Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1694859539443.pdf (Australia)
Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 1.

INTRODUCTION International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) is the leading Australian agency entirely focussed on women’s rights and gender equality in the Asia Pacific region.

We are international, feminist and independent.


Our vision is gender equality for all and our purpose is to advance and protect the rights of diverse women and girls.

IWDA commends the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for initiating this inquiry.

It presents an important opportunity to assess the current progress and achievements in Australia’s aid program and to recognise opportunities for strengthening Australia’s approach.
Given IWDA’s work focuses on gender equality and women’s rights, our submission concentrates on the implementation and efficacy of the increased emphasis on outcomes for women and girls in Australia’s aid program in the Indo-Pacific.
In responding to this component of the Inquiry terms of reference, we affirm the continued need for Australia’s focus on gender equality in the Indo-Pacific region, and the contribution of gender equality to achieving outcomes across the aid program and for progressing Australia’s interests in the region.
Our submission addresses the breadth of the Australian aid program’s commitment to achieving gender equality, not just the participation and engagement of women in private sector development opportunities.
It highlights the ways in which the Australian Government could strengthen its approach to gender equality and women’s empowerment in the aid program, accelerating positive outcomes for women and girls and furthering the contribution of Australia’s aid program to supporting Australia’s interests in the region.
This submission is structured as follows: 1) 2) 3) 4) of a focus on women and girls 5) Introduction Summary of recommendations Focusing Australia’s aid program: Gender equality and women’s empowerment is crucial Strengthening the impact of Australia’s aid program: Opportunities to strengthen the efficacy Implementing Australia’s aid program: Crosscutting issues to consider when focussing on women and girls Aligning Australia’s aid program: 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals Expanding the impact of a focus on women and girls: The need for gender sensitive Aid for 6) 7) Trade Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 1 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 2.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS FOCUSING AUSTRALIA’S AID PROGRAM: GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IS CRUCIAL Recommendation 1: The Australian Government should reaffirm and maintain its focus on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls as a priority in Australian Aid.
As part of this, the Australian Government should ensure Australian Aid continues to recognise and addresses the underlying causes of gender inequality, including harmful gender norms, and align program design, implementation, evaluation, data collection and resourcing to match long- term change timelines.
Recommendation 2: The Australian Government should recognise the gender norms that give rise to the disproportionate impact of unpaid care work on women, and assess programmatic approaches in Australian Aid for their impact on unpaid care including taxation and expenditure, social protection and employment.
To better target interventions that support a redistribution of caring responsibilities across genders, the Australian Government should continue to invest in understanding individuals’ time use through tools like the Individual Deprivation Measure.
STRENGTHENING THE IMPACT OF AUSTRALIA’S AID PROGRAM: OPPORTUNITIES TO STRENGTHEN THE EFFICACY OF A FOCUS ON WOMEN AND GIRLS Recommendation 3: The Australian Government should maintain the commitment within Australian Aid to ensuring that “more than 80% of investments, regardless of their objectives, will effectively address gender issues in their implementation.” Recommendation 4: The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should action recommendations from the 2018 Performance of Australian Aid Report around strengthening internal processes to support the 80% gender equality performance target, including increased accountability and resourcing greater technical expertise, both in Canberra and at posts.
Recommendation 5: The Australian Government should introduce expenditure targets for principal and significant gender equality objectives in Australian Aid (determined by DAC criteria).

Investments where gender equality is a principal objective should increase to 10% of sector allocable aid by 2020 and to 15% by 2025.

