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 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 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.
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.
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.
The Australian Government’s ‘Gender Equality Thematic Strategy, Promoting opportunities for all’ identifies economic empowerment and livelihood security as Pillar 3 of the strategy because economic empowerment of women is fundamental to enabling women to live productive and meaningful lives. This guide covers development programming through direct investments and within mainstream investments.
Women’s economic empowerment can be improved through direct investments that:
Health pandemics have specific and severe impacts on the lives of women and girls. Since the COVID-19 outbreak first had reported cases, the gendered impacts began being documented in the Pacific and across the world. Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by crises. Existing gender inequalities are exacerbated during a crisis, with the result that women and girls face even higher rates of violence, sexual abuse and control from their husbands, partners and families.
This review involved a desk review of policies and project documents and consultations with Pacific Region Infrastructure Facility (PRIF) agency representatives and staff from other agencies working in the Pacific. It:
- Collates information about how gender concerns are considered and managed in PRIF Infrastructure programs.
- Identifies areas of good practice.
- Identifies lessons to enhance gender-responsive planning and management in Pacific infrastructure projects.
This study deals with research on eight critical areas of concern covered in the Revised Pacific Platform for Action 2005-2015: education, health, climate change and environment, economic empowerment, gender mainstreaming, leadership and decision-making, violence against women and human rights.
While gender research on each issue exists in one way or another in the Pacific, there are many unknowns as to the scope, nature, and quality of this research. This study therefore:
- Maps and provides a gap analysis of existing gender research in the eight thematic areas.
At the opening of the 2014 State of the Pacific Conference organised by the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop noted the Australian Government’s commitment to expanding the Seasonal Worker Program (SWP) and the contribution that labour mobility could make to development in the Pacific. In the minister’s words, ‘some seasonal workers have earned up to $12,000 in Australia, and have been able to remit about $6,000 over a six month placement, the scheme is having flow-on benefits.
Addressing the multiple dimensions of gender inequality requires commitments by policy-makers, practitioners and scholars to transformative practices. One challenge is to assemble a coherent conceptual framework from diverse knowledges and experiences. This article contains a framework that emerged from the authors’ involvement in changing market culture in the Pacific, which they name the ‘radical empowerment of women approach’.
Even as the importance of women’s economic inclusion and empowerment is acknowledged and acted on, it is also known that such gains are not without risk; for increasing command over financial resources can expose women to domestic conflict and violence.
This mapping paper includes examples of efforts by the private sector in the Pacific to address violence against women and provides examples of how States can begin to calculate the costs of violence to a nation’s economy. While there are some great examples of private sector initiatives, there is little information available on the successes and impacts of these initiatives.
Pacific Women program activities support the Bougainville Gender Investment Plan, which prioritises the following objectives:
- Reducing family and sexual violence and assist survivors of violence.
- Strengthen women’s leadership.
- Improve women’s economic opportunities.
This report includes the following highlights:
The purpose of the workshop was to share findings from the review of the Pacific Women Fiji Country Plan and the Pacific Women Year Three Evaluation and consider the implications of findings for future Pacific Women programming in Fiji.
The workshop was designed to maximise input from local experts, as well as provide the opportunity for peer sharing. In addition, exercises were developed to ensure partners strengthened or developed new relationships with each other.
Since 2009, Australian funding has supported:
- 10 000 survivors of family violence to receive legal assistance and counselling services. 132 women from Vanuatu have benefited from the Australia Awards scholarship program.
- 2,400 women have been trained through Australian Government funded TVET Centres.
- 130 women from the justice sector have been coached and mentored in decision-making skills.
This Thematic Brief discusses five key messages about the emerging impacts of COVID-19 on adolescent girsl in the Pacific:
A multidonor initiative, the Second Rural Development Program (RDP II) was designed to improve basic infrastructure and services in rural areas and to strengthen the linkages between smallholder farming households and markets. Amongst other objectives, the program supports farming households to engage in productive partnerships with commercial enterprises.
The State, Society and Governance in Melanesia program at the Australian National University and the International Women’s Development Agency undertook the Do No Harm research project in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea to understand whether and in what ways economic inclusion and empowerment initiatives affect women’s experience of violence.