Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1694859748488.pdf (Australia)
SUBMISSION INQUIRY INTO THE DELIVERY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF AUSTRALIA’S BILATERAL AID PROGRAM IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 CONTENTS Executive summary 1 Improving Papua New Guinea’s progress towards internationally-recognised development goals: gender equality and women’s empowerment 1.1 A cohesive, comprehensive gender strategy for Australia’s aid to Papua New Guinea 1.2 Programming and resourcing that reflects the Government’s commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment 1.3 Supporting gender-sensitive poverty measurement 1.4 Specific gender mainstreaming targets for all programs and initiatives 1.5 Reflecting women’s diversity in programming 1.6 Strengthening systems for tracking expenditure on and assessing progress towards gender equality 1.7 Considering ways to reduce violence against women in all programming 2 Increasing private sector involvement in reducing poverty and addressing gender inequality 2.1 The informal sector 2,2 Private sector practices 2.3 Trade 2.4 Infrastructure investments and consulting firm contracts 3 Supporting inclusive development by investing in women’s empowerment 3.1 Violence against women and girls 3.2 Women’s civil and political rights and leadership 3.3 Women’s economic rights and empowerment 4 Supporting inclusive development by investing in good governance Summary of recommendations i 1 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY IWDA is the leading Australian agency entirely focussed on women’s rights and gender equality in the Asia Pacific region.
IWDA has worked in Papua New Guinea (PNG) since our establishment in 1985.

Currently, IWDA partners with women’s organisations in three Provinces – Eastern Highlands, Jiwaka and East New Britain – and in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville to advance the rights of women and promote gender equality.
This submission is informed by this long history and the experiences of our partners who experience directly the challenges of development in Papua New Guinea, and often respond to urgent priorities in the face of absent, inadequate, or inappropriate state action.

IWDA commends the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for initiating this inquiry.
Papua New Guinea shares significant history with Australia – socially, economically and culturally – and is the second largest recipient of Australian aid.

Australia is the largest aid donor to Papua New Guinea.

For both countries, development assistance is significant and its effectiveness a priority.

Logic and experience tell us that no program can be effective when half of the potential participants and beneficiaries are excluded.
In Papua New Guinea, the reality is that half the population – women and girls – are largely excluded from participating in and benefiting from some aspects of life, denying their basic human rights.

Persistent, profound, and widespread gender inequality, formal and informal discrimination, multiple systemic barriers to women’s civil, political and economic participation and an epidemic of violence against women exists in Papua New Guinea.
Unless Australia reflects the significance of this situation through a concerted effort to address it in our bilateral aid program, it is effectively accepting and potentially reinforcing ongoing human rights violations and structural impediments to PNG’s social, political and economic development.
To overcome the deeply embedded structural barriers and cultural norms that exclude and marginalise women in Papua New Guinea, and ensure that Australia’s aid program benefits all PNG citizens, this submission recommends that Australia’s bilateral program specifically consider the needs, concerns, interests and priorities of women at every stage – in consulting stakeholders, developing strategy, designing and implementing programs, assessing impact and learning, and iterating improvement.
Papua New Guinea’s development cannot not be secured without concerted effort to ensure women’s diverse situations and challenges are recognised and that all activities enable and model women’s participation and involvement in decision-making.

Specific initiatives focused on overcoming the profound barriers experienced by women and girls need to run alongside specific requirements for women to be involved in and benefit from all mainstream programs.
To do this effectively and consistently, gender must be integrated at the program level.

This means ensuring gender analysis is conducted and used, strategically and in implementation.

It also means developing systems and processes to support staff to integrate gender and enable reporting on related expenditure and progress towards gender equality.
A consistent, systematic approach to gender and gender equality will improve the effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program with Papua New Guinea, and ensure the Australian Government’s policy commitments to gender equality translate into programming and resourcing, in line with the target that at least 80 per cent of investments address gender issues in their implementation1.
Such a systematic approach makes sense regardless of the overall level of expenditure, helping ensure that Australia’s whole aid program contributes to gender equality and women’s empowerment and supports the Papua New Guinean Government to meet its core responsibility to secure the rights of all citizens.
1 Commonwealth of Australia, DFAT, Australian aid: promoting prosperity, reducing poverty, enhancing stability, June 2014. i | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 In addition, this submission highlights the need for much greater focus on the widespread violence experienced by women in Papua New Guinea.
The costs of this violence are huge, for individual women, their families and communities, and for PNG’s national economy.

Given evidence on the high percentage of women and girls experiencing violence, and the high percentage of men perpetrating violence against women in Papua New Guinea, all Australian aid activities in Papua New Guinea need to assume violence against women is a relevant concern and specifically include measures to reduce and not exacerbate violence against women.
We also highlight the under-representation of women in almost all areas of life, and the wider ramifications of this for Papua New Guinea’s development.

Addressing the barriers to women’s participation in all activities funded through Australia’s aid program is key to more informed and representative governance.
ii | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 1.
IMPROVING PAPUA NEW GUINEA’S PROGRESS TOWARDS INTERNATIONALLY-RECOGNISED DEVELOPMENT GOALS: GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IWDA welcomes the Australian Government’s 10-year regional Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development Program and the long-term commitment to improve the political, economic and social opportunities of Pacific women.
Funding for this program, which includes approximately $57 million to the Papua New Guinea Country Program, is critical to address the democratic deficit inherent in women’s profound under-representation in all areas of public life and enable more informed, representative government.
Priorities include working with local organisations to get more Pacific women into parliament and local government; increasing economic access and opportunities for women and girls; reducing violence; and increasing women’s participation in peace, democracy and security issues and planning.
Gender equality and women’s rights are identified as a priority for Australia’s bilateral aid program with Papua New Guinea, ‘critical to Papua New Guinea’s economic and human development and ?therefore also critical cross-cutting issues for Australia’s engagement in Papua New Guinea.’2 The importance of gender equality as a policy priority for Australia is reinforced by the limited investment by the Papua New Guinea Government: based on its analysis of the 2014 Papua New Guinea budget, DFAT estimates that ‘the Papua New Guinea Government has allocated only K1.5 million (A$0.654 million) to specific gender initiatives.’3 Strengthening the following areas, in both the PNG country program and Australia’s aid program as a whole, will improve gender equality and women’s rights in Papua New Guinea.
1.1 A cohesive, comprehensive gender strategy for Australia’s aid to Papua New Guinea This will provide strategic policy and implementation guidance, outline how Australia’s bilateral aid program will implement policy commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment made by the Australian and PNG Governments.

It must begin with gender analysis.


Without an understanding of how the circumstances, needs and interests of women and men, girls and boys are different, it is more difficult to target policy or programming, leading to poor or sub-optimal results.

This reduces the efficiency and effectiveness of policies and programs and their impact on progressing the rights of women and girls.
This analysis should assess potential risks, as well as potential opportunities that arise in relation to gender, and outline strategies to mitigate risks and leverage opportunities.

It is not possible to fulfil the fundamental responsibility to ‘do no harm’ without consistent and systematic integration of gender analysis in policy and programming.
‘Gender-blind’ decision making that does not consider potential impacts on women, men, boys and girls— and on the economic and social relations between them—risks missing opportunities to progress the rights of women and girls and may result in unintended adverse consequences.

When such consequences would have been readily foreseeable had gender analysis been undertaken, policy makers are effectively complicit in such harm.
Recommendation 1 The Australian Government develops a comprehensive gender strategy for Australia’s bilateral aid program with Papua New Guinea, in consultation with Papua New Guinean women and men and a range of organisations representing their interests and concerns.

2 Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2014).

Aid Program Performance Report 2013-14 Papua New Guinea.

p.19 3 Ibid.
p.19 3 Ibid.

p.20 1 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 Recommendation 2 The Australian Government requires the PNG country program and initiatives funded through it to undertake gender analysis as routine, including conducting meaningful consultation with Papua New Guinea women and men, and reflects this analysis in design and implementation.
1.2 Programming and resourcing that reflects the Government’s commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment Ensuring programming and resourcing reflect the Australian Government’s policy emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment will strengthen the contribution of the aid program to protecting and advancing the human rights of women in Papua New Guinea.

