Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697633294296.pdf (Australia)
Inquiry Secretary, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Suite R1 - 120, Parliament House PO Box 6021, CANBERRA ACT 2600 May 2015, Inquiry into the human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific Region Coffey would like to thank the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for its invitation to provide a submission to the inquiry into the human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific Region.
Coffey strongly agrees with the inquiry Terms of Reference that a focus on women and girls is important to the advancement of human rights, economic development, peace and stability in Australia’s region.

Coffey is one of the first publicly listed Australian engineering consulting companies.
Throughout our long history of working in the Indo-Pacific region, we have seen the international development landscape change considerably, including an increased focus by donors in recent years on the needs and priorities of women and girls in development.

We recognise the critical importance of gender equality to economic and social development, poverty reduction and good governance in the region.
For four decades, Coffey’s international development team has devised solutions to numerous international development challenges.

In Australia, Europe and the Americas, we work every day with our clients in government, and the public and private sectors and in-country partners across the developing world to help achieve effective development outcomes.

Our team includes more than 2,100 development professionals and we have more than 70 corporate and project offices worldwide.
Additionally Coffey has in-house gender specialists located in Australia and the US as well as project-based gender specialists who support Coffey to ensure a focus on the needs of women and girls in the programs we implement.

Based on our insights and field experience, we have developed the following recommendations for the Joint Standing Committee to consider as part of their review.
We welcome the raised awareness this inquiry contributes to, and look forward to continuing our support of the Australian Aid program.
Yours Sincerely Sam Spurrett General Manager - International Development (Asia Pacific) 1 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 Summary of Recommendations  Recommendation 1 – Significantly more work is undertaken to bridge the gap between policy and practice Despite the economic and social benefits of gender equality being well documented, a lack of resources, accountability, technical expertise and leadership are key impediments to the advancement of women and girl’s rights.
There is a need to bridge the gap between policy and practice in order to advance women’s rights in the region.

 Recommendation 2 - Development partners increase resources for gender technical expertise to ensure both the practical needs and human rights of women and girls are addressed in program designs There a need for development partners to increase the level of gender analysis included in program designs so that programs can understand what impact – positive or negative they have on women’s rights.
To ensure detailed and nuanced analysis is conducted, sufficient resources for gender technical expertise could be included as standard practice in program design processes.

 Recommendation 3 - Increase the focus on women’s leadership through the Australia Awards Australia Awards are prestigious awards that have a unique opportunity to directly impact on women’s leadership.
As the Australia Awards continue to play an important role in Australia’s development cooperation program, an increased focus on specific women’s leadership activities through the Australia Awards could help to more effectively advance women’s rights in the region.
 Recommendation 4 – Provide additional resources for gender focused activities and gender specialist expertise at program implementation stage to ensure both the practical needs and human rights of women and girls are addressed In an increasing number of cases responsibility for integrating gender equality into mainstream programs is included in the contract for implementers including managing contractors, however very limited or no resources are allocated in the budget for the contractor to mainstream gender.
Resources and gender expertise during implementation are needed to enhance the implementing team and the recipients’ shared understanding of the importance and relevance of the needs and rights of women and girls to the program.
 Recommendation 5 - Increase the focus on gender capacity building, leadership and accountability for gender equality Lack of organisational accountability has been widely acknowledged internationally as one of the major reasons for slow progress in the implementation of gender equality policies.

An institutional focus on gender equality and the needs of women and girls is important for ensuring that the aid program takes gender equality seriously.
Allocating resources to the skilling-up of senior decision-makers at program level around gender can aid build understanding and accountability for gender equality and women’s rights.

This applies equally to donor and implementing partner organisations.

Additional opportunities for building in accountability through Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) and contracts could also be explored.
2 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90  Recommendation 6 – Increase the focus on monitoring and evaluation and sharing lessons about effective approaches for promoting gender equality and women’s rights Gender equality and women’s rights must be addressed in ongoing monitoring and in evaluations to assess whether a program is achieving its objectives.
As gender equality is a complex issues, requiring long-term attitudinal and behavioural change it is also important to be monitoring lessons learned about effective approaches and feeding this back into further efforts.

 Recommendation 7: Encourage Australian private sector companies to be role models in the region.
Coffey is a global company with a significant presence in developing countries not only through our work in international development but also through our broader operations in geotechnical and project management.

Drawing on what we know about international best practice, we recognise the importance of leading by example to promote gender equality.
We recognise that Coffey and other Australian companies take measures to protect and support women’s rights in the countries in which we work and can continue to do more and be role models in this regard.

