Rationale
Strategic and inclusive partnership is a fundamental component to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
SEI Asia, with support from the Swedish government (SIDA), launched the Strategic Collaborative Fund Phase 2 (SCF2) programme in 2018 to enhance the current 2030 Agenda efforts in Asia and the Pacific. SCF2 aims to foster regional cooperation and policy dialogue for sustainable development and environmental sustainability, through capacity building, knowledge sharing and increased collaboration.
Human rights and gender equality are central to SCF2, as it champions regional and inter-regional collaboration for transboundary environmental policy development.
Objectives
From 2018 to 2022, SCF2 will create long-term partnerships to enhance policy development and institutional capacity building in Asia, under the framework of regional integration and the SDGs. It will hold strategic events that seek to build more effective regional policies that contribute to SDG achievement.
Components
Component 1: Inter-regional cooperation with China and Europe
Improving cooperation between ASEAN, China, and Europe is key in trade expansion and greater multilateral understanding.
SCF2 is using the China-ASEAN Environment Cooperation Forum (CAECF) and the Asia-Europe Environment Forum (ASEF) as platforms to facilitate policy dialogues and knowledge exchange between ASEAN, China and Europe to address regional sustainability.
Component 2: Regional cooperation within Asia-Pacific
SCF2 supports the ASEAN in increasing regional collaboration on key transboundary environmental issues, such as pollution, water governance, energy flows, natural resource use efficiency and climate change.
The project will provide support for initiating, organizing, and hosting events that highlight key issues that are linked to the 2030 sustainable development agenda. The goal is to build regional capacity to lead efforts toward collaborative policy development.
Component 3: Learning and capacity development
SCF2 will develop open online courses on gender equality and rights-based approaches to enhance institutional capacity and knowledge of regional partners. The courses aim to encourage gender, human rights and poverty reduction-centric policies on environmental and climate change issues and the SDGs.
Component 4: Programme management
SCF2 aims to improve project management through enhanced programme monitoring and evaluation and strategic communication. Partners will be assisted in identifying target policies and tracking new knowledge application in policy formulation.
This component will also support the institutionalization of gender and rights-based approaches into partners and participants’ current and future programmes and operations, as well as encourage improved efforts toward SDG and Agenda 2030 achievement.
2023 Partners
SCF is pleased to announce the selected partners for 2023 working towards building climate resiliency in Asia through inclusive approaches.
Grow Asia
(Theme: Bridging climate finance gaps through inclusive approaches)
Transitions Research
(Theme: Catalysing biodiversity conservation through nature-based solutions)
Intellectuals Center
(Theme: Regional policy initiatives for circular economy transition)
Thailand Environment Institute
(Theme: Partnerships for climate actions)
The Community Self-reliance Centre (CSRC)
(Theme: Rethinking climate adaptation and mitigation through gender transformative approaches and amplifying local agency)
Asia’s small-scale farmers live in precarious conditions that worsen the impacts of climate change.
Read three takeaways from a youth-led report calling for action towards a rights-based and gender-equal circular economy in Asia.
This report presents key policy recommendations conceived by youth and based on inputs from informal waste workers.
Small island communities in the Philippines reflect on their efforts to cope with loss of culture, identity and other intangible climate impacts.
This policy brief highlights the importance of minimizing food loss and waste, which accounts for some 30% of current global production.
Online courses
The integration of human rights and gender equality is central to the SCF2, as it champions regional and inter-regional collaboration for transboundary environmental policy development.
Through a collaboration with Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI) and Stockholm Environment Institute Asia gender cluster, evidence-based human rights and gender equality approaches are integrated into the programme implementation through capacity building such as direct coaching and providing open online courses.
This ensures that human rights and gender equality become central to regional environmental and climate change policy with the intent of achieving SDG integration.
Course 1: Rights-based approaches to environmental sustainability
Course 2: Gender, Environment and Sustainable Development