It will also strengthen the effectiveness of Australia’s aid program as a whole.
Programming guidance must include specific requirements to integrate gender, with support to enable those responsible for designing and implementing programs to succeed.

As the following examples show, the fact that gender equality is a policy priority is not sufficient in itself to ensure integration in programs as a matter of course.
EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES The ODE Evaluation of Gender in Economic Programming This substantial thematic evaluation of Australian aid support for women’s economic empowerment, published in 2014, found that: In the 2013-14 financial year approximately 25 per cent of the Australian aid budget was invested in the economic sectors (i.e.
primary industry, service provision, manufacturing, transport, rural development, energy, trade, business, banking), but that ‘less than a third of this economic sector investment can demonstrate an explicit focus on gender equality.

 Examples of good gender practice in economic sector projects in the case study countries, which included Papua New Guinea, ‘were the exception, rather than the rule’.
Only about one-third of Australian aid staff interviewed felt confident about how to incorporate gender within a project cycle, and many pointed to a need for more sector-specific advice.

 Only one-quarter of the initiatives reviewed reported on any gender-related outcomes, and evidence of gender-related results in the economic sectors is “weak or non-existent”.

The evaluation found huge variability in the gender focus in different countries.
In Papua New Guinea (and Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam) less than 20 per cent of economic sector aid was principally or significantly focused on gender.4 This figure was more than 80 per cent in Laos, Latin America, Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
The examples below highlight the impact that a focus on gender equality has on results: Transport: The Papua New Guinea transport initiative was among 3 of 7 initiatives reviewed that ‘addressed gender in design/and/or implementation plans reasonably well.’5 ‘The Papua New Guinea initiative also had a strong M&E system that collected sex-disaggregated data on performance indicators.
These include the number of people employed in road maintenance, participation in training and workshops, the level of women’s participation in community consultations, and the use of gender-sensitive recruitment and employment procedures by contractors.

When the initiative’s monitoring data revealed a decline in women’s employment in a particular geographic area, staff took steps to rectify this.
The initiative achieved good results in employing women as workers in road maintenance crews: by 2010, women represented 25–30 per cent of workers.6 Missed opportunities in the Enterprise Challenge Fund A review of women’s economic empowerment through the Enterprise Challenge Fund (ECF), a A$20.5 million initiative over six years, illustrates how a lack of specific focus on gender equality led to 4 Betteridge, A and Howes, S (2014), ‘Women’s economic empowerment and Australian aid: more work to be done’ http://devpolicy.org/womens-economic-empowerment-and-australian-aid-more-work-to-be-done-20141008/ 5 Office of Development Effectiveness (2014), Smart economics: evaluation of Australian aid support for women’s economic empowerment, ODE, Canberra, p.44 6 Ibid, p.48 2 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 missed opportunities, constraining progress.
The ECF offered the private sector incentives to find innovative ways to engage the poor as employees, suppliers and customers.

Although gender equality and women’s economic empowerment was not a direct aim of the fund – described as perplexing given the existing policy framework supporting the integration of gender equality – the ECF did in fact achieve some impressive results in promoting gender equality and empowering women economically.
However, the failure to include gender equality as a specific objective led to significant missed opportunities.

‘Imagine what the public and private sectors could do if they put a big effort into women’s economic empowerment, and designed and funded programs that chased this important objective as though it were a seat on the UN Security Council?’7 Both of the above examples are drawn from recent evaluations funded and published by the Australian Government.
These include specific recommendations to strengthen the aid program, most of which are relevant to the Papua New Guinea program and have already been accepted by the Australian Government.

This Inquiry can utilise and support this prior work by recommending a process for tracking and reporting on recommendations accepted by the Australian Government.
This could include, for example, formal consideration of the continued relevance of recommendations previously accepted by the Australian Government in developing or updating country strategic plans.

This would provide a structured process for capitalising on previous thinking, analysis and learning including identifying factors that have hindered action.
Recommendation 3 The Australian Government conducts a stocktake of recommendations on gender equality in Australia’s aid program and in the Papua New Guinea country program that it has formally accepted over the last seven years and assesses their relevance to current policy frameworks and implementation efforts.
Recommendation 4 The Australian Government establishes or utilises an existing mechanism such as the Annual Program Performance Report to track and report on progress in implementing recommendations from evaluations, reviews or inquiries accepted by the Australian Government.

1.3 Supporting gender-sensitive poverty measurement Global poverty data is currently collected in relation to households, not individuals.
To disaggregate data, assumptions are made about how poverty is distributed within the household, for example, that everyone within the household is equally poor, or not.

This makes it impossible to know with accuracy whether there are more women than men in poverty (or vice versa), and whether and if so how this varies across the life-course or with factors such as disability.
It hides the circumstances of individuals within households, when we know that resources and opportunities are not always equally shared, and decision- making and safety not equally enjoyed.

It is deeply problematic that this continues, 20 years after 198 countries supported the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, including the commitment to address the relationship between gender and poverty and improve the collection and use of sex-disaggregated data.

What we measure matters.


It reflects what is valued, drives the visibility of issues and influences where resources are invested.

Governments and other actors need to be able to see where deprivation lies, and the factors that contribute to it, in order to develop effective, targeted policies and programs.

This requires tracking human development progress in a way that shows who is deprived, to what extent, and whether this is influenced by other factors such as gender, age or disability.
Through the Papua New Guinea country program, the Australian Government can lead change by supporting the measurement of poverty and deprivation in a way that is gender-sensitive and can be disaggregated by sex, age, disability and other factors, and encourage other organisations and institutions do the same.
7 Nethercott K. and Jago-Bassingthwaighte, M (2013), ‘The private sector: the new black in women’s economic empowerment’ http://devpolicy.org/the-private-sector-the-new-black-in-womens-economic-empowerment-20130308/ 3 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES Improving the measurement of poverty and gender equity IWDA collaborated with international research partners, led by the Australian National University, and supported by the Australian Research Council (LP0989385), to develop a new approach to measuring poverty and gender equity, the Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM).
For the first time, it provides a way of assessing the circumstances of individuals in 15 key areas of life, in a way that shows the extent of deprivation and gender disparity.

It enables analysis of deprivation by age, disability and other factors.

It can reveal differences in access to resources and opportunities between women and men, including within households.
It can also show how factors are related and intersect to deepen deprivation, and whether efforts to address these are translating into improved outcomes for individual women and men.8 The IDM survey is cost-effective and overcomes key limitations of current approaches to poverty measurement.

The Australian Government is currently funding a study of poverty in Fiji using the IDM as part of the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development program.
Supporting a similar study in Papua New Guinea, ideally working with the national statistics office, would provide significant new information on the relationship between gender and poverty in Papua New Guinea, to inform policy priorities and programming.

Used over time, the IDM can help determine whether efforts to address the poverty of women and girls and inequalities in access to resources, opportunities and power are changing lives.
Information and resources are available at www.iwda.org.au/introducing-the-individual-deprivation-measure 1.4 Specific gender mainstreaming targets for all programs and initiatives IWDA welcomes the Australian Government target for at least 80 per cent of the Australian aid program’s investments, regardless of their objectives, to address gender issues in their implementation.
Given that mainstreaming gender has been a policy commitment since the 1990s, and gender inequality remains persistent and ubiquitous, an explicit target and associated reporting is a key step in implementing the commitments of successive governments.

We would expect this target to increase over time towards 100% of the aid program’s investments effectively addressing gender issues in design and implementation (the aim of the Swedish Government, for example).
This would strengthen the confidence of all stakeholders that Australia’s bilateral aid program works in the interests of both women and men in Papua New Guinea.

To date the Australian Government has not held structured, open consultations with civil society organisations regarding how it will assess performance against this target.

Sharing with civil society the work on this underway within DFAT would provide a basis for focused input and discussion.
The Australian Government has the opportunity to draw on the experience of others including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank regarding systems and processes supporting gender integration.
The ADB’s system for integrating gender applies to all ADB loans.9 The World Bank requires every individual operation to undertake a gender analysis and incorporate a minimum of two of the following: Undertake analytical work in relation to a gender issue; Address at least one specific gender inequality associated with the project; Collect and analyse gender disaggregated data through monitoring and evaluation frameworks.
Recommendation 5 The Australian Government develops and implements specific gender mainstreaming targets for all programs and initiatives, accompanied with detailed guidance and support, and reports against these in annual performance reporting.