3 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 Response to the Terms of Reference Recommendation 1 -Significantly more work is undertaken to bridge the gap between policy and practice: Using the example of women’s economic empowerment.
The UN notes a growing recognition among the private sector, that “investing in women and girls has a powerful multiplier effect on productivity, efficiency and economic growth”.1 It has further estimated that low female participation in labour markets in Asia, for example, costs the region up to US$47 billion each year.2 The Australian Aid Program has recognised the importance of women’s economic empowerment, describing it in the 2011 DFAT Gender Equality Strategy3 as one of four pillars around which its work on gender equality and women’s empowerment has been structured.
It is also explicitly linked to economic growth in the 2012 DFAT private sector development strategy, which notes, “Underpinning Australia’s support for private sector growth is a focus on improving women’s economic empowerment”.4 Despite a policy focus, there is a continuing challenge that the Australian Aid Program faces in bridging the gap between policy and practice.
The policy recognition of women’s economic empowerment has resulted in some increases in budgetary allocations, most notably the significant Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development Program, but this is an exceptional example in one region.
As noted in the Office of Development Effectiveness 2014 review; Smart Economics: Evaluation of Australian support for women’s economic empowerment, a strong policy focus has not yet led to a sufficient focus on women’s economic empowerment in mainstream development initiatives focused on economic growth.5 The Australian Aid Program is not alone in this challenge with the review noting that Australia’s efforts are comparable to other OECD donors.
Based on the knowledge and experience from our programs, designers of development programs should directly address the issue of women’s economic empowerment and ensure there are explicit resources available to the program.

Donor policy supportive of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment is very important – and needs to extend to program design and budget allocation.
Other issues that need to be taken into account include – Understanding the business case for focusing on women An aspect of increasing a focus on the role of women in the private sector involves working with the private sector to educate them on the business case for including and supporting women.
During implementation of the DFAT -funded, Coffey managed Enterprise Challenge Fund, Coffey used its impact on women’s economic internal resources to conduct research on the programs empowerment6 looking at policy and practice implications.

Women’s economic empowerment was not a specific objective of the Program.
Interviews with the private sector helped to educate respondents that women’s economic empowerment is not prejudicing the role of women above men, it is still important to choose the right person for the right job.
1 UN News Centre, “Women’s Empowerment Vital for economic development and peace, Migiro says”, 17 May 2010 citing UN Deputy Secretary General Asha Rose Migiro, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34718&Cr=migiro&Cr1 accessed 28.11.2012 2 UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) cited in UN News Centre, “Women’s Empowerment Vital for economic development and peace, Migiro says”, 17 May 2010. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34718&Cr=migiro&Cr1 3 “Opportunities for All” http://www.ausaid.gov.au/aidissues/Documents/thematic-strategies/gender-equality-strategy.pdf.
We note this strategy is currently being updated.
4 See AusAID Private Sector Development Strategy, page 6: http://www.ausaid.gov au/Publications/Documents/private-sector-development- strategy.pdf 5 Office of Development Effectiveness, (2014), Smart Economics: Evaluation of Australian aid support for women’s economic empowerment, ODE, Canberra, 2014 6 Nethercott, Jago-Bassingthwaighte, Jupp (2013) Women’s Economic Empowerment – Practice and Policy Implications from the Enterprise Challenge Fund 4 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 Companies found they had business challenges that could be addressed by better empowerment for women showing the link between human rights and economic growth.
There were industry inefficiencies and underuse of 50% of potential customers and suppliers (women).

The case studies from this research found an important link between gender equality and commercial benefit and this is an area which should be explored further.

A key barrier to women accessing mobile phone banking is across the world women are less likely to own a mobile phone.
WING Cambodia – a company funded by the challenge fund ECF, designed their payment system to be accessed from any phone including one borrowed by a client and provides a non-WING to non-WING service that both men and women without access to a mobile phone can use.

WING has a higher than industry average pro-portion of women using their mobile payment platform.
There is also a need to increase the focus on monitoring outcomes for women in private sector that move beyond measuring household income and collecting sex-disaggregated data.

Monitoring also needs to address the specific benefits to women and how this impacts on household dynamics or a positive / negative impact on the women’s rights.
These findings are not only important for the donor but there is a strong interest from the private sector to learn more about their target suppliers and customers and what this means for their businesses.

