UNFPA Mandate Best Thesis Award

May 2, 2023

Dear AUCA community!

You still have a great opportunity to participate in the UNFPA Mandate Best Thesis Award and win cool prizes! For the detailed information read the description below (theses should be nominated and submitted along with one-pager (explaining how a student's thesis is relevant to UNFPA's mandate) to career@auca.kg by your department).

UNFPA Kyrgyzstan invites you to participate in an initiative to support youth in research activities in the sphere of UNFPA mandate. This initiative became possible thanks to the cooperation between the AUCA Development Office and the UNFPA. To implement this initiative, a competition is announced for writing the Best Thesis among AUCA undergraduate senior students. 3 winners will be announced, who will be awarded with the UNFPA Mandate Best Thesis Award.

UNFPA is the leading United Nations agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA expands the possibilities for women and young people to lead healthy and productive lives. The strategic goal of UNFPA is to achieve universal access to reproductive health care and rights and reduce maternal mortality to improve the lives of women, adolescents, and youth, enabled by profound analysis of population dynamics, observance and protection of human rights, and promotion of gender equality.

Criteria:

The area of the research must be relevant to Kyrgyzstan
The research should be done on one of the following topics: Family Planning, Youth in Kyrgyzstan, Gender and Social Norms. The description of these topics is in Annex 1 below.
The thesis must comply with the AUCA academic requirements
All AUCA senior students (regardless of citizenship) are eligible to apply

Selection committee:

UNFPA representatives
AUCA representative

Awards:

1st place - laptop
2nd - tablet
3rd- smartphone

Deadline: for Departments to nominate and submit theses for the Selection Committee’s review is May 10, 2023. Each student must have a one-pager explaining how a student's thesis is relevant to UNFPA's mandate (work fields). Departments need to submit theses along with the one-pagers to the AUCA Career Center's email (career@auca.kg).

Results will be announced in 2-3 weeks after the thesis submission to the Department.

Annex

1. Family planning: Access to safe, voluntary family planning is a human right. Family planning is central to gender equality and women’s empowerment, and it is a key factor in reducing poverty. Family planning has direct implications for women empowerment and their participation in the socio-economic life of the country. It is paramount to support family planning by: ensuring a steady, reliable supply of quality contraceptives; strengthening national health systems; advocating for policies supportive of family planning; and gathering data to support this work. It's equally crucial to increase access to family planning, by convening partners – including governments – to develop evidence and policies and research analysis. Hence, this thematic area welcomes thesis topics on family planning. For instance, the role of men and women in family planning, or family planning in left behind groups (disabled people, people living with HIV, ethnic minorities etc)

2. Youth: 30 percent of the population of Kyrgyzstan is young people aged 15 to 28, , positioning the Kyrgyz Republic at a unique demographic juncture for its development. Innovative solutions and concerted efforts to invest in young people are essential to turn the potential of young people into a positive force and demographic dividend. Thus, this thematic area welcomes thesis topics that focus on youth empowerment, youth policy, and youth participation in the Kyrgyz Republic.

3. Gender and Social Norms: Gender and social norms shape the choices, voices, rights, reproductive choices, and decision-making power of women and youth within their families and societies. Existing values and social norms, which are often hard to change, are underlying behaviors and practices that expose women and girls to GBV and harmful practices, and prevent women and girls from accessing knowledge and the use of services that would improve their health and/or exercise their rights. Thesis topics with a focus on gender perception in Kyrgyzstan (gender equality issue, women's participation) and prevention of harmful practices such as underage marriage, bride kidnapping, and SGBV are welcomed in this thematic area.

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