Investments where gender equality is a significant objective should increase to 70% of sector allocable aid by 2020 and to 80% by 2025.
Recommendation 6: The Australian Government should ensure full transparency in achievement of the gender equality performance target in funding to multilateral institutions and the private sector, including addressing limitations to transparency and accountability arising from commercial-in-confidence provisions of private sector contracting.
Recommendation 7: The Australian Government should align and make transparent its methodology for reporting on gender equality in the DFAT Budget Papers, Performance of Australian Aid Report, and Aid Program Performance Reports, and ensure consistency between domestic and international accountability mechanisms.
Recommendation 8: The Australian Government should mandate and resource the Minister for Foreign Affairs to present an Annual Gender Equality Report to Parliament demonstrating progress towards implementation of the Gender equality and women’s empowerment strategy.
Recommendation 9: The Australian Government should affirm the leadership role of women’s rights organisations in gender equality, and ensure that consultation with women’s rights organisations is a requirement of gender equality programing (including for private sector contractors).
The Australian Government should consult with women’s rights organisations and women’s funds to develop mechanisms to increase funding to women’s rights organisations and set time-bound targets to increase aid coded as supporting ‘women’s equality organisations and institutions’ (CRS code 15170).
Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 2 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Recommendation 10: The Australian Government should invest in effective funding models that support women’s rights organisations, networks and coalitions to deliver positive outcomes for gender equality, including:  Core and flexible funding  Long-term, multi-year funding  Funding to support women’s leadership and movement building  Funding through women’s funds or feminist NGOs to support local organisations Recommendation 11: The Australian Government should engage Australia Aid delivery- partners and women’s rights organisations in discussions about how to provide funding that supports women’s rights organisations and women human rights defenders to mitigate and respond to backlash and threats related to opposition to gender equality.
IMPLEMENTING AUSTRALIA’S AID PROGRAM: CROSSCUTTING ISSUES TO CONSIDER WHEN FOCUSSING ON WOMEN AND GIRLS Recommendation 12: The Australian Government should champion an inclusive and diverse understanding of gender in Australian Aid.
Recommendation 13: The Australian Government should recognise the diversity of women and their experiences and ensure that women with disabilities, young women, and women with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression are involved in Australian Aid, from consultations about priorities and needs, policy and program development and implementation, to evaluation, research and data collection.
Recommendation 14: The Australian Government should continue to invest in programs that support diverse young women and girls’ leadership and participation in decision-making through Australian Aid.

Recommendation 15: The Australian Government should ensure the next National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security is fully costed, including resourcing for coordination and leadership, dedicated resourcing linked to specific activities.
Support should be provided for the development of technical expertise and informed approaches to women, peace and security in the region.

Recommendation 16: The Australian Government should ensure that the second National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security prioritises women’s participation and that women’s voices in the region inform the development of the second NAP and Australia’s approach to women, peace and security.
Recommendation 17: The Australian Government should continue to champion sexual and reproductive rights as a core part of Australian Aid in the Indo-Pacific region and uphold its previous commitment at the 2012 Family Planning Summit to invest at least AU $50 million per year in contraception and contraception-related information and services.
Recommendation 18: The Australian Government should continue to support organisations working on the ground to deliver sexual and reproductive health services and continue to focus on the most under-served in our region.
Recommendation 19: The Australian Government should integrate evidence on harm minimisation in to women’s economic empowerment programming (including private sector development opportunities) and ensure that Australian Aid funds gender transformative women’s economic empowerment programming.
Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 3 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 ALIGNING AUSTRALIA’S AID PROGRAM: 2030 AGENDA AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS Recommendation 20: The Australian Government should align Australian Aid with the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Australian Government should ensure an integrated approach to implementing the Goals that includes a clear focus on gender equality and women’s rights, and recognises the crucial role of gender equality in achieving not just the gender goal and targets, but the entire agenda.

Recommendation 21: The Australian Government should action the areas of commitment in the Addis Ababa Action Plan on Transformative Financing for Gender Equality.
EXPANDING THE IMPACT OF A FOCUS ON WOMEN AND GIRLS: THE NEED FOR GENDER SENSITIVE AID FOR TRADE Recommendation 22: The Australian Government should integrate gender analysis into all Aid for Trade activities, including design, implementation, research and data collection.