Specific programs to support women owned businesses It is also important to provide additional support for women’s businesses which are a valuable, underutilised resource for economic development.
As entrepreneurs, women contribute significantly to household income, job creation and growth of national economies.
Companies owned or managed by women represent between 25% and 33% of formal sector businesses around the world and a larger percentage of informal sector businesses.7 Women’s businesses are typically more successful in surviving economic downturns, helping to build a robust private sector.8 In many parts of the world where women have limited access to formal employment, small business enterprise becomes women’s main source of income.
Importantly, informal businesses, where women are over-represented, account for up to one-half of all economic activity in developing countries.9 However these businesses still face a number of specific enabling environment challenges such as access to tax file numbers or bank accounts, which should be addressed through public sector regulatory programs.
Coffey is working in Nigeria in the Growth and Emerging Markets program for DFID and the World Bank and through the program is supporting the strengthening of women's engagement in market development programs in the country.

Working with the private sector and the public sector in tandem is important to ensure there both women and men are able to participate equally.
Partnering with the private sector to target specific outcomes for women Economic growth programs are important to provide increased resources and there is a direct correlation with an impact on achieving rights outcomes10.

But the nature of the growth is important.

Volatile (unsustainable) growth can have a negative impact on rights as companies operating for short term profits have little interest in supporting the advancement of suppliers or customers.
Pro-poor growth (shared growth) is the best approach for addressing rights obligations, as companies invest in those that were previously excluded leaving them with skills or assets to take 7 IBID, Buvanic et al, p26 8 Ernst and Young (2009) Scaling up: Why women-owned businesses can recharge the global economy.
9 IBID, Buvanic et al, p.26 10 IBID, McKay et al, p. 4 5 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 into other markets and often secure new supply chains that enhance their business.

Targeting support to companies looking at pro-poor markets is an important part of the aid program.
In contexts where women face specific barriers to participation, private sector partnerships could be created with a specific objective of increasing women’s empowerment.

For example a program could target industries where women’s participation is higher, or provide a technical assistance program where gaps in women’s skills are an issue, or target grant funding to companies to develop financial services for women.
Grant funds could be considered to develop innovative approaches to working with women, to specifically target women’s economic opportunities and this could be achieved by strengthening the selection criteria or using ‘funding windows’.

Many of the lessons Coffey has learned from its work in women’s economic empowerment can be applied equally to other sectors.
For example a recent desktop study produced by Coffey for review by USAID mapped and assessed selected USAID programs dedicated to enhancing women’s leadership and political empowerment.
The study concluded that “the relatively low levels of funding for women’s leadership and empowerment activities are not sufficient for USAID to achieve its gender policy objectives in the area of elections and political transitions”.11 It recommended that “USAID should increase funding for these activities at the same time that it improves its program design and management practices to better plan, track, and report the results of its work.” This and other reviews show that there is a significant gap between policy and practice in every aspect of women and girls empowerment, despite the economic and social benefits of gender equality being well documented.
A lack of resources, accountability, technical expertise and leadership are key impediments to the advancement of women and girls rights across the region.
11 USAID/MSI (2014), Women’s Leadership as a Route to Greater Empowerment: Desktop Study, October 30, 2014, p.4 6 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 Recommendation 2 - Development partners increase resources for technical expertise to address the both the practical needs and human rights of women and girls in program designs International reviews of gender mainstreaming highlight the need for design terms of reference to include gender responsibilities, for design teams to have gender expertise and for activity designs to incorporate gender analysis.12 It is Coffey’s experience that while some gender analysis is being included in designs, there is still a need for development partners to increase this and ensure that more nuanced analysis of issues impacting on women and girls is captured during the design phase of their programs.
Coffey has seen many program designs that call for the managing contractor to mainstream gender, however the design does not articulate what kind of gender outcomes are to be achieved.

Gender mainstreaming is not an outcome in itself, rather a tool to achieve gender results.

It is critical that programs designs better articulate the gender results to be achieved.

Design documents could set clear and realistic parameters that can then be included in the scope of services for implementers.
Often a lack of gender analysis in designs is linked to the fact that design processes rarely include specific gender specialists on the design teams for mainstream programs.

Greater attention during the design phase with specific and adequate resources allocated to have qualified and experienced gender specialists on design teams for all mainstream designs is necessary.
It is important to conduct gender analysis and have the context right so programs can understand how gender equality is relevant to the effectiveness of their program and what impact – positive or negative - they can have on women’s rights.

The Australia Awards Program in Mongolia (AAM), funded by DFAT and managed by Coffey is an example of how inclusion of gender equality in a mainstream design can lead to specific activities and outcomes for women during program implementation.
AAM was established in 2003.

Since 2003, 197 women and 103 men have studied in Australia and there are 229 alumni who have returned to Mongolia.