8 The IDM as currently constructed applies to adults.

The research team is keen to conduct similar participatory research with children, to inform development of a multidimensional measure of poverty and deprivation relevant to girls and boys.
9 More information on the ADB toolkit on gender equality results is available at http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/tool-kit-gender-equality-results-indicators.pdf 4 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 1.5 Reflecting women’s diversity in programming Women and girls are not a single, homogenous group.
Needs, interests and vulnerability vary across the life course and with rural/urban location.

Discrimination on the basis of disability, sexual identity, religion, ethnicity and health status can intersect to deepen marginalisation.

Good gender analysis would identify this.

Frameworks for policy development, programming, implementation and evaluation also need consider and take account of the diverse factors that shape the lives of women and girls.
Often this requires specific action, as the example below illustrates.

Including these diverse factors in routine data collection will allow different needs and circumstances, and their impacts on opportunities and outcomes, to be visible, making it possible to identify any systematic barriers.

This will enable more responsive, relevant and effective policies and programs.
Men and boys are also diverse, and programs that engage with them to progress gender equality and women’s human rights need to take account of this reality.
EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES Understanding the barriers and opportunities to young women’s leadership in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville Bougainville Women’s Federation (BWF) and IWDA conducted research with the State, Society and Governance Melanesia program (SSGM) at the Australian National University (ANU) to identify opportunities and barriers for young women’s participation in civil and political decision-making.
The research, conducted in six of the thirteen districts of Bougainville, aimed to: Inform the development and implementation of BWF’s young women’s leadership program.

Provide baseline data for BWF and IWDA to monitor and evaluate project impacts.

Identify opportunities for and barriers to young women’s participation in BWF.

Develop young women’s skills and experience conducting research.
Following completion of this research, a young women’s leadership initiative was designed, to be piloted in 2015.

This will build the leadership capacity of young women to create positive change in their communities by increasing young women’s membership and participation in BWF structures, campaigns and activities.
This will involve young women participating in a one-year leadership development activity, mentoring of young women by older women, and organising, facilitating and participating in a Young Women’s Forum.
Recommendation 6 The Australian Government takes account of the diverse circumstances of women and girls, and men and boys, in its analysis, policy, programming and evaluation, and requires recipients of Australian aid funding to do the same, with specific attention to addressing intersecting sources of discrimination.
1.6 Strengthening systems for tracking expenditure on and assessing progress towards gender equality Transformative change to the profound gender inequality and human rights abuses experienced by women requires greater investment in specific initiatives.

It also requires Australia’s aid program as a whole to do more to contribute to change.
Currently, DFAT is not collecting or reporting data on aid expenditure in a way that enables the Government or the public to know exactly how much is spent on progressing gender equality and women’s empowerment, despite claims to the contrary.10 As part of implementing the 80 per cent target, it is essential that the Australian Government better tracks expenditure associated with practical steps to integrate gender across Australia’s aid program.
Doing so will provide 10 For example, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon.

Julie Bishop MP, stated in the 2014 booklet, Improving economic outcomes for women, that ‘over 50 per cent of Australia’s aid budget is spent (emphasis added) on initiatives that promote gender equality.’ Similar claims were made by Ministers in the previous government.
5 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 all stakeholders with a clearer picture of what actions are being taken and the adequacy of resourcing.

Without this information, it is very difficult to assess the effectiveness of existing approaches or what more might be required.
As Papua New Guinea is Australia’s second biggest aid recipient, the bilateral aid program offers unique opportunities to develop systems that can effectively measure whether this target is being met.
The 2013-14 Papua New Guinea Aid Program Performance Reports (APPR) states that 52 per cent of Australia’s aid expenditure in Papua New Guinea is on programs that identified gender equality as a significant principal target.11 This identifies the percentage of the overall aid program by value that has gender equality as a significant principal target, not how much of that program is actually spent on activities to progress gender equality.
Currently, Australia’s aid program only tracks and reports actual expenditure where gender equality and women’s empowerment is a specific line item - where it is a ‘principal objective’.
To illustrate the implications, the 2013-14 APPR for Papua New Guinea shows $2.9 million of a nearly $500 million budget, or only some 1 per cent of expenditure, as spent on ‘gender equality and women’s empowerment’.12 No financial information is available about expenditure on activities to mainstream gender equality and women’s empowerment elsewhere in the program, and there is no mechanism for collecting and reporting this expenditure.
Publishing comprehensive, relevant performance information will help the Australian aid program and its stakeholders assess how policy commitments are being implemented and respond accordingly, including identifying persistent performance issues.

Developing the systems to enable this is a priority so the Government can track progress towards its 80 per cent target.
Interim measures could include the establishment of Specialist Advisory Groups, increasing resourcing to gender specialist teams and undertaking targeted program evaluation of actual results against objectives.

These measures should prioritise inclusion of those with local and contextualised expertise – including women’s organisations and activists.
Ensuring that Papua New Guinean women lead these groups and are involved in system design and testing allows the aid program in Papua New Guinea to model the type of women’s leadership and gender equity it is seeking to achieve.

Expenditure data should be part of a monitoring and evaluation framework that enables the Australian and Papua New Guinea Governments to assess progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment, in country programs and across the aid program as a whole.
IWDA would expect to see the development of such an M&E framework as part of the forthcoming gender strategy for Australia’s aid program.

Recommendation 7 The Australian Government further develops its systems and tools for tracking expenditure on gender equality and women’s rights so that it can report publicly about investment in targeted and mainstreamed initiatives, and assess their quality and impact.
Recommendation 8 The Australian Government ensures its bilateral aid program with Papua New Guinea is using local expertise in strategy and program development and in the assessment of gender equality outcomes and impacts.
1.7 Considering ways to reduce violence against women in all programming As the Australian Government has committed to requiring that at least 80 per cent of the aid program’s investments effectively address gender issues in their implementation, it is essential to attend to the issue of violence against women.
The implementation of women’s empowerment programs that challenge unequal gender relations, directly and indirectly, can result in an increase in violence against women, as social relations are contested.

Most development initiatives in Papua New Guinea, including those where gender is mainstreamed, 11 Ibid.

12 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2014).

Aid Program Performance Report 2013-14 Papua New Guinea.
p.12 6 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 those where it is not and those where women’s empowerment is a focus, fail to recognize that violence is widespread and pervasive.13 In Papua New Guinea, where women experience high rates of violence (see violence against women and girls, below) it is essential that all programs also consider violence against women, regardless of their primary thematic or sectoral focus.
Ensuring this would demonstrate the Australian Government’s commitment to integrating gender in its aid investments and progress commitments to end violence against women.

Recommendation 9 The Australian Government, and the organisations and institutions it funds, consider ways to reduce violence against women as part of all programs funded in Papua New Guinea.
13 The 2012 International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) review of progress in eliminating violence against women in Melanesia and Timor-Leste, for example, found limited progress in identifying strategic opportunities for integrating interventions that address violence against women into other programming such as health promotion, education, economic empowerment projects and community development.
ICRW (2012), Violence Against Women in Melanesia and Timor-Leste: Progress made since the 2008 Office of Development Effectiveness Report, p.39 7 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 2.
INCREASING PRIVATE SECTOR INVOLVEMENT IN REDUCING POVERTY AND ADDRESSING GENDER INEQUALITY The private sector has the potential to make a key contribution to reducing poverty and narrowing gender disparities by connecting women to markets and economic opportunities.

For example, the private sector can be instrumental in reshaping attitudes and norms among women and men about gender relations and the capacities and contributions of women and men.
It can identify and address barriers to women contributing on an equal basis with men, and demonstrate the benefits that flow from greater gender equality.

However the significant under-representation of women in parliament, the bureaucracy, on boards, and in decision- making roles in business in Papua New Guinea is likely to constrain the potential of the private sector to contribute to economic development that reduces gender disparity in the absence of specific enabling action.
Australia’s aid program is well positioned to drive innovative processes that link economic development objectives to gender equality outcomes, given its focus on economic development and women’s leadership and empowerment.

