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In October 2010, UNDP Myanmar organized a discussion forum on the advancement of women, drawing on the Asia-Pacific Human Development Report (APHDR) on Gender, including topics on gender-based violence and trafficking. The panel stressed that cultures and traditions can retain customs that are unfair to women and they need to be addressed.

In Asia-Pacific, the work of the inter-agency initiative “Partners for Prevention” (P4P) was ongoing. Engagingmen.net (www.engagingmen.net) is a website where practitioners can share resources and learn about training opportunities. “Partners for Prevention” (P4P) organized several training sessions to support national social media campaigns in China, India, and Indonesia. Demand Media, a leading online media company and expert in developing social media platforms, provides pro bono support for the national campaigns. In December 2010, P4P organized a meeting with various stakeholders from Cambodia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Fiji, the Philippines and Vietnam, who work to engage boys and men for ending violence against women. The participants agreed to work together to develop regional curricula and a collective approach for knowledge creation and sharing across the region. In December 2010, the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) “Standing Committee of Male Parliamentarians for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Children” met in Port Macquarie, Australia, where male parliamentarians from 13 countries signed a pledge to take action in their own countries and to stand together as a collective group to advocate for more actions for violence prevention among their peers. “Partners for Prevention” is supporting the Standing Committee of Male Parliamentarians as a collaborative partner with AFPPD and UNFPA. “Partners for Prevention” and AFPPD are conducting research on the challenges that parliamentarians face in moving prevention policy forward, and on ways to support them in their role in preventing violence.

In Nepal, UNDP and UN Women public awareness materials on gender-based violence and the Anti-Domestic Violence Act were distributed. UNDP also partnered with the Office of Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers to organize a public awareness event in support of the “16-days of Activism Campaign” against gender-based violence.

In 2008, UNDP supported multi-media national and local campaigns, including during the “16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence”, in Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Zimbabwe, Niger and Myanmar.

Throughout 2008, UNDP-supported community conversation sessions were organized by village facilitators in Cambodia, in order to promote the communities’ understanding of social and legal issues related to domestic violence.

In Sierra Leone, the UNDP-supported project “Strengthening Access to Justice” promotes awareness of gender equality laws and GBV among traditional chiefs in Bo and Makeni. The priority is to ensure that the components of the Gender Acts to address GBV issues are contextualized within traditional law and culture. The project has produced legal education material on the prevention of GBV in communities, such as radios spots and drama.

UNDP launched a public campaign with a message “A Real Man Never Hits a Woman” in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; supported the organisation of men leaders who are artists, athletes, politicians and writers to send a strong message against VAW in Ukraine; fielded a campaign to change the behavior and attitudes of actual and potential perpetrators of GBV in Venezuela.

In support of the regional component of the Secretary General campaign “UNiTE to end violence against women” in Latin America, UNDP organized a Knowledge Fair on Violence against women, consisted in systematization of experiences from governmental and nongovernmental actors in the region; organization of experiences exchange and dialogue roundtables in different issues and exhibition of the experiences; creation of a virtual space with all the information about the Knowledge Fair to get access to everyone.

To mark the “16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence” a number of initiatives were conducted and supported by UNDP, such as a joint UNDP/UNFPA initiative targeting secondary school pupils and school communities in Albania; a joint UNDP/UNFPA/UNHCR initiative including press conferences, public hearings, public service announcements broadcasting, film screenings and roundtable discussions in Armenia;, a documentary on SGBV, screened on two of three national TV stations in Kosovo; a special session of the Committee for Gender Equality on SGBV to raise awareness of MPs in Serbia; the presentation of the global survey findings on domestic violence in Turkmenistan.

UN Women is working with UNDP in the finalization of a policy and programming guidance for prevention of violence against women in elections (VAWE). The guidance aims to fill gaps in current knowledge by providing an overview of the specific forms of VAWE, including scope, types, victims and perpetrators, and the range of actions that can be taken at each phase of the electoral cycle to prevent and mitigate it. The Guide is targeted at the key stakeholders and actors who are positioned to act to prevent and mitigate VAWE, and to international organizations and those providing programming support on electoral assistance, women’s political participation and ending violence against women. It is also targeted at members of political parties, particularly the leadership of those parties, civil society organizations (CSOs), women’s groups and gender equality activists.