Similarities across the situation analyses in Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tonga include:
- Women with disabilities make significant contributions to their communities. However, while they have similar talents, skills and experience as other women, they may be more often underrecognised and have fewer opportunities.
- Each country has a committed and active disabled persons organisation and a family health association that are in a good position to increase their focus on disability and sexuality.
Outside of national politics, Pacific women are often visible as leaders. The study found that Pacific women from places as far afield as Bougainville and Samoa are leaders in diverse fields including local government, civil service, private business, and civil society.
The photo exhibition “Celebrating Women in the Public Service” was held in Port Vila in July 2020, as part of Vanuatu’s 40th Independence celebrations. The exhibition narrated in pictures Ni-Vanuatu women in the public service commission. The commission recognised the contribution of the many women who served since 1980, most of whom have since retired. It took the opportunity to showcase women at the helm of decision making in 2020 that is shaping the development of the country.
This checklist proposes actions in five specific areas:
- Learn from women’s experience and support their leadership.
- Develop and implement gender-sensitive responses to COVID-19.
- Support women’ economic security.
- Prioritise support to domestic violence survivors.
- Ensure continued access to health services.
This study was commissioned to increase the visibility of young persons with disabilities to policymakers and advocates. It provides:
- An up-to-date analysis on the situation of young persons with disabilities concerning discrimination and sexual violence, including the impact on their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
- A detailed assessment of legal, policy, and programming developments and specific good practices in service delivery along with best-standard prevention and protection measures.
The Pacific Women Advisory Group on Research is comprised of specialists in gender research expertise who have interest in the Pacific region including representatives of research institutions, development partners, civil society organisations, regional organisations, governments that are engaging in gender research as well as individual research practitioners. Guided by the Research Strategy, the Advisory Group provides advice to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on the strategic direction of the Pacific Women research program.
This research resource document provides guidance on how to best measure women’s and girls’ empowerment in impact evaluations, based on the experiences of J-PAL affiliated researchers around the world. This research resource document offers practical tips for measuring women’s and girls’ empowerment in impact evaluations. It is designed to support the work of monitoring and evaluation practitioners, researchers, and students.
This is a global annual report for the UN Trust Fund to End Violence againts Women. Global statistics include:
- 1 in 3 women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual imtimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence.
- About 7 % of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than their partner.
- More than 125 million women and girls alive today have undergone some form of female genital mutilation.
- More than 700 million women worldwide alive today were married before their 18th birthdays.
This booklet highlights some of the work of Australia’s aid program to support an end to all forms of violence against women and girls, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. This includes providing services for women who have been affected by violence, programs that improve access to justice for survivors and help women rebuild their lives, education to change attitudes towards violence, and engaging men and boys in initiatives to prevent violence from occurring in the first place.
This Strategic Guidance Note explains the background to and international thinking on women’s economic empowerment and then explains how the Market Development Facility programme addresses women’s economic empowerment. It contains three parts:
This toolkit is a step-by-step guide to every stage of the project cycle for projects targeted at ending violence against women – from basic concepts such as gender, human rights and project design through to needs assessments, workplans, data collection, media outreach, stakeholder relationships and monitoring and evaluation techniques. It incorporates a number of group activities, tips, templates and online resources, as well as a list of potential funding sources.
In the Pacific region, there has been some significant progress towards achieving the SRHR goals embedded in international commitments. The number of Pacific Island countries with national population policies is steadily increasing and the integration of sexual and reproductive health into primary health programs has also improved. Reducing child mortality is an area where the Pacific region is doing particularly well, with 10 of the 14 Forum island countries on track to achieving this goal.
The Pacific Young Women’s Leadership Strategy was published in 2011 by the World YWCA with support from the Pacific Leadership Program. The strategy is presented under five themes:
- Safe.
- Respected.
- Included.
- Connected.
- Skilled.
These themes were developed after analysing responses from over 250 young women who participated in interactive consultations across six Pacific Island countries.
This toolkit is a starting point for community organisations to mainstream gender into their work. It provides a straightforward and practical framework for gender mainstreaming and a clear process for applying it within an organisation. The toolkit assumes that the reader will have a basic understanding of the concepts of gender and gender equality. Gender mainstreaming involves working through a checklist of different components and putting practical actions in place to achieve them.
This annual report notes that the eyes of the world were focused on Samoa and the wider region for the Small Islands Developing States Conference and UN Women’s Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo Nguka’s first visit to the Pacific.
Highlights from the year included:
- The launch of UN Women’s Markets for Change project.
- A highly visible 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign.
This paper supports the case for a transformative goal on gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment. The case for a stand-alone gender-related goal, as well as addressing gender priorities into each goal, has been actively supported by Pacific Leaders and the women’s movement. The importance of a standalone goal in post-2015 development agenda was evident at the 12th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women held 2013.
Emerging policy lessons from World Bank evaluations of programs to prevent violence against women include:
- Programs to increase women’s economic empowerment may reduce GBV by increasing women’s bargaining power and ability to leave abusive relationships, though there are also risks that increased empowerment could threaten household patriarchies and exacerbate violence.
Women’s economic empowerment is the ability of women to bring about positive changes in their lives and societies as a result of their participation in economic activities. Enhancing women’s economic empowerment is strategic for long-term, equity, growth, and sustainability. UN Women research has shown that improving the economic status of women leads to increased economic activity in communities and positive ripple effects for the whole nation. Marketplaces are key sites for women’s economic empowerment as well as national poverty reduction.
Over the last 30 years the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has evolved from being just an international standard, to being a standard that is integrated into national constitutions, laws and policies. CEDAW has great significance as a statement of global commitment on gender equality, and it is critical as a concrete, practical tool for advancing gender equality at national levels. All but two PICs have ratified CEDAW.
Climate change is a real and growing threat to livelihoods, cultures, ecosystems and lives in the Pacific region. Gender and climate change are closely linked issues. Women, girls, boys, and men have different roles and responsibilities within their families and communities. As a result, each of these groups is differently affected by, and has different abilities to adapt to, the effects of climate change; and has different skills and knowledge to contribute.