09 Oct 2020
As part of the regional commemoration of the International Day of the Girl Child (11 October), the ASEAN Secretariat held an Online Launch of the 2020 Asia Girls Report: Introducing Girls’ Leadership Index on 9 October 2020.
ASEAN Secretary-General Dato Lim Jock Hoi graced the launch, where Plan International Asia Pacific Regional Hub presented the key elements, findings, and recommendations of the 2020 Asia Girls Report to ASEAN sectoral bodies, external partners, and stakeholders from the United Nations, civil society and the private sector. ASEAN Member States were encouraged to invest in the future of adolescent girls by developing and adopting properly resourced adolescent girls’ development frameworks as part of their national development planning efforts. Mdm Laura Hwang, Singapore’s Representative on Women’s Rights to the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC), Chair of the ACWC, participated in a panel discussion on how the Report could help governments, academia, development and humanitarian sector understand how to close gaps in gender inequality by 2030, to achieve an inclusive, people-centred and people-oriented ASEAN Community.
The 2020 Asia Girls Report presents the current state of girls’ leadership in Asia, based on the findings of the Plan International Asia Pacific Regional Hub and the Asia Girls’ Leadership Index. Using available data from official databases, the Leadership Index measures the opportunities of adolescent girls and young women in 19 countries from ASEAN and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), as well as Timor-Leste, to develop and demonstrate leadership capabilities across six domains, namely: education, health, economic opportunities, protection, political voice and representation, and national laws and policies. The three highest-ranking countries on the Index are ASEAN Member States, namely, Singapore (.778), Philippines (.717) and Vietnam (.712).
The 2020 Asia Girls Report can be found at the following link: https://plan-international.org/publications/asia-girls-report-2020.