In addition to providing scholarships, the Program supports alumni on return, using tracer studies and other research to track progress of alumni and record the ways they use their new skills.
Gender analysis conducted by Coffey during the previous phase of the program (2008-2013) showed that women alumni face different challenges from men in fully utilising their new skills including specific challenges in relation to promotion to leadership positions.13 Broader data on women’s leadership in Mongolia showed that, despite more women completing tertiary education than men, there were very few women in senior leadership and decision-making positions relative to the numbers of women in the workforce.
For example, in the Mongolian civil service in 2007, women occupied 53.6% of all positions; however, they occupied only 12% of executive director, 15.8% of deputy director and 44.3% of senior officer positions.14 This gender analysis was taken into account and included in the design of the current phase of the program in recognition that gender specific efforts were needed to improve the number of women promoted to senior leadership and decision-making positions after completing their Award.
Thus the new Program design included funding for a specific initiative to foster access for women to senior leadership positions.

An annual budget of AUD100,000 (total of AUD500,000) was allocated for this initiative.

This was the first time an Australia Awards program design included this type of gender analysis and specific funding for activities targeted at women.

As a result AAM was able to engage gender specialist expertise to design and implement a leadership program targeting women.
The Women’s Leadership Program (WLP) is contributing to the overall goal and objectives of AAM.

Currently 23 women and 2 men are undertaking an 8-month long leadership program that is supporting them to:  increase their leadership and decision making skills.
12 See for example AusAID (2002), Gender and Development: GAD lessons and Challenges for the Australian Aid Program, AusAID (2008), Gender Equality, Annual Thematic Performance Report 2006-2007, ADB (2010), Gender Equality Results in ADB Projects: Regional Synthesis of Rapid Gender Assessments in Indonesia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, UNDP (2006), Evaluation of Gender Mainstreaming in UNDP, and Hunt, J, 2004.
Successful strategies for addressing gender equality issues in programs and projects: What works?

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13 MASP, (2012), Gender, Inclusion and Australia Awards Mongolia 14 DFAT (2013), Design Document, Mongolia Australian Scholarships Program II, p. 52.

7 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90  gain a broader and deeper knowledge of issues that are important to the future of Mongolia.
 improve their opportunities to contribute to and influence the future of Mongolian society.

 establish and develop expanded and diversified personal and professional networks.

 develop links between Australia and Mongolia.


 gain a deeper understanding of gender equality, particularly as it relates to leadership Recommendation 3 - Increase the focus on women’s leadership through the Australia Awards Women are half the global population – but very few are able to gain decision-making roles in the bodies that speak for them as citizens.
In our region very few countries have more than 20% women’s representation in parliament with the Pacific having some of the lowest representation of women in the world.

DFAT has recognised this stating all Australian governance aid programs will mainstream women’s empowerment and equality issues, demonstrating they are addressing issues of women’s leadership, economic and physical security.

Women are often better represented in local politics than national politics.
Measures to improve female representation at national level are slowly being built, with government ministries and civil society organisations working together to create change.

Coffey has worked in governance and leadership programs across the region in particular in Papua New Guinea where it has managed the Economic and Public Sector Program, the Provincial and Local Level Government Program and the Incentive Fund.

Coffey has conducted research on women’s leadership and political empowerment for USAID.
Coffey has also managed eight Australia Awards Programs on behalf of DFAT.

Our experience tells us that there is a need to change the mindset of men and women to enable opportunities to allow women into decision making positions and for women to believe that they are capable of participating meaningfully in decision making processes.
Australia Awards are prestigious awards and have a unique opportunity to directly impact on women’s leadership and to move women into positions that will enable them to influence policy and programs focused on improving women’s rights.
In managing a large number of Awards programs across South and South East Asia, Coffey has supported DFAT to ensure that the Awards program takes a direct approach to improving the number of women participating as there is strong evidence that women empowered in leadership positions provide opportunities and work as role models for other women to advance.
In regions where women’s rights have low priority such as South Asia, research found that women are less likely to apply or be successful for an Award due to cultural and social barriers and attitudes, and also their participation in workforce (decision making and top management levels) both in public and private sectors.

Additionally, literacy rates of women are low – particularly those in targeted geographic areas or from cultural minority groups.
This significantly limits the pool of eligible women whom programs can target.

In Australia Awards Pakistan, Coffey developed a Gender and Social Inclusion strategy to address the difficulty of the program in meeting gender targets.

