World Design Organization（WDO）is an international non-governmental organization that promotes the profession of industrial design and its ability to generate better products, systems, services, and experiences; better business and industry; and ultimately a better environment and society. Japan Institute of Design Promotion is a member of World Design Organization (WDO) and currently serves as a Board of Directors.

On December 9, first collaboration "WORLD DESIGN TALKS" a talk event program of WDO about "Design against gender based violence" was hosted online, in cooperation with UNWOMEN.

Globally, 1 in 3 women and girls worldwide have experienced some form of violence during their lifetime. WDO and UNWOMEN aimed to make the conventional VAW(Violence Against Women) issue to make more visible and find the solution by design through the collaboration. This time, "WORLD DESIGN TALKS", the talk event program of WDO was hosted as the part of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, which was held during November 25 to December 10 and looked back the outcome of the project so far.

The collaboration started from this April and after several discussions, Generation Equality Asia Pacific Design Challenge, the 2-weeks online workshop program was hosted in August. 112 people from design sectors and UNWOMEN joined across 29 countries/regions and had intensive discussions over following 6 focus areas:
1. Enlisting community leaders and influencers
2. Leveraging media to challenge stereotypes
3. Moving people emotionally and empathically to act
4. Transforming men’s sense of entitlement
5. Changing the mindset that VAW is normal
6. Influencing parents to raise children to reject harmful gender stereotypes and violence

The Talk featured some participant reflections, showcased some of the outcomes that emerged as a result of this initiative, and discussed future opportunities to leverage design thinking and collaborative mindsets.
It was really eyeopening experience for both of designers and UNWOMEN and could find the possibility to solve the problem by design through the project. This event was the conclusion of the first phase, but to be continued for the next steps.

For more details of World Design Talks - Design Against Gender Based Violence

https://wdo.org/programmes/wd-talks/un-women-16-days-of-activism/