Issue date
10 May 2022

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) recently launched the Empowering Change tool; a step-by-step tool for policy professionals to apply gender analysis to their work. The tool is hosted on the APEC website and is free to use. 

The development of the tool was led by New Zealand as part of the Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy (PPWE) 04 202A – Gender Data for Structural reform project. 

The Empowering Change tool supports users to apply a gender lens to their policy making and consider the gender implications of their work and policy decisions. The guiding questions in the tool prompts policy makers to track their thinking throughout the policy process, and useful links to activities and external resources are provided throughout the tool. 

By using the Empowering Change tool in their work, APEC economies will be able to:

  • facilitate an inclusive approach to economic policy and structural reform to identify and ultimately remove barriers to women’s participation in the economy
  • consider how to gather reliable and meaningful gendered data
  • look at problems in new ways
  • identify novel solutions in policy making
  • understand the impact of policy making on people and communities, and 
  • make targeted and effective interventions to improve women’s economic participation. 

The Empowering Change tool is an adaption of the Bringing Gender In tool, an online gender analysis tool launched by Manatū Wāhine in 2019 that supports New Zealand’s policy makers implement to explore the gender impacts of their policy work. 

If you have any questions about the tool, please contact APEC.