The strategy included conducting sound analysis of the Pakistan context, targeted promotional activities and introduction of a foundation award year to bridge skills gaps for both women and men.
This increased both the number of women applying and the award rates and the number of applicants in the gender equality field.
Surveys found Australia Awards Pakistan both male and female alumni are making contributions to gender equality through activities such as: health literacy training for women in immunisation; home birthing; breast feeding; nutrition; danger signs in pregnancy; young children and dehydration; reproductive health training for female community health workers and the Population and Welfare Department; a child rights situational analysis in Sindh and, workshops for local human rights associations in Punjab.
8 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 In the programs it has managed, Coffey has developed targeted strategies to ensure the maximum number of qualified women can and do apply for an Australia Award, even when in some cases their management contract did not require them to do so.
Strategies include:  Promoting applications for Australia Awards by women and facilitating their participation throughout the scholarship cycle  Analysing gender differences in career development, promotion, remuneration and benefits after awardees return to their home country after their study  Addressing unbalanced educational opportunities for women in promotion and selection strategies  Encouraging the study of gender courses in Australia to increase gender mainstreaming capacity in the home countries  Organising alumni seminars and other activities on gender equality issues  Using flexible award opportunities such as short courses and split site courses which reduce the amount of time women need to spend away from their family and households and allows more women to take part.
It is Coffey’s experience that Australia Award programs can do more to promote women’s leadership through an increased focus on gender in their design.

There is very little gender analysis conducted during the design of Awards programs and the focus in designs tends to be on ensuring the same numbers of female and male awardees.

However a focus on equality in terms of same numbers is not sufficient to fully address gender equality and to promote women’s leadership.
If the overall number of women with graduate level qualifications in a country is lower than the number of men with those qualifications then it clear that women have some catching up to do and that in fact a higher number of female awardees at graduate level will be required to close this gender gap.

In particular, there needs to be a greater focus on barriers that women face during study and on return to their home country, and on measuring the differences in outcomes for men and women on their return.
While data collected by Coffey’s scholarships effectiveness group in conjunction with Coffey’s in-house gender specialist indicate that women in several countries struggle to fully utilise their skills upon return, to Coffey’s knowledge the Australia Awards in Mongolia program is the only Australia Awards Program to date that has included a specific focus on this during the program design and the only Australia Awards program to allocate specific and substantial funding to focus on women’s leadership.
As the Australia Awards continue to play an important role in the development cooperation program, an increased focus on women’s leadership could help to more effectively advance women’s rights in the region.

New innovations being trialled through Australia Awards programs such as the in-Australia enrichment program of the Australia Awards Indonesia also offer opportunities to undertake more targeted work on women’s leadership.
Recommendation 4 - Provide additional resources for gender focused activities and gender specialist expertise at program implementation stage to ensure both the practical needs and human rights of women and girls are addressed In an increasing number of cases responsibility for integrating gender equality into mainstream programs is included in the contract for implementers including managing contractors.
While Coffey supports this, often program designs and contracts state that gender will be mainstreamed with limited or no resources allocated in the program budget to do so.
International reviews of gender mainstreaming clearly show that gender capacity building and gender expertise during implementation are needed to enhance the 9 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 implementing team and the recipients’ shared understanding of the importance and relevance of the needs of women and girls to the program15.
In addition it is important to note that promoting the rights of women and girls and achieving gender equality requires changing attitudes and behaviours.

When compared to many health programs that Coffey has managed which also require changes in attitudes and behaviours, there is still disparity in program budgets.

Health programs budgets invest heavily in working on behaviour change in a planned and funded way.
When it comes to gender equality behaviour change, funds and resources need to be made available in designs and program budgets to deliver the same sort of outcomes.

The absence of gender analysis in designs and technical expertise and resources in the implementation of mainstream programs can not only result in a lack of focus on gender equality and women’s rights, it can also lead to an inadequate or too narrow a focus.
For example it is Coffey’s experience that when team’s lack experience, work on gender equality tends to focus more on addressing women’s practical needs and ensuring that women participate in program activities such as training and employment.

While supporting women’s practical needs is an important first step in advancing women’s empowerment, addressing their practical needs is not in itself enough to help them to achieve their rights.
For example, programs focusing on women’s economic empowerment can provide small loans (microfinance) or invest in women’s cooperatives to provide additional income that supports women’s practical needs.

Where women’s rights are not also adequately addressed, the additional income could potentially negatively impact on women leading to partner jealousy or domestic violence or additional stress on the household.
It is important for each program to have a clear understanding of the context in which it works and appropriate tools and resourcing for assessment and measurement.

Additional activities that promote awareness by women and men of the human rights of women and girls are essential to support sustainable long-term change.
There also needs to be an increased focus on women’s rights in development discourse, including in design documents and program strategies so that programs move beyond a focus on women’s practical needs.

In order to improve outcomes for women and girls through the aid program all mainstream programs could include resources to hire experienced gender experts onto their teams.

