Duration: 2021-2026
Location: Gilgit-Baltistan (10 districts) and Chitral ( 2 districts)
Donor: Global Affairs Canada (GAC)
Reach: 566,097 people, including 494,856 women and adolescent girls
Project Description: BEST4WEER is a five-year project funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC). The purpose of this project is to improve women’s social and economic empowerment during the period of COVID-19 recovery and rebuilding in Gilgit-Baltistan and Upper and Lower Chitral districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. This project aims to reduce the social, cultural, institutional, and economic barriers for the engagement of women in economic and social spheres while enhancing their social and economic agency. The initiative has been designed specifically to address gender inequalities and utilises a whole community approach to build acceptance for the increased social and economic empowerment of women. At the same time, to target the social and gender norms dictating the roles that women and men can hold in society, markets, workplaces, and households by specific focus on the norms and institutional gaps contributing to the gender division of unpaid work and the disproportionate burden of childcare shouldered by women in Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral (GBC).