Encouragingly, some countries in the region are showing leadership in operationalising feminist economic principles. Thailand stands out globally, with more women starting new businesses than men(Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2025), signalling a gradual shift towards women-led enterprise ecosystems. India and Indonesia also feature among the top ten economies with conducive environments for women entrepreneurs, despite modest GDP per capita levels(Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2025). In New Zealand, the Equal Pay Amendment Act (2020) was enacted following research that revealed wider gender wage gaps in exporting firms compared to non-exporting ones, providing a model for addressing pay disparities through legal reform(Boghossian, 2023). Similarly, Pakistan has enacted laws such as the Workplace Harassment Act and the Protection of Women against Violence Act, alongside establishing a national women’s ombudsperson to reduce discrimination and strengthen workplace protections(Government of Pakistan, 2022). Aid for Trade programmes further exemplify how feminist principles can be embedded within economic cooperation. By embedding gender equality as a core objective rather than a peripheral concern, these programmes integrate feminist values of inclusion, empowerment, and structural transformation into trade assistance. They enhance women’s participation and agency by funding capacity­building, strengthening market linkages, and improving access to finance for women entrepreneurs and producers, thereby shifting power over resources and trade opportunities(WTO, 2022a). Australia’s Aid for Trade programme, for instance, illustrates this approach through its support to the ILO Better Work initiative in Cambodia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam, which contributed to reducing gender wage gaps and promoting safer, more equitable workplaces. Joint OECD-WTO evaluations demonstrate that such initiatives have effectively fostered environments free from sexual harassment by explicitly requiring attention to gender-based violence in the workplace as a criterion for programme funding (Boghossian, 2023). Fiscal reform has also become an arena where feminist ideas are being negotiated and reinterpreted. Across the Asia-Pacific, there is growing—but uneven—momentum to link tax justice with gender-aware public spending. Civil society actors and governments are increasingly questioning reliance on regressive consumption taxes and advocating for progressive tax bases to fund public care and social protection(ADB, 2023a). The Philippines has institutionalised gender-responsive budgeting(GRB) at national and subnational levels, with local governments such as Zamboanga City and Sorsogon City embedding gender analysis into revenue and spending decisions, allocating funds for childcare, health, and livelihood programmes that reduce women’s unpaid care burdens (Moreno, 2023). Similarly, Fiji’s Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting Manual(2024) mandates all ministries to assess how revenue and spending affect women and men differently, linking fiscal planning to redistribution and gender justice(MoFSPNDS Fiji, 2024). Still, the benefits of economic globalisation remain unevenly distributed. Women’s ability to capitalise on trade and growth opportunities is constrained by unequal access to credit, assets, and an underdeveloped care and social protection system. Deeply rooted gender norms and the unequal division of unpaid care work limit women’s participation in formal and export-oriented sectors. Even when women dominate export industries, such as garments or tourism, they remain concentrated in low-paid, insecure, and informal roles. In the tourism sector, for example, women make up over half the workforce in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, yet earn 15 per cent less than men for equivalent work(World Trade Organization, 2022b). These structural barriers are further reinforced by regressive fiscal systems that ensure that the benefits of trade and liberalisation remain unevenly distributed, limiting women’s substantive economic empowerment. A truly feminist approach to economic justice in the Asia-Pacific requires reimagining taxation, trade, and fiscal policy through a redistributive and care-centred lens; strengthening collective bargaining and labour rights; and embedding women’s voices and lived realities at the heart of economic governance. 2.3.3 Climate and Disaster Response Asia and the Pacific are experiencing accelerated warming, nearly twice the global average, resulting in significant adverse effects. In 2024, the region experienced record­breaking heatwaves exceeding 45°C, severe flooding, destructive typhoons, prolonged droughts, and bushfires. The region contributes half of the world’s CO₂ emissions, underscoring its vital role in global mitigation and adaptation efforts(UNDP, 2024b). Women, who are disproportionately represented among populations living in extreme poverty, already experience the gender-specific impacts of poverty. For instance, floods in Bangladesh in August 2024 affected 3.05 million women, including 78,000 pregnant women, who were left vulnerable due to disrupted healthcare services. In Vietnam, Typhoon Yagi devastated 251,000 hectares of crops, directly affecting the majority of women agricultural workers, who make up most of the workforce in this sector(Pandey, 2025). The ASEAN Gender Outlook report published by UN Women(2024a) indicates that while ASEAN economies have successfully reduced extreme poverty(from 31 per cent in 2000 to 3 per cent in 2022), these achievements are at risk of regression. If global temperatures rise by 3°C by 2050, millions worldwide, including up to 160 million women and girls, could revert to poverty. A feminist perspective on climate change recognises that the crisis is not gender-neutral. The existing structures of gendered inequalities in societies are exacerbated when CH 2: Current State Analysis 25