Gender specialists need to provide advice at all stages of project / program cycle to other consultants and partners.
When DFAT program designs and contracts included increased funding for resourcing of gender the likelihood for success and effectiveness in this area of work would be significantly enhanced.

The Economic and Public Sector Program (EPSP), in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is funded by DFAT and managed by Coffey.
This program underscores the strategic benefits of including gender analysis and resources in program design, and adequately resourcing mainstream programs implementation with gender specialists and a budget line/s for gender and capacity building activities.

EPSP is building the capacity of central government agencies in PNG to deliver more effective services to men, women, boys and girls throughout PNG.
EPSP recently received a commendation from the Australian High Commission in PNG for its work to improve the lives of women and girls in PNG.

The Program design for EPSP included gender analysis and resources for a full time Gender Specialist (which Coffey included as a national position) and a locally engaged full-time Gender Coordinator to support the Gender Specialist.

EPSP is one of few mainstream programs that contractually include this level of gender resources at the program level.
This was a result of commitment by DFAT staff at the PNG Post.

After these specialist advisors initiated and led 15 See for example, ADB, 2010, Gender Equality Results in ADB Projects: Regional Synthesis of Rapid Gender Assessments in Indonesia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, UNDP (2006), Evaluation of Gender Mainstreaming in UNDP, and Hunt, J, 2004.

Successful strategies for addressing gender equality issues in programs and projects: What works?, Development Bulletin, no.

64, pp.

53-57.
64, pp.

53-57.

10 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 gender capacity assessments of partner government agencies Coffey was able to successfully advocate for increased funding from DFAT for another whole of government gender adviser to be co-located in the PNG Department of Personnel Management.

With an adequate gender team in place the program’s mainstream advisory team was provided with gender training.
One of the mainstream advisers found it so useful that immediately after the training they increased their consideration of gender in their work as a Human Resources Adviser for the Department of Personnel Management (DPM).

As a result of this they worked with DPM to revise the Public Service General Orders which now include a section on gender.
They also gained support from the Secretary of DPM and the Senior Management Team to support DPM staff to develop an Equity and Inclusion Policy for the Public Service.

The new policy framework is a first step in removing structural barriers to women’s participation in the public service.

This is a significant achievement in the PNG context where the status of women remains an ongoing challenge.
In addition, with a team of three dedicated and experienced full-time gender resources EPSP has helped to establish and support a Senior Women in the Public Sector Research Group in PNG, a high powered cooperative of women who have a strong understanding of the issues faced by women in the public sector.

The group is led by Dame Carol Kidu, a three-term parliamentarian.
EPSP is also supporting coaching, mentoring and leadership training for women and supporting younger women to embrace leadership roles in the public sector.

EPSP through its gender team is also working to address violence against women and girls by working with cooperatives of men, encouraging them to play a leadership role in supporting equity for women in the public service.
The Program engaged the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre to implement a public sector male advocacy training program, a 12-month program that brings together male leaders from the public sector who support the empowerment of women and the principles of gender equality.

The training is equipping men with the concepts and knowledge that will help to transform their own attitudes and behaviours, and influence their peers in the workplace and in their communities.
The training has a focus on violence against women, which is a key barrier to women holding down a job in PNG.

One training participant from the Department of Works has initiated several activities for women, including securing funding to purchase a bus to transport female employees safely to and from work.
EPSP’s support to the PNG government and DPM to attend a gender based violence conference in Sydney in February 2015 led to an invitation by the United Nations (UN) Rapporteur to a UN side event in New York in March.

EPSP sponsored the Secretary and Deputy Secretary from DPM to participate and present.

The EPSP gender team was also approached by Ok Tedi Mining to assist them with male advocacy work during their National Safety Week.
Recommendation 5- Increase the focus on gender capacity building, leadership and accountability for gender equality Even with an increased allocation of resources, our experience has been that staff exposure, including Team Leader level and above (or in the case of DFAT, Senior Executive Level), to training on gender and development is critical.

Training and awareness raising can support organisational accountability.
Lack of organisational accountability has been widely acknowledged internationally as one of the major reasons for slow progress in the implementation of gender equality policies.

