January 2007, 300kb pdf) Making Motherhood Safer: A gender sensitive appraisal of the effectiveness of service delivery for maternal health care and budget allocation for reproductive health (January 2007, 452kb pdf) Also in Cambodia, the Small Grants project on “Women’s Empowerment through Legal Awareness” aims at empowering women to advocate for their equal rights and opportunities. In Vietnam, the World Bank supports a Land Tenure Certificates (LTCs) project to re-issue titles with spaces for two names, both husband and wife, these titles allow women to have access to credit in order to start a small business or scale up to more productive agriculture. In fact, women’s legal status, such as their right to own land, can become a gateway out of poverty. The project added women's names to 35,000 land title certificates in two years, giving women equal access to finance. The project was conducted along a national and local information dissemination campaign to raise awareness on the issues, as well as to help the Government to issue guidance on providing joint title LTCs nationwide.  Watch the video: Women and Land Titling in Vietnam (2:29)
A regional Trust Fund for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development grant supports innovative initiatives to increase women’s participation in decision-making in local development. Among other things the grant was recently used to train women in Cambodia to increase the number of women candidates standing in the April 2007 commune council elections, and informing communities of the benefits of choosing these women. This collective effort has resulted in a jump of women commune councilors from 8 to 15 percent. This is encouraging for Cambodian women who are gradually moving to attain gender equality by 2015.
Activities were coordinated by the Committee to Promote Women in Politics (CPWP) and the Ministry of Women Affairs, with the support of the World Bank and donors such as UNDP, CIDA, UNIFEM, GTZ. Activities included eight training sessions for women candidates, and eight public forums to raise public awareness on participation and decision making at the commune council level in six different locations. The activities attracted attention of different political parties and the public.
These booklets in English (pdf) and Khmer (pdf) -- funded by partner organizations -- were used as campaign materials for training and to advocate women's empowerment in leadership. Back to top Implementing the World Bank’s Gender Action Plan in EAP
Launched at the Annual Meetings in Singapore in 2006 by President Wolfowitz, the World Bank Group Gender Action Plan seeks to advance women’s economic empowerment in client countries as a way to promote shared growth and accelerate the implementation of the third Millennium Development Goal. The Action Plan commits the World Bank Group to intensify gender equality work in the economic sectors over four years, in partnership with client countries, doors and other development agencies.
 As part of implementing the Gender Action Plan in East Asia and Pacific, an integrated work program - which cuts across sectors and countries and includes the International Finance Corporation (IFC) - has been put together for the region. The program draws on the regional gender priorities and focuses on synergies between country-based activities and needs and the objectives of the Gender Action Plan.
For FY07, the Gender Action Plan’s Executive committee has awarded funding for three activities in the East Asia and Pacific region: Mainstreaming women’s economic empowerment in community driven development projects in East Asia and Pacific. Making infrastructure projects responsive to the needs of women in rural and remote areas. Improving knowledge and statistics on women in the economy in Vietnam.
In addition, a results-based initiative is being planned in the Mekong Region. The initiative aims to work directly with handicraft producers in the bamboo sector, who are mostly women. The overall objective is to create income and jobs for this group via new opportunities and innovations in the bamboo sector. This results-based initiative is a partnership between the World Bank, IFC-MPDF, Oxfam Hong Kong, UNIFEM and the International Center for Research on Women.
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