Introduction
	Gender Democracy in Cambodia
	Promoting Gender Democracy for Development, the Environment and Democracy in Thailand
	Gender Projects in the Past

OVER-REGIONAL

HBF's Asia Regional Summer School 2008: "Inequalities in Responding to Risk and Uncertainty: Investment Guarantees versus Social Insurance"

33 participants from 11 Asian countries attended the Regional Summer School held at Miriam College in Quezon City, Philippines, from May 19-25, 2008.

HBF's Gunda Werner Institute for Feminism and Gender Democracy founded

It is the new institute's goal to better interlink gender democratic and feminist analyses and perspectives, in order to enhance the development of sociopolitical alternatives beyond the mainstream. Key aspects of the Gunda Werner Institute's work will be among others foreign and security affairs and gender politics in Europe.

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INTRODUCTION

Our vision in the realm of gender politics is to achieve gender democracy. It is normatively defined as a system of gender relations free of dependence and dominance. It is not about equalizing the differences between men and women but about equal rights and equal opportunities for different persons with different needs. This includes respect of gender and sexual minorities. For HBF, gender democracy is a guiding political principle, a social vision, and an organizational directive all at once. It must be an integral part of every democracy worth its name – there is no democracy without gender democracy. To that end, we have made the systematic integration of a gender perspective into all aspects of our work and that of our partners a cross-cutting task.

More on gender democracy

In Southeast Asia, we are faced with very different challenges in the respective countries of the region. These include a bias in male
and female participation in civil society and policy formulation processes, a lack of women’s participation in political institutions
and, particularly in Cambodia and Myanmar/Burma, no equal access for women and men to education and economic resources. Gender
stereotypes and traditional gender roles still dominate, albeit to varying degrees, the relations between men and women. Herein
lies the main challenge for the Foundation’s work. Responding to these realities, our gender program includes women’s empowerment
as well as a gender-inclusive call to women and men to take on responsibility for a more gender–just society.

Gender Democracy in Thailand 
Gender Democracy in Cambodia 

For example:

• 1st International Congress on Buddhist Women’s Role in the Sangha: Bhikshuni Vinaya and Ordination Lineages,
  July 18-20, 2007, in Hamburg/Germany
• 16th Annual IAFFE Conference on Feminist Economics,
  June 29 – July 1, 2007, in Bangkok
  
• "Gender within local administration and the community" (GLAC)
• Association of Nuns and Lay Women in Cambodia