16An institutional focus on gender equality and the needs of women and girls is important for ensuring that the aid program takes gender equality seriously.
As the OECD noted: ‘[i]ssues that an organisation takes seriously become a focus of internal controls and culture’.17 In the absence of senior level buy-in at the program level, success is to some extent dependent on the interest and commitment of individual team leaders and their staff, and motivated counterparts.
16 AusAID, (2007) Gender equality in Australia’s aid program: Why and How, p. 25 17 OECD, Gender equality and aid delivery: What has changed in development co-operation agencies since 1999?, Paris, 2007, p. 40 11 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 The aid program should be commended for the leadership role it has taken to promote the needs of women and girls and for the steps it has taken to institutionalise a more consistent response, including through the delivery of gender training for staff; an increase in the number of gender advisers working full time within DFAT Canberra at levels that can have institutional influence; the appointment of regional gender advisers; conducting gender reviews; and more recently through the inclusion of a new target for effective gender mainstreaming.
In order to effectively operationalise this target, it will be important to ensure that senior leaders are well versed in gender issues and that staff are supported by robust and transparent systems and practices that include adequate attention to accountability for gender equality.

As a contractor we have seen an increase in accountability over the last several years in relation to monitoring and evaluation (M&E).
Resources for monitoring and evaluation specialists have increased from short-term inputs to many long-term positions and/or a mix of international and local advisers.

This shift has occurred as AusAID/DFAT recognised that good M&E was linked to good development.

At the same time the aid program became more accountable to the public through the Office of Development Effectiveness.

It was recognised that to do M&E well it needed to be well resourced.

The same can be said for gender equality.


Coffey believes there are additional opportunities to build in accountability for gender equality.

Our experience shows that when responsibility for implementing gender equality is included in contracts and given funding and support, and when gender results are documented in program design, it is more likely to be taken seriously by both the contractor and the DFAT program manager managing the contract.
More could also be done to hold development partners receiving aid funds accountable for implementing their own gender equality commitments through the inclusion of gender equality targets in Memorandums of Understanding.

Incentive payments attached to gender targets could also be included in funding agreements with partners.

There also needs to be more focus on gender capacity building of partners receiving development funding.

Most DFAT funded programs today have a large focus on capacity building.
Capacity building activities are usually linked to a partner’s core business and often focused on technical issues related to their work and while it is a requirement for most programs to also work with partners to address gender equality, designs do not often acknowledge that partners will also need capacity building to better understand these issues, their relevance to their core business and practical ways in which they can be addressed.
Greater attention to this should be given during the design phase with specific resources allocated for such capacity building.

The Incentive Fund in Papua New Guinea (PNG), funded by DFAT and managed by Coffey, demonstrates how effective specific gender focused capacity building activities with partners can be.
Working with the private sector and NGO partners, Phase III of the Incentive Fund supports well-managed organisations to access funding for innovative projects that have a strong developmental impact for the people of PNG in order to deliver significant and immediate tangible economic and / or social development outcomes for men, women and children.
The program wanted to lay the groundwork for increased understanding of the importance of equity of access for stakeholders and beneficiaries of funded projects and developed social inclusion checklists for both organisations and projects and provided grant funding for social inclusion activities.

The program provided funding for partners to include social inclusion activities alongside their grant and trained them on how to deliver them.
The program found how important it is for partners to be empowered to understand barriers and to identify ways to make changes.

This can also lead to organisational change.

Notre Dame Secondary School was approved for an Incentive Fund grant of 5,217,274 kina to build a staff duplex, a dormitory for 52 girls, two 2-story classroom blocks, a new kitchen and dining hall extension, a new 2- storey administration building and the existing water system was upgraded.
Additionally from the grant 33,724 kina was approved for social inclusion activities.

The social inclusion activities included: Gender and child protection in-service training for 38 teachers (provided by the Department for Community Development).

The training was extended to Notre Dame’s feeder schools.

Surveys of staff and students, and of attendees at social inclusion training and activities, were completed by the school’s project team.
12 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 Teachers completing the survey said they acquired new information about the Lukautim Pikinini Act which would help protect children.

Consequently the teachers felt they would be more conscious of the issues and make sure their students knew their rights.

“It made us look at issues so it has to have changed us personally.
I think we are looking for more ways to help young women to know their legal rights.” Recommendation 6 – Increase the focus on monitoring and evaluation and sharing lessons about effective approaches: Given the significant funding invested in international development by the Australian government and other donors in the region, and globally monitoring and evaluation is an important step for assessing progress toward development outcomes and for measuring the impact of development funding.
Although gender equality and women’s rights are commonly discussed priorities for donors and national governments in the region, in mainstream programs, more progress can be made in measuring gender equality outcomes.

If gender impacts are not evaluated, they are less likely to be given proper attention.
As noted by the World Bank, gender equality and women’s rights must be addressed in ongoing monitoring and in evaluations for the same reason other issues are monitored: to assess whether an activity is achieving its objectives.18 Monitoring needs to extend beyond measuring women’s participation and collecting sex- disaggregated data to a focus on measuring the impact of programs on women’s rights.
As gender equality is a complex issue, requiring long-term attitudinal and behavioural change it is also important to be monitoring lessons learned about effective approaches and feeding this back into further efforts.I For example, during implementation of the DFAT -funded, Coffey managed Enterprise Challenge Fund, Coffey conducted research on the programs impact on women’s economic empowerment19 looking at policy and practice implications even though women’s economic empowerment was not a specific objective of the Program.
The research provided important information about how the private sector can support women’s economic empowerment.