To maximise this potential, it is critical that the Australian Government and the organisations and institutions it funds use a comprehensive understanding of economy that includes formal, informal and subsistence activity.
The Australian Government’s convening role also provides important opportunities to require and model equitable participation of women and men in consultative, advisory and decision-making roles as a prerequisite for good outcomes.

2.1 The informal sector In many developing and subsistence contexts, formal sector activity is only a small part of the economic activity and value creation in communities.

In Papua New Guinea, for example, the informal agriculture sector is the biggest employer of women.
improving safe transportation; ensuring all infrastructure investments consider market linkages; The Australian aid program can play an active role in catalysing women’s work in the informal agriculture sector through its engagement with the private sector, including by focusing on: making systematic investments in roadside market stalls; working with Fair Trade organisations to ensure that gender is adequately reflected in compliance and certification measures.
expanding extension services and training to women farmers; and assisting women to work up the value supply chain in agriculture; helping women network with suppliers; Such a focus should improve economic productivity while also addressing the excessive and inequitable labour burden of women and girls when both paid and unpaid work is counted.
Recommendation 10 The Australian Government should continue to focus its investments on subsistence, informal and formal sectors of the economy and strengthen opportunities for women in each.

2.2 Private sector practices The Australian Government should commission an employment audit of the formal sector and identify the enabling practices and policies and barriers to entry which could be addressed in order to improve employment opportunities for women.
Proactive private sector leadership and innovation can encourage women’s participation and work success, for example by establishing company policies and practices that relieve constraints on women’s 8 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 time, encouraging men’s role in caring responsibilities, tackling workplace discrimination, and helping women gain access to productive inputs.14 The International Finance Corporation’s (IFC’s) 2013 report, Investing in Women´s Employment: Good for Business, Good for Development is intended as a guide for companies operating in emerging and developing economies, to inform and encourage further progress on women’s employment.
It may provide a useful reference point for policy-makers.

Engaging closely the IFC’s work with the private sector through the Business Coalition for Women in Papua New Guinea may provide a way to quickly draw on emerging learning about what can be achieved for gender equality through engaging with the private sector, accelerating the uptake of approaches contributing to positive change.
IWDA’s submission to the Inquiry into the role of the private sector in promoting economic growth and reducing poverty in the Indo-Pacific region by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade includes additional relevant recommendations.
Recommendation 11 The Australian Government should use its convening and funding role to require and support private sector actors to identify and address barriers to women taking up paid employment opportunities, including by encouraging policies and practices that enable more equal sharing of unpaid household and care work; investing in social and economic infrastructure to reduce the time intensity of such work; and identifying more and better paid jobs for women as an explicit objective for all initiative funding.
2.3 Trade Expansion of economic opportunities, including opportunities to trade and access to export markets can improve women’s financial circumstances and provide a platform for empowerment and a catalyst for wider transformation in gender relations.

However, IWDA’s experience and available evidence is that trade liberalisation and growth does not necessarily translate into positive outcomes for women.

The mixed effects of trade liberalisation and globalisation on women demonstrate potential and risks.
In many cases trade liberalisation has exacerbated existing gender inequalities and worsened women’s economic and social status.

One of the reasons for these negative effects is that trade policies are often designed and implemented without consideration of gender issues.15 Paid employment in the Pacific is often segmented along gender lines.
In the fisheries sector, for example, men can access skilled jobs on foreign fishing vessels while women are concentrated in low-skilled, low-paid work in foreign-owned fish processing plants.

Women’s jobs in canneries and fish processing factories are particularly unstable in difficult economic circumstances as foreign companies seek the lowest cost workforce to maintain competitiveness.
The potential for investment flight puts considerable pressure on governments to maintain low minimum wages, and is a disincentive to address inadequate work conditions and women’s employment rights and needs.

Women working in this sector are likely to have limited education, skills and training.

They also have limited opportunities to access alternative employment in higher paid and more stable sectors.
Unless targeted actions are taken, increased investment in this sector is unlikely to promote decent work for women and men.
If the fisheries trade is to provide long-term employment 14 World Bank (2013), Gender at Work, p.53 15 United Nations Conference on Development and Trade (UNCTAD) website introducing the UNCTAD Expert Meeting on Mainstreaming Gender in Trade Policy, http://www.unctad.org/Templates/WebFlyer.asp?intItemID=4760&lang=1 (accessed online 29 July, 2009), cited in IWDA’s Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Inquiry into Australia’s trade and investment relations with Asia, the Pacific and Latin America, 2009.
9 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 opportunities for women and men, governments need to ensure equal pay for equal work and invest in genuine training and skill development for women and men.16 Trade can be a catalyst for gender equality but this requires routine gender analysis in formulating trade policy.
This is necessary if choices are to be fully informed, effective, and sustainable, and to contribute to outcomes that meet the needs of both women and men.17 The recommendations in IWDA’s Submission to the 2009 JCFADT inquiry on Trade and Investment Relations with Asia, the Pacific and the Americas, remain relevant as broad guidance on the kinds of steps required to take account of gender in the negotiating agenda and processes for bi-lateral and regional trade agreements.
Further, IWDA urges the Australian Government to use the available evidence and analysis regarding the likely benefits of trade for women and men in Pacific Island Countries to inform its policy priorities.
We note the conclusion of the World Bank’s 2014 report, Well-Being from Work in Pacific Island Countries, that ‘Even under the best possible business environment, it is not clear that the private sector would be able to generate significant employment through export- driven growth, due to the cost disadvantages of geography.’18 Given the scale of existing gender inequalities, women in Papua New Guinea will be more disadvantaged than men by the opportunity costs and loss of effectiveness associated with ignoring such evidence.
Recommendation 12 The Australian Government integrates gender analysis into trade policy development, trade negotiations and all Aid for Trade activities including research and data collection, to support activities to benefit women and men and track whether they do.
2.4 Infrastructure investments and consulting firm contracts In giving effect to commitments to integrate gender, specific guidelines are needed to require and support government, partners and contractors to integrate gender across aid program activities, to improve opportunities for women and promote gender equality outcomes.

These should include safety and security measures, a certain minimum quota of female employees as part of contract provisions (for road maintenance, infrastructure etc.
), training and capacity building initiatives for women within government (particularly through the Department of Works) and linked to consulting firm contracts.

EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES Learnings from the Enterprise Challenge Fund As noted earlier, a review of the Enterprise Challenge Fund (ECF) found significant missed opportunities, in terms of economic performance and outcomes for women, due to the lack of a structured, consistent approach to integrating gender considerations.
It also recognised the significant practical challenges to including women in decision making and advisory roles in such initiatives, noting that ‘due to the small number of women in senior business roles in ECF target countries and the commitment and travel requirements of the roles, it proved very difficult to appoint women to them.’19 This underlines the need for gender equality to be an explicit priority of such initiatives, with specific resourcing to address barriers, including: Organising some or all committee meetings where women are, rather than expecting them to travel to meetings.
16 IWDA’s Submission to the JCFADT Inquiry into Australia’s trade and investment relations with Asia, the Pacific and Latin America, 2009, p.3.
17 Accelerating Pro-Poor Growth through Support for Private Sector Development, OECD, p7; United Nations Conference on Development and Trade (UNCTAD) website introducing the UNCTAD Expert Meeting on Mainstreaming Gender in Trade Policy, www.unctad.org/Templates/WebFlyer.asp?intItemID=4760&lang=1 (accessed online 29 July, 2009); cited in IWDA’s Submission to the JCFADT Inquiry into Australia’s trade and investment relations with Asia, the Pacific and Latin America, 2009.
18 World Bank (2014) Well-Being from Work in Pacific Island Countries, p.10, 13.

19 AusAID (2013), Women’s Economic Empowerment-Practice and Policy Implications from the Enterprise Challenge Fund, p.3.
10 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 Acknowledging and recompensing the direct and opportunity costs for women associated with participation, including child care, travel and meal preparation, and foregone market income, need to be factored in as a routine cost of enabling women’s participation, which is essential to achieving the Government’s policy goals.
Treating gender gaps identified via routine sex-disaggregated data as prima facie evidence of barriers that need to be addressed and acting quickly to address them within the life of initiatives, so that Australian Government funding better supports an iterative learning/ action/ change cycle.2 Recommendation 13 The Australian aid program incorporates gender guidelines in all investments including infrastructure, and associated consulting firm contracts.
Recommendation 14 The Australian Government draws on the analysis and recommendations of evaluations and learning papers including the ‘Women’s Economic Empowerment-Practice and Policy Implications from the Enterprise Challenge Fund’ when designing and implementing future private sector programs.20 20 ECF/AusAID (2013), Women’s Economic Empowerment-Practice and Policy Implications from the Enterprise Challenge Fund, p.11.
http://www.enterprisechallengefund.org/images/publicationsandreports/ECF%20%20Publication%20%20Womens%20Economi c%20Empowerment%20%20Practice%20and%20Policy%20Implications%20from%20the%20Enterprise%20Challenge%20Fun d1_3.pdf 11 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 3.
SUPPORTING INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT BY INVESTING IN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 3.1 Violence against women and girls Rates of violence against women and girls in Papua New Guinea remain some of the highest in the world.
Research shows that 67 per cent of Papua New Guinean women have experienced violence at the hands of their husband, with this number increasing to close to 100 per cent in the Highlands.21 A recent community survey by Voice for Change identified wife beating as the most common form of violence towards women and girls in Jiwaka Province of the Highlands region.22 The same survey identified the most serious form of violence against women and girls as the excessive daily burden of work, described by women as a form of slavery.
A 2013 study undertaken in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville found that 80 per cent of men reported perpetrating physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence and 62 per cent of men reported perpetrating some form of rape against a woman or girl in their lifetime.23 The violence that Papua New Guinean women experience includes, but is not limited to, family and sexual violence, tribal conflict, sorcery-related violence and the impact of harmful cultural practices such as polygamy and bride price.
This violence has huge direct costs for individual women and their families and for health services.

This translates into billions of dollars lost to national economies through additional direct costs and lost productivity.
IWDA welcomes the findings of the recent Review of Australian aid initiatives in the Pacific aimed at ending violence against women24 and its recommendations for preventing violence, increasing women’s access to support services, increasing women’s access to justice and strengthening the enabling environment.

Crisis response There are limited crisis services in Papua New Guinea for women and children who have experienced violence.
IWDA and our partners welcome recent investment by development partners, including the Australian Government, to strengthen counselling and case management services nationally, but services remain scattered and uncoordinated.

The majority of services are based in urban and town areas, making them largely inaccessible to women in rural and remote areas, which is where 87 per cent of PNG’s population lives.

In some locations, women walk for days through mountainous terrain to reach a crisis service.
Women also report that accessing urban and town-based services can place them at increased risk of further violence.

When they leave village areas, their husbands and families know that they are seeking support, which may place them at increased risk on return.

There are a limited number of safe houses for women and children who have experienced violence that offer temporary relief.
There is a need to develop innovative solutions to ensure that women who have experienced violence can access both emergency and long-term accommodation.

This is particularly important in Papua New Guinea where most women do not have access to land.

In particular there is a need to develop safe house models in remote communities.

21 Australian Agency for International Development, Office for Development Effectiveness (2008).
Violence against women in Melanesia and East Timor: Building on Global and Regional Promising Approaches.

Canberra.

Australia: Australian Agency for International Development.

22 Voice for Change (2015).

Violence against women and girls in Jiwaka Province: An analysis of the Voice for Change community survey.

Forthcoming.

23 Fulu, E., Warner, X., Miedema, S., Jewkes, R., Roselli, T. and Lang, J.

(2013).

Why Do Some Men Use Violence Against Women and How Can We Prevent It?
Summary Report of Quantitative Findings from the United Nations Multi-country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific.

Bangkok: UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV.

24 Mukasa, S., McCleary-Sills, J., B Heilman, B., & Namy, S., (2014).

International Centre for Research on Women Review of Australian aid initiatives in the Pacific Aimed at Ending Violence Against Women.

Canberra.

Australia: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
12 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 Recommendation 15 The Australian Government increases funding to identify current gaps in service provision related to violence against women, particularly in rural and remote communities, and inform planning and further development of services including establishing critical services such as safe houses.
Community-based responses (Women Human Rights Defenders) In response to limited implementation of government services and ongoing capability constraints in those services, Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) and communities are leading responses to violence against women at the community level in Papua New Guinea.

Much of this work happens informally and is undertaken by individual women and women’s groups with limited support and resources from government.
The Australian Government, through international NGOs, now supports WHRDs networks in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and the Highlands.

WHRDs work in extremely risky contexts; they often face violence as a result as their activism, and struggle to access emergency response funding.
Increased support is needed in the form of rapid response funding for Women’s Human Rights Defenders so that they can: (a) move themselves and others they are caring for out of immediate danger or threat to life; and (b) respond to the ramifications of the violence through funding legal fees, medical treatment, counselling, and transportation.
The 2014 ICRW Review of Australian aid initiatives in the Pacific Aimed at Ending Violence Against Women 25 noted the value in increasing Australian Government investment in both community-based and integrated models of service provision, highlighting the value of both models in increasing women’s access to support services.
Consistent with the Australian Government’s policy commitments and the significance of the issue, it is essential that funding for these services increases, with benefits to individuals, families, communities and the Papua New Guinea economy.

Recommendation 16 The Australian Government increases support to strengthen and expand integrated and community-based responses to violence against women including integration with PNG government responses.
Violence prevention The emphasis within Australia’s aid program on responding to violence against women must be complemented by a focus on prevention.

This means resourcing programs and alliances that tackle the underlying causes of violence against women, including gender inequality.

IWDA and partners are seeing the focus of research and programming shift towards particular forms of gender-based violence, such as sorcery-related or family and sexual violence.
This segmentation fails to understand and respond to the complete experience of women, who experience multiple forms of violence, concurrently and sequentially.

As ICRW’s 2012 progress report on the Australian Government’s strategy to eliminate violence against women and girls in Melanesia and Timor Leste underlined: Efforts to reduce violence against women must ?
be intrinsically linked to women’s political, social and economic empowerment, and must be considered within the context of changing gender norms and increasing women’s human rights.

Programs attempting to address violence without addressing the root causes of the problem (e.g.
those encouraging reconciliation and forgiveness, or anger management among men) are unlikely to reduce violence over time, because they do not challenge the belief that violence is justified.26 25 Mukasa, S., McCleary-Sills, J., B Heilman, B., & Namy, S., International Centre for Research on Women (2014).

Review of Australian aid initiatives in the Pacific Aimed at Ending Violence Against Women.

Canberra.

Australia: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
26 International Center for Research on Women (2012), Violence Against Women in Melanesia and Timor-Leste: Progress made since the 2008 Office of Development Effectiveness Report, p. 39.
13 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES From Gender Based Violence to Gender Justice and Healing in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville The Australian Government recently committed multi-year funding to From Gender Based Violence to Gender Justice and Healing, a project being implemented in partnership by Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation and IWDA.
This project aims to reduce violence against women in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville by addressing the root causes of gender inequality, through: Supporting Bougainville WHRDs to lead responses to and prevention of violence against women with government and communities; and Enabling men and women to prevent violence against women at community level by promoting shared power and decision making between women and men.
The project applies an integrated approach to respond to and prevent violence against women through: Survivors of violence having access to high quality rights-based support services; Bougainville WHRDs and male advocates demanding increased resourcing from Government for responses to and prevention of violence against women; Women and men having the skills to challenge and change unequal gender norms and relations at family and community level; Transforming violence supportive attitudes and behaviours of men and boys who have committed violence against women; and Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation having increased organisational sustainability to implement high quality programs and services.
Recommendation 17 The Australian Government increases funding for prevention activities, to deepen understanding of the root causes of violence against women in Papua New Guinea and the requirements for effective prevention programs.

Engaging with men Men in Papua New Guinea continue to hold attitudes that hinder gender equality and support violence against women.
IWDA therefore welcomes the Australian aid program’s increased focus on engaging with men in policies and programs relating to women’s empowerment, particularly in regards to violence against women.

Men in Papua New Guinea are in a position of privilege and have a responsibility to actively work towards eliminating gender inequality and stopping violence against women.
However, much of the work focused on engaging with men in Papua New Guinea is not evidence-based and is not working to effectively transform gender inequality.

In some women-specific programs, grants are being co-opted by men, resulting in women neither benefiting nor influencing decisions.

Unless programs focused on engaging men understand what strategies are effective for engaging men in women’s empowerment initiatives, they will likely reinforce existing gender inequality.
Programming should draw on findings and research from other male advocacy programs such as those undertaken by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC).
IWDA strongly encourages the rigorous prospective evaluation of their Male Advocacy Program as recommended by the 2014 ICRW Review including consideration of learnings for similar programs in Papua New Guinea.27 EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES Male advocates against violence against women Through the From Gender Based Violence to Gender Justice and Healing project, Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation will engage with, develop and support male advocates to support the 27 Mukasa, S., McCleary-Sills, J., B Heilman, B., & Namy, S., (2014).
Op.cit.

14 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 initiatives of WHRDs.
Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation will work across these key areas of influence to change the attitudes and behaviours of men at the following levels: Individual: to engage men and boys in attitude and social behaviour change programs to reduce violence and build non-violent communities.

 Peer: to create an alternative peer culture that is non-violent and that promotes gender equality.
Community: to transform larger social norms around masculinities and promote non-violent ways to be men.28 IWDA and Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation will partner with the State, Society and Government Melanesia (SSGM) Program at the Australian National University (ANU) to adopt an action- learning approach during project implementation to document project approaches and analyse the successes and challenges of engaging men as advocates against family and sexual violence in the context of high prevalence of such violence.
Recommendation 18 The Australian Government resources research and evaluations to identify effective strategies to engage men in women’s empowerment initiatives in Papua New Guinea.

Law and justice While some provinces effectively implement formal services to address women’s legal needs, these services largely do not meet the needs of women at community level where much of the violence occurs.

There is still impunity for perpetrators of violence against women in Papua New Guinea.
Justice and law enforcement systems are weak, and there is insufficient policing and inadequate application of the law by police and common and customary courts.

Police rarely attend to cases of violence against women; these are either mediated through male peace mediators or village magistrate courts who do not have a strong understanding of the law in relation to women’s rights and violence against women.
As the 2014 ICRW Review noted,29 the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC) has yet to integrate gender based violence and human rights training into core curricula in its recruits course, command and control courses, or other officer cadet courses.

This needs to remain a focus of the Australian Government’s program in Papua New Guinea if women are to access justice.
The Australian aid program has invested significantly in strengthening the law and justice sector in Papua New Guinea, including through the Papua New Guinea – Australia Law and Justice Partnership, but these initiatives need to better target interventions at community level to ensure that women living in rural areas-which is where the vast majority of women live-have access to justice.
This should include ensuring that the Family Protection Act is implemented throughout Papua New Guinea, strengthening formal and community based justice systems to respond to violence against women, and improving the police response to violence against women, particularly at community level.
These recommendations are supported by the ICRW Review,30 which highlighted the need for greater community awareness of Interim Protection Orders, the continued expansion of village courts, and an increase in the numbers of female magistrates.

28 Fulu, E., Warner, X., Miedema, S., Jewkes, R., Roselli, T. and Lang, J.

(2013).

Why Do Some Men Use Violence Against Women and How Can We Prevent It?
Summary Report of Quantitative Findings from the United Nations Multi-country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific.

Bangkok: UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV.

29 Mukasa, S., McCleary-Sills, J., B Heilman, B., & Namy, S., (2014).

Op.cit.

30 Ibid.
15 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES Jiwaka Women Human Rights Defenders network is strengthened to lead responses to and prevention of violence against women with government and communities In the absence of effective government intervention to prevent and respond to violence against women, WHRDs are leading support to survivors and prevention efforts.
Much of this work happens informally with limited support and resources from government.

Through IWDA’s Pacific Women’s Leadership Program, funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Funding Leadership and Opportunities for Women (FLOW) program, networks of WHRDs have been strengthened to led responses to and prevention of violence against women.
Following tailored capacity building, WHRDs are conducting education and advocacy with target community members (women and men), male community leaders (peace mediators, village magistrates, traditional leaders and church leaders) and key government officials (Provincial, local level government, Ward Councillors, police).

The project is also strengthening provincially based WHRDs networks to network with each other.
This is enabling WHRDs to have a stronger voice in their advocacy against violence against women while also strengthening the network of solidarity to address the isolation and risk involved in identifying as WHRDs.

Recommendation 19 The Australian Government increases resourcing to ensure that all women in Papua New Guinea, particularly rural women, have access to legal remedies when violence against women occurs.
3.2 Women’s civil and political rights and leadership Papua New Guinea has a national Parliament of 111 members.

Since Independence in 1975, only seven women have ever been elected to Papua New Guinea’s National Parliament.

There are three women sitting as Members of Parliament currently.

The Autonomous Region of Bougainville has three reserved seats for women in their Parliament.

To date, no woman has successfully contested an open seat.
In addition, there is one reserved seat for a woman representative within local level governments, in Papua New Guinea and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.

Women’s exclusion or under-representation extends to all institutional structures in Papua New Guinea, from governments and political parties to civil society, the private sector and social institutions.
This demonstrates the widespread impediments to women’s realisation of civil and political rights within institutions, systems, norms and beliefs.

Women’s under-representation is both a democratic deficit and a constraint on development, limiting the information, ideas and priorities that inform policies and resource allocation.
Political representation During the 2012 national elections in Papua New Guinea and in preparation for the current 2015 elections in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, development partners, in partnership with the Government of Papua New Guinea, have increased capacity building support for women candidates.

However, these efforts have had mixed results, and investments in increasing women’s political participation are yet to have a significant or sustainable impact on the numbers of women elected.
Women candidates report facing significant barriers, and often significantly more barriers than men.

There are also exceptions where women have succeeded in elections despite substantial barriers.

Investigating and understanding these barriers and how they can be addressed, including through research into community attitudes and perceptions, will assist understanding of specific barriers and opportunities for change.
16 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES The potential of community attitudes research to reveal emergent change A research report published in 2014 on Public perceptions of women in leadership, shows the potential of community attitudes research to reveal attitudinal shifts underway in contexts where politics, business and mainstream media do not reflect the demographics of the wider society.
The study, undertaken by the Fiji Women’s Forum in partnership with IWDA, is the first of its kind and explores community views about the role of women in Fiji politics and attitudes to leadership more generally.

The findings challenge claims that women’s under-representation in parliament reflects a low level of community openness to women in political leadership.
In fact, the study found that the majority of people in Fiji consider that women are under-represented in government, and that increasing the level of women’s representation in politics would be beneficial to the nation as a whole.

Women and men of varying ages and across ethnicities readily identify women’s leadership capacities, and see these capacities as the same ones that are essential or very important for governing.
The findings suggest significant potential for women to make a much greater contribution to public life in Fiji in the future.

By providing a detailed picture of where attitudinal change is happening and where it is not, such research can also assist those working to strengthen women’s representation in politics and decision making to more specifically target barriers and amplify positive changes.
Funding similar research in Papua New Guinea could inform more targeted and effective strategies to increase women’s representation in elected politics and in political leadership roles more generally.31 In addition, there is a need to further research and socialise the measures that could be put in place to encourage more women in parliament.

This should include revisiting temporary special measures and quotas.
The Equality and Participation Act, which would have introduced 22 reserved seats for women in the National Parliament, was passed in Parliament in December 2011 but the required Constitutional Amendment failed to attract the necessary number of votes.

Since then, momentum has fallen away, in part because the tabling of the Act was driven by development partners, without widespread understanding or support for the Act throughout Papua New Guinea (see Good Governance below).
However, there are already quotas for women at local level in Papua New Guinea which implies some level of support for the mechanism.

Greater understanding of community attitudes towards the existing quota systems in Papua New Guinea would help to determine whether there is an opportunity for systemic change at national level that is yet to be capitalised on.
Support for women needs to continue after they have been elected or nominated as representatives, to enable them to perform in these roles and change community attitudes towards women’s leadership.

We know that women who remain in male-dominated environments as lone representatives face an incredibly difficult path; ongoing support and mentoring is critical as they break through traditional barriers to political office.
EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES Women in Local Government Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) Pacific is a government funded organisation focused on supporting local government in countries across the Pacific.

Through IWDA’s Pacific Women’s Leadership Program, CLGF is working with Buka and Arawa Town Councils in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville to mainstream gender in local government policies and service delivery.
Key strategies of the project are to: Provide sustained support to Buka and Arawa councils to incorporate gender in policies, programs and service delivery using a 'Centres of Excellence for Gender Equality in Local Government' approach.
31 happening-20141119/ ; https://www.iwda.org.au/resource/report-public-perceptions-of-women-in-leadership-fiji/ http://devpolicy.org/what-do-women-and-men-in-fiji-think-about-women-in-politics-new-insights-on-where-change-is- 17 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 Strengthen the leadership capacity of women elected to and working within the local government sector through training, networking and mentoring opportunities.
Strengthen partnerships between local governments and civil society organisations (CSOs) to support gender equality goals, strengthen local democratic participation and encourage community attitude change.

Recommendation 20 The Australian Government increases support to interventions to improve women’s representation in all levels of Government in Papua New Guinea.

Peace-building Women have long played a key role in peace building, an important pre-requisite for democratisation and development.
This has been formally recognised in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and related resolutions.

However, despite this, and women’s historical role in brokering peace and negotiating conflict in Papua New Guinea, women have often been marginalised in formal peace processes.

Bougainville is an Autonomous Region of Papua New Guinea that was engaged in a civil war for independence from 1989 to 1998.
The crisis had a disproportionate impact on women, limiting access to shelter, food, clothing, health and education services during blockades.

During the conflict both the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) and the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) used rape, humiliation and forced marriage as weapons.

In the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, violence against women is interconnected with tribal conflicts, sorcery and cultural practices such as polygamy, bride price and payback.
Tribal conflict can erupt as a result of women experiencing violence and reporting violence to her family, community or the authorities.

Tribal conflict also results in displacement and increased violence against women and children.

While key women leaders were crucial during formal peace process in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and are negotiating and maintaining peace in the Highlands, this is still largely seen as men’s role.
Peace mediators are generally older men and there is a critical need to develop the skills of women as peace builders and challenge men’s attitudes.

The Australian Government can play an important role in modelling women’s inclusion as essential.

Recommendation 21 The Australian Government, and the organisations and institutions it funds, ensure that women participate in democratisation, peace-building and development processes as an essential prerequisite for their success.
3.3 Women’s economic rights and empowerment Constraints to women taking up formal employment opportunities are multidimensional, going beyond the market to the home, and beyond formal institutions to norms and practices.

The constraints that women face have direct costs for individuals and families, and broader economic and social costs.
Common constraints include lack of mobility, time, and skills, exposure to violence, and the absence of basic legal rights.32 On the flip side, removing barriers to women’s equal economic participation improves their opportunities and brings significant economic benefits.
The World Bank estimates that if women had the same opportunity as men to participate in the formal economy, average output per worker in the Asia-Pacific region would increase by between 7 per cent and 18 per cent, with significant 32World Bank (2013), Gender at Work companion to World Development Report, accessed from http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender/publication/gender-at-work-companion-report-to-world-development- report-2013-jobs 21 May 2014.
18 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 implications for economic growth and poverty reduction.
So ‘women’s economic empowerment is not only the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do.’33 Large-scale development projects Papua New Guinea has a wealth of natural resources, which are increasingly translating into large-scale development initiatives and reliance on extractive industries.
This has resulted in land previously used for subsistence agriculture now being used for cash income through cash crops, large-scale agriculture and large-scale development, such as logging, oil palm and extractive industry.

In some remote communities, land previously used for subsistence agriculture is no long available due to large-scale development.
Large-scale development has also disrupted traditional matrilineal practices in some parts of Papua New Guinea where women previously held traditional custodianship of land and had influence over some decision making.
It is critical that all members of communities affected by large scale development, including women and marginalised groups, are well informed of the potential impacts of these developments and are able to participate meaningfully in decision making, including about the distribution of wealth.

A second impact of large scale infrastructure and development projects is that communities are increasingly reliant on outside goods and services purchased with cash.
Women and children are adversely impacted by this shift as they often do not have access to the economic benefits of cash based economies.

Men also leave the community to seek employment, increasing the already multiple roles of women who remain behind.

Remittances are often not maintained, leaving women and children without income support.
It is important that the Australian Government’s aid program work with communities to support and empower women to negotiate their fair share of resources and rights, while being adequately protected from the spikes in violence and other harms that are associated with large-scale extractive industries.
EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES Meri Kirap – Tokaut na Tokstrait [Women Arise – Talk Out and Talk Straight] Wide Bay Conservation Association works in East Pomio, in East New Britain, a matrilineal province where women are traditional custodians of land.

Recently, East Pomio has seen large- scale development including oil palm plantations and logging.

In the growing cash economy, women are increasingly excluded from taking part in decisions that affect their lives and communities.
Wide Bay Conservation Association and IWDA have just completed a two-year project, Meri Kirap – Tokaut na Tokstrait, funded by the Strongim Pipol Strongim Nesen program.

Women in East Pomio were supported to strengthen existing income generation opportunities and identify new opportunities to generate income using locally sourced, non-forest and sustainable materials.

Women also developed skills in financial management, enabling them to plan spending and saving.
Women who participated in the project now report having greater financial freedom and control.

Following the project, women and men also reported having more skills to make informed decisions about land use and resources.

Communities reported having a greater understanding of the impact of oil palm and logging on their communities and the ability to make beneficial decisions about what should happen on community land.

Men and women are increasingly making these decisions together.
Recommendation 22 The Australian Government, and the organisations and institutions it funds, take specific steps to support women’s meaningful inclusion in decision-making about large-scale development projects, so that women are able to influence the direction of development in Papua New Guinea and benefit from it, socially and economically.
33 Pamela Cox, World Bank’s East Asia Pacific Vice President, World Bank East Asia and Pacific Regional Report: Overview: Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific: A Companion to the World Development Report 2012 19 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 Unpaid work Unpaid household and care work is vital to social and economic development and to thriving and resilient communities.
The OECD estimates that if unpaid care work were assigned a monetary value, it would constitute between 10 per cent and 39 per cent of GDP;34 however it remains largely invisible in national accounts.

Unpaid household and care work is not shared equally in any country, with women responsible for a greater share of unpaid work.
This has implications for the time women can devote to paid work and for overall hours worked, with women typically working more hours than men when both paid and unpaid work are counted, though less of it is remunerated.

Women’s care responsibilities limit their opportunities for income generation, particularly in rural and remote parts of Papua New Guinea where most women live, and where infrastructure is more limited, increasing the time involved in such work.
In order to manage their multiple roles and responsibilities, women often take work that is close to home, low paid, informal and undervalued.
The Australian Government could use the bilateral aid program and associated policy dialogues to promote supportive social and economic policy such as improving parental leave and flexible work policies, expanding early child development and child care services, investing in women’s access to time-saving technology and infrastructure, and innovating to increase men’s active participation in caring and domestic responsibilities.35 Recommendation 23 The Australian Government increases attention to unpaid household and care work, including interactions with paid work, in social and economic policy dialogues with development partners and in its policies and programs addressing women’s rights and economic opportunities.
34 OECD (2011), DAC Network on Gender Equality, Women’s economic empowerment, Issues paper April 2011 35 Gender at Work, A Companion to the World Development Report on Jobs, The World Bank.

The UN Research Institute for Social Development undertook research in Africa, Asia and Latin America on the social and political economy of care in the development context.
Why Care Matters for Social Development, Research and Policy Brief 9, 2010, outlines key learnings and gaps, and the consequences of the current neglect of care for achieving development goals.

20 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 4.
SUPPORTING INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT BY INVESTING IN GOOD GOVERNANCE The Government of Papua New Guinea has ratified a number of international conventions, enacted domestic legislation and produced policies that show a strong commitment to gender equality and the reduction of violence against women.

The most recent, the Family Protection Act, is a long overdue response to endemic rates of violence against women.

The Government of Papua New Guinea continues to struggle to implement these commitments.
Implementation down to the lowest level of government is particularly important, as 87 per cent of the population reside in rural and remote areas.36 A number of critical factors exacerbate the failure to effectively implement commitments.

Often there has not been adequate or widespread consultation with communities about changes in legislation and policies.
IWDA recognises the deep challenges faced by the Government of Papua New Guinea and that such consultation is difficult geographically, linguistically and financially.

However, the failure to consult can result in communities not supporting or understanding new initiatives; this is also an issue for state actors.
In addition, local level government and Ward Development Committees do not commit funds to women’s groups to support and enable women’s voices and input, and where national budget is available it does not effectively reach communities.

Finally there is a critical need to develop the capacity of local level government to provide basic services and respond to the strategic needs of all community members.
Local government is the most accessible level of government for most Papua New Guineans; strengthening this mechanism is a priority in order to improve governance and accountability.

While state mechanisms remain weak in most parts of the country, it is essential that civil society and faith based organisations are supported to meet the basic and strategic needs of Papua New Guineans, particularly at community level.
This is not to replace government services or responsibility but to ensure the rights of Papua New Guinean people are upheld while government mechanisms are strengthened.

The Australian Government needs to invest in enhancing the partnership between government, civil society, community based and faith based organisations.

This will ensure the long term sustainability of interventions and support a smooth transition to PNG Government funding of and engagement with these organisations.
Recommendation 24 The Australian Government increases resourcing to support the Government of Papua New Guinea to implement its commitments to gender equality and the reduction of violence against women, including in legislation.

A strong civil society is central to good governance.

Core funding and institutional strengthening for women’s organisations is vital for sustaining progress towards gender equality.
Women’s rights organisations are instrumental in strengthening women’s ability to inform policy-making and to demand effective, inclusive and accountable governance.

While there are a number of key women’s rights organisations in Papua New Guinea, they are scattered.

Women’s networks need to be strengthened from national to community level to ensure women’s voices are prominent in decision-making at all levels.
EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES Building Alliances for Safer Jiwaka Voice for Change, supported by the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women (UNTF to EVAW) and IWDA, is working with local government officials in Jiwaka province to improve their capacity and skills to respond to and prevent violence against women.

Voice for Change aims to: 36 Oxford Business Group (2014).

The Report Papua New Guinea 2014.


21 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 Increase accountability of Jiwaka provincial and local level government officials and civil society to promote gender equality and protect women’s human rights.
Support Jiwaka provincial and local level government to approve, adopt and implement by- laws to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls.

This approach builds coalitions between government, civil society and communities to respond to and prevent violence against women, improving the effectiveness and sustainability of interventions.
Recommendation 25 The Australian Government increases support to women’s organisations to strengthen advocacy, programs and services that meet the needs of women in Papua New Guinea.
22 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS Increasing PNG's progress towards Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Recommendation 1: The Australian Government develops a comprehensive gender strategy for Australia’s bilateral aid program with Papua New Guinea, in consultation with Papua New Guinean women and men and a range of organisations representing their interests and concerns.
Recommendation 2: The Australian Government requires the PNG country program and initiatives funded through it to undertake gender analysis as routine, including conducting meaningful consultation with Papua New Guinea women and men, and reflects this analysis in design and implementation.
Recommendation 3: The Australian Government conducts a stocktake of recommendations on gender equality in Australia’s aid program and in the Papua New Guinea country program that it has formally accepted over the last seven years and assesses their relevance to current policy frameworks and implementation efforts.
Recommendation 4: The Australian Government establishes or utilises an existing mechanism such as the Annual Program Performance Report to track and report on progress in implementing recommendations from evaluations or inquiries accepted by the Australian Government.
Recommendation 5: The Australian Government develops and implements specific gender mainstreaming targets for all programs and initiatives, accompanied with detailed guidance and support, and reports against these in annual performance reporting.
Recommendation 6: The Australian Government takes account of the diverse circumstances of women and girls, and men and boys, in its analysis, policy, programming and evaluation, and requires recipients of Australian aid funding to do the same, with specific attention to addressing intersecting sources of discrimination.
Recommendation 7: The Australian Government further develops its systems and tools for tracking expenditure on gender equality and women’s rights so that it can report publicly about investment in targeted and mainstreamed initiatives, and assess their quality and impact.

Recommendation 8: The Australian Government ensures its bilateral aid program with Papua New Guinea is using local expertise in in strategy and program development and in the assessment of gender equality outcomes and impacts.
Recommendation 9: The Australian Government, and the organisations and institutions it funds, considers ways to reduce violence against women as part of all programs funded in Papua New Guinea.

Increasing private sector involvement to reducing poverty and addressing gender inequality Recommendation 10: The Australian Government should continue to focus its investments on subsistence, informal and formal sectors of the economy and strengthen opportunities for women in each.
Recommendation 11: The Australian Government should use its convening and funding role to require and support private sector actors to identify and address barriers to women taking up paid employment opportunities, including by encouraging policies and practices that enable more equal sharing of unpaid household and care work; investing in social and economic infrastructure to reduce the time intensity of such work; and identifying more and better paid jobs for women as an explicit objective for all initiative funding.
23 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 Recommendation 12: The Australian Government integrates gender analysis into trade policy development, trade negotiations and all Aid for Trade activities including research and data collection, to support activities to benefit women and men and track whether they do.
Recommendation 13: The Australian aid program incorporates gender guidelines in all investments including infrastructure, and associated consulting firm contracts.

Recommendation 14: The Australian Government draws on the insights of the Women’s Economic Empowerment-Practice and Policy Implications from the Enterprise Challenge Fund in designing and implementing future private sector programs.
Supporting inclusive development by investing in women’s empowerment Recommendation 15: The Australian Government increases funding to identify current gaps in service provision related to violence against women, particularly in rural and remote communities, and inform planning and further development of services including establishing critical services such as safe houses.
Recommendation 16: The Australian Government increases support to strengthen and expand integrated and community-based responses to violence against women including their integration with PNG government responses.

Recommendation 17: The Australian Government increases funding to prevention activities, to deepen understanding of the root causes of violence against women in Papua New Guinea and the requirements for effective prevention programs.
Recommendation 18: The Australian Government resources research and evaluations to identify effective strategies to engage men in women’s empowerment initiatives in Papua New Guinea.

Recommendation 19: The Australian Government increases resourcing to ensure that all women in Papua New Guinea, particularly rural women, have access to legal remedies when violence against women occurs.
Recommendation 20: The Australian Government increases support to interventions to improve women’s representation in all levels of Government in Papua New Guinea.

Recommendation 21: The Australian Government, and the organisations and institutions it funds, ensure that women participate in democratisation, peace-building and development processes as an essential prerequisite for their success.
Recommendation 22: The Australian Government, and the organisations and institutions it funds, take specific steps to support women’s meaningful inclusion in decision-making about large-scale development projects, so that women are able to influence the direction of development in Papua New Guinea and benefit from it, socially and economically.
Recommendation 23: The Australian Government increases attention to unpaid household and care work, including interactions with paid work, in social and economic policy dialogues with development partners and in its policies and programs addressing women’s rights and economic opportunities.
Supporting inclusive development by investing in good governance Recommendation 24: The Australian Government increases resourcing to support the Government of Papua New Guinea to implement its commitments to gender equality and the reduction of violence against women, including in legislation.

Recommendation 25: The Australian Government increases support to women’s organisations to strengthen advocacy, programs and services that meet the needs of women in Papua New Guinea.
24 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29 1300 661 812 www.iwda.org.au PO Box 64, Flinders Lane, Vic 8009, Australia Level 4, 225 Bourke Street, Melbourne Tel: +61 3 9650 5574 Email: iwda@iwda.org.au ABN 19 242 959 685 25 | Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, IWDA, 2015 The delivery and effectiveness of Australia’s bilateral aid program in Papua New GuineaSubmission 29