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FOCUSING AUSTRALIA’S AID PROGRAM: GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IS CRUCIAL 3.1 An increased focus on women and girls matters, and is achieving important outcomes The Australian Government has prioritised gender equality and women’s rights as a core component of Australia’s aid program, articulated most recently in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Gender equality and women’s empowerment strategy (2016)1.
In the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, the Government has also highlighted gender equality as a core national value and women’s empowerment as a ‘top priority’ in achieving global prosperity, stability and security.2 This is important first and foremost because it affirms a fundamental commitment to fairness and equality, acknowledging that women and girls are entitled to the same basic rights and freedoms as men and boys.3 Additional to the benefits for the lives of individual women and girls, progressing gender equality has a range of benefits for families and societies, and for advancing Australia’s interest in a stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.
For example, women tend to reinvest up to 90% of their income in their families and communities, compared to some 30–40% by men.4 Research from 2015 by McKinsey Global Institute found that if women were to participate in the economy identically to men it would add up to $28 trillion to global GDP by 2025.5 Additionally, a 2018 report from the World Bank has estimated that globally “the loss in human capital wealth due to gender inequality is estimated at $160.2 trillion.”6 The meaningful participation of diverse women in decision-making at all levels is critical to ensuring their needs and priorities are heard and represented.
This is particularly important given women’s continued under-representation in elected decision-making positions.
A survey conducted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union of 187 female parliamentarians from 65 countries revealed that 89% of 1 Government of Australia, DFAT (2016,) ‘Gender equality and women’s empowerment strategy’ available at: http://dfat.gov.au/about- us/publications/Documents/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment-strategy.pdf 2 Australian Government (2017), ‘Foreign Policy White Paper’, p. 93, available at: https://www.fpwhitepaper.gov.au/foreign-policy-white- paper 3 Women’s rights are enshrined in international agreements and laws such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Platform for Action, United Nations Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security, the Cairo Programme of Action as well as various human rights treaties.
4 Women Deliver (2015), ‘Invest in Girls’ Equality’, http://womendeliver.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Invest 5 Woetzel, J., et al.
(2015), ‘The Power of Parity: How Advancing Women’s Equality Can Add $12 Trillion To Global Growth’, Mckinsey Global Institute, p.1, available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Employment%20and%20Growth/How%20advancing%20womens%20 equality%20can%20add%2012%20trillion%20to%20global%20growth/MGI%20Power%20of%20parity Full%20report September%20201 5.ashx 6 Wodon, Q., & B. de la Brière p. 2 (2018), ‘Unrealized potential: The High Cost of Gender Inequality in Earnings, The Cost of Gender Inequality Notes Series, Washington, DC: The World Bank, p. 2, available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/29865/126579-Public-on-5-30-18-WorldBank-GenderInequality-Brief- v13.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y in Equality Dec 2015.pdf Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 4 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 these women believed they had a special responsibility to represent the interests and needs of women.7 Women’s leadership is particularly crucial to building peace.
When women are included in a peace process, the resulting agreement is 35% more likely to last 15 years.8 States with higher levels of gender equality also tend to have a lower likelihood of interstate or intrastate violence, lower levels of perceived or actual corruption and a higher trust in their government.9 Gender equality is also recognised as an enabler and accelerator for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with both a standalone goal on gender equality and gender dimensions in targets across other goals including those related to health, agriculture, education, climate change and economic inequality.
The 2017 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) Thematic Review of SDG 5 identified progress on gender equality as critical to delivering on all the SDGs.

The importance of gender equality, and the persistence of gender inequality globally has seen a number of donor countries, including Australia, increase investments towards gender equality and progressing the rights of women and girls.
Other institutions and organisations such as the World Bank, large private foundations, and large international NGOs have similarly expanded their focus on women and girls.
In the Australian aid program, this increased focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment is achieving positive outcomes across all three priority areas of DFAT’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Strategy - enhancing women’s voice in decision-making, leadership and peace- building; promoting women’s economic empowerment; and ending violence against women and girls.
Examples from IWDA’s work with partners across the region, which is supported by the Australian Aid program, are highlighted in the Box 1 below, to illustrate the change that is enabled through this strategy.

Australia’s leadership in promoting gender equality through development cooperation has been recognised globally.
The 2018 OECD Development Co-operation peer review of Australia’s aid program for instance, acknowledged the Government’s clear commitment to championing gender equality bilaterally, regionally and internationally, and commended Australia for approaching gender equality as a genuinely crosscutting issue.
10 Gender equality is prioritised through DFAT’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Strategy through a twin-track approach, combining specific measures to tackle gender inequalities (such as the Gender Equality Fund and the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development Program) with the incorporation of gender issues into all aspects of Australia’s work.