It also identified promising practices in women’s economic empowerment than can be achieved through the design and implementation of challenge funds, as well as from the private sector’s own initiative.

This kind of research conducted by mainstream programs can support an increased focus on the achievement of gender equality results and provide the evidence base for better accountability.
Recommendation 7 - Encourage Australian private sector companies to be role models in the region.

Coffey is a global company with a significant presence in developing countries not only for our work in international development but also through our broader operations in geotechnical and project management.

Drawing on what we know about international best practice, we recognise the importance of leading by example to promote gender equality.
We recognise that Coffey and other Australian companies can take measures to protect and support women’s rights in the countries in which we work.

For example in Papua New Guinea (PNG) like some other companies, Coffey has implemented a ‘Domestic Violence and Workplace Policy’ since 2012 in response to the significant risk of violence both at home and in the community that is a constant presence in the lives of many women in PNG, especially in the Highlands and major cities.
Previous research established that two out of three women experience domestic violence as a national average and that 50 per cent of women have experienced forced sex.20 Spousal abuse is also very high in PNG and domestic violence is illegal.

While most instances of domestic violence occur away from work, the effects of these actions often have an impact on the survivor’s workplace, including his or her work performance.
18 World Bank, (2009); Gender and Agriculture Sourcebook, Module 16: Gender Issues in Monitoring and Evaluation 19 Nethercott, Jago-Bassingthwaighte, Jupp (2013) Women’s Economic Empowerment – Practice and Policy Implications from the Enterprise Challenge Fund 20 Coffey, Office of Development Effectiveness, Addressing Violence Against Women in Melanesia and East Timor – PNG Country Report, Canberra, 2008, p1-2 13 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90 Domestic violence can impact on the workplace through absenteeism due to injuries, or ill health caused by extreme stress.
Injuries and ill health may also result in poor performance at work.

Domestic violence can touch the workplace when a perpetrator begins to abuse the person at work, for example through repeated abusive phone calls, stalking outside the office, or refusing to allow the victim to attend work.

If domestic violence takes the form of sexual assault, HIV transmission can occur.
Obviously, this can have further distressing impacts on all aspects of a person’s life, including their attendance and performance at work.

The purpose of Coffey’s Domestic Violence in the Workplace Policy is to ensure Coffey provides consistent, supportive and equitable support for employees experiencing domestic violence across all of its programs and offices in PNG.
The policy sets out guidelines for:  Coffey’s responsibilities;  employee rights and responsibilities;  appropriate workplace support for staff affected by domestic violence;  appropriate actions and disciplinary measures for perpetrators of domestic violence;  a security procedure for dealing with DV incidents in the workplace: and  implementing and monitoring the policy.
Policy implementation is aided by support staff who Coffey has trained with the assistance of a local domestic violence crisis centre.

Coffey also provides awareness training to staff each year.

Coffey also raises awareness about violence against women through its annual White Ribbon campaign.

Our General Manager for International Development is a White Ribbon Ambassador and men from each of our project offices around the region have become white ribbon advocates, organising events each year.
Coffey has established its own “My Oath” page on our intranet where men from around the region can take the oath never to commit, condone violence against women.

In addition Coffey has two dedicated gender technical advisers for its Asia Pacific team who support Coffey projects to address gender equality.

Coffey has a gender equality commitment statement and provides gender training for all its staff.

Coffey team members are leading the way in the industry working with programs across the region21.
Coffey’s Pooja Naidu Kingsley has been shortlisted for a prestigious Asian Women of Achievement Award 2015.

Pooja, who is based in our London office, is an international development specialist who recently managed a UK Department for International Development (DFID)-funded AUD $48m peace-building program in Pakistan.

She is currently managing a DFID-funded program in Kenya which is helping to improve security for the poor, and reduce violence against women and girls.
Pooja said she is motivated by the bigger picture of development and stabilisation efforts.

“It is important to understand the end of goal of the work we are undertaking, and appreciating what it is these programs are striving to achieve,” she said.
“Implementing such complex programming doesn’t come without its significant challenges, but our efforts must keep those we are supporting at the forefront.” 21 http://www.coffey.com/en/about-us/latest-news/coffey-manager-shortlisted-for-asian-women-of-achievement-awards/ 14 Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 90