The Revised Pacific Platform For Action is a regional charter developed and agreed to by representatives from all Pacific Island countries and territories. It has four strategic themes:
- Mechanisms to promote the advancement of women.
- Women’s legal and human rights.
- Women’s access to services.
- Economic empowerment of women.
The overall goal of the Gender Equality in Political Governance program was to advance gender equality in political governance in the Pacific and its objective was to increase political participation by women as active citizens and leaders. Important strategies employed by the programme include building broad base support for women’s participation in political governance through the development of community-base level education and the introduction of temporary special measures.
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.
There is growing evidence that at both national and sub-national level, the social capital of urban elites (male and female alike) does not translate into votes at the ballot box. Instead, women who perform well at the polls:
- Are “of the people”, i.e. either community based or have deep connections to their electorates;
- Have strong male backers – powerful fathers, brothers, or husbands or, as the 2012 Papua New Guinea elections demonstrated, male supporters who maintain control over polling booths and coordinate the process of 'assisted voting';
Within the spheres of politics, the bureaucracy, and civil society, this paper examines the literature in relation to: obstacles to women’s participation, success factors, outcomes, and policy and donor approaches to supporting women’s participation. The paper also highlights research gaps, and compares the Pacific experience with broader findings on women’s participation in decision making.
This mapping paper examines the environment for women’s leadership in the Pacific. It looks at the key international and regional gender equality instruments, domestic laws, regulations and policies and development programming. These cover:
- Women’s leadership in politics and government.
- Women in the civil service and on boards.
- Women’s leadership for economic empowerment.
- Women’s leadership to improve women’s and children’s safety.
- Leadership and young women.
Lessons learned are:
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:
This report contains highlights for the Pacific Women in Papua New Guinea program, including the conclusion from the mid-term evaluation that the program is on track to achieve its objectives, and that the program uses evidence to inform policy and practice.
Other highlights include:
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.
The 2015 Bougainville General Election was significant for women’s political participation in Bougainville. It was only the third election to be held in Bougainville, and represented the greatest number of women candidates ever to stand. Thirty-five women contested, including 12 women who ran against men in open seats (the other 23 standing in the three seats reserved for women in the Bougainville House of Representatives).
This handbook was initially prepared as a resource for the Candidate Capacity Strengthening Workshop organised by the Fiji Women’s Forum in June 2014. Following the workshop, the handbook was updated to include the experiences of women candidates who attended the workshop. The aim of the Workshop was to assist women candidates to campaign effectively for the September 2014 Fiji election. The Handbook includes comments from participants at a debriefing session following the 2014 elections and candidates interviewed by a Fiji Women’s Rights Movement researcher after the election.
The findings from this study about community views about women in politics and leadership more generally provide important information about current attitudes, how these vary across the population in Fiji, and where change is happening.
The first woman to be elected to local government in Fiji was Mrs Maureen Wright in 1967 who then went on to become the Mayor of Lautoka City Council in 1970. Since then the progress of women in local government has been frustratingly slow. Despite 40 years of institutional development, the number of women elected into municipal councils has only increased by a marginal 4% to 14.5% in 2008.
Despite the existence of affirmative action measures at the sub-national level in almost all Pacific island countries (a little known fact), women’s political representation at this level continues to remain significantly low. Nevertheless, regional trends indicate that women’s political representation at the sub-national level is gradually increasing and in most cases is higher than at the national level.
In 2010, the Cook Islands National Council of Women in partnership with the Commonwealth Local Government Forum Pacific set down an ambitious program to begin to work with women entering decision making positions in the Pa Enua (Island) Governments. There are over 50 seats in local councils throughout the country. The key aims of the Akateretere Anga Tau O Te Pa Enua (meaning leadership in the Islands) Program is to:
- Establish island women in local government networks and coalitions to help drive gender equality goals.
The candidates’ training was held from 2-6 December 2013. Fifteen participants from 8 provinces in the Solomon Islands attended the training. This included twelve potential women candidates from 8 provinces (including Honiara) and three men who expressed interest in contesting the 2014 National Elections were identified by the Solomon Islands National Council of Women to participate in the training.
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.
Gender inequality in Papua New Guinea is widespread, and achievements to date have been poor. Papua New Guinea ranks 123 out of 156 countries on the Gender-related Development Index and 145 out of 177 countries on the Gender Empowerment Measure. Papua New Guinea is 119 in a ranking of 121 countries for women’s political participation.
This report contains information about the activities undertaken as part of the Salamasina - Tausala o Samoa programme, lessons learned and recommendations for the future.