Gender equality is one of 10 key performance targets in the Government’s aid performance framework.
The OECD also commended Australia for the high proportion of its bilateral allocable aid that had gender equality as a significant or principle investment (54% in 2015).11 This focus on gender equality has supported the effectiveness of Australia’s aid program.
The most recent Performance of Australian Aid Report 2016-17 (published 2018) reports that investments where gender equality was either a principal or significant objective performed better in effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability, and monitoring and evaluation.12 Gender equality also contributed to “stability, security and prosperity as well as greater effectiveness of development efforts”.13 As such, a central focus on gender equality in the aid program has delivered both practical outcomes for women and girls in the Indo-Pacific region and strengthened aid effectiveness.
7 Inter-Parliamentary Union (2008), ‘Equality in Politics: A Survey of Women and Men in Parliaments’, New York, p.48, available at: http://archive.ipu.org/PDF/publications/equality08-e.pdf.
8 UN Women (2015) Preventing Conflict, ‘Transforming Justice, Securing the Peace: A Global Study on the Implementation of Security Council resolution 1325’, p. 41-42 available at: http://wps.unwomen.org/pdf/en/GlobalStudy EN Web.pdf 9 Our Secure Future (2018), ‘Women, Peace & Security By the Numbers’, One Earth Future, available at: http://oursecurefuture.org/sites/default/files/women-peace-security-infographics-web.pdf?platform=hootsuite; More information on these points can be found here https://iwda.org.au/assets/files/pamphletwithnobleed.pdf 10 OECD (2018), ‘OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: Australia 2018’, p.19, available at: http://www.oecd.org/australia/oecd- development-co-operation-peer-reviews-australia-2018-9789264293366-en.htm 11 OECD (2018), op.
cit., p. 45 12 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2018), ‘Performance of Australian Aid 2016-17’, Australian Government, p. 14, available at: http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/performance-of-australian-aid-2016-17.pdf 13 ibid., p. 11 Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 5 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 and Fiji prevalence is over 60%.16 While there has been progress, women’s political participation in the region overall continues to be low and the percentage of women in Pacific Parliaments is 7.5%17; the lowest in the world.18 Female parliamentarians continue to face significant barriers to expressing their views and contributing their perspectives in practice, including sexism, harassment and violence against women in parliament.19 Ending gender inequality requires long-term investment.
It is critical that the Australian government maintain a focus on gender equality in the Australian aid program.
It is particularly vital that the Australian Government continue its leadership on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and give effect to Australia’s international commitments in national policies and practice, including through the Australian aid program, in a global context where hard-won women’s rights gains are being challenged and in some instances eroded, in individual countries and in multilateral fora.
Better aligning policy priorities and funding priorities offers the Government a practical and feasible pathway to accelerate the achievement of its human rights priorities, gender equality commitments and strategy, aid effectiveness agenda and its economic priorities.

Specific recommendations are offered across this submission towards these ends.
3.3 The importance of addressing the underlying causes of inequality DFAT’s Gender equality and women’s empowerment strategy recognises that progressing gender inequality and eliminating discriminatory practices against women and girls requires a shift in norms, policies and legal frameworks.20 The UN Secretary General, at a recent High-Level Panel on Women’s economic empowerment, also noted that “changing norms should be at the top of the 2030 Agenda.
We all have a role to play in challenging these adverse social norms and reshaping stereotypes.”21 Transforming harmful gender norms associated with masculinity (and expression of power over women through anger, control, coercion and violence) is a critical part of work to end violence against women.
IWDA’s research with ANU (see the Do No Harm example covered in Box 1 above, p.6) demonstrates that it is both essential and possible to integrate work to transform gender norms that lead to violence against women into women’s economic empowerment programing.

22 Discriminatory social norms also contribute to inequality in leadership and decision-making.
Effective support for women’s leadership requires an approach that addresses the material and practical barriers to women’s leadership and tackles norms that are barriers to women’s participation at all levels of decision-making.

This includes challenging restrictions on women’s freedom of movement, unequal unpaid caring responsibilities, acceptance of violence against women and other discriminatory perceptions that women are not suitable leaders.

Changing social and cultural norms can take generations.
To create lasting change for women and girls in Australia’s aid program, gender equality programming needs to be aligned with the timelines required for changing these norms, and plan for and resource programs steadily across the full timeframe.
16 Asian Development Bank (2016), ‘Asia and the Pacific and the New SDG Goal,’ available at: https://www.adb.org/news/infographics/asia- and-pacific-and-new-sdg-gender-goal 17 Pacific Women in Politics (2018), ‘National Women MPs’ available at: https://www.pacwip.org/women-mps/national-women-mps/ 18 ibid.
19 Inter-Parliamentary Union (2016), ‘Sexism, Harassment and Violence Against Women Parliamentarians’, Issues Brief, available at: https://ipu.org/resources/publications/reports/2016-10/sexism-harassment-and-violence-against-women-parliamentarians 21Guterres, A (2017), ‘Secretary-General's remarks at High-Level Panel on Women's Economic Empowerment’, [as delivered], available form: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2017-09-19/secretary-generals-remarks-high-level-panel-womens-economic 22 The need to integrate prevention activities in economic empowerment programming was a specific recommendation in the International Center for Research on Women’s 2012 review for AusAID, Violence Against Women in Melanesia and Timor-Leste: Progress made since the 2008 Office of Development Effectiveness Report.
One of three recommendations for strengthening prevention efforts was ‘