Many countries in the Asia-Pacific Region present serious concerns in gender imbalances and inequities in employment opportunities, female participation and the portrayal of women and girls. This project designed in line with The Beijing Platform for Action for Equality, Development and Peace, which places specific obligations on the media, both in the way women participate and in how they are portrayed and has objectives that require signatory nations and their citizens to ‘increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new technologies of communication’ and that demand that governments and other organisations, businesses and individuals ‘promote a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media’.

The Project is part of a three year ABU campaign to have by 2015 twelve of its members implementing gender fair policies and and their programme content. It will build upon the previous project approved by the IPDC in 2012 (Budget code: 354-RAS-5011) Gender Mainstreaming in Broadcasting Organisaitons in Asia-Pacific Region and previous work done by the ABU and the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT). This partnership has produced a Guidelines document and some associated materials for employers, practitioners, relevant organisations and communities to use to address this problem. The Guidelines and materials including questionnaires and template action plans are currently being piloted in the six broadcasting organisations within the region, involved in the first phase of the ABU Gender Mainstreaming In Broadcasting Organisations project.

This project's activities will involve two in-country workshops to train representatives from broadcasting organisations in the use of the guidelines and tools in two selected countries, namely Kazakhstan and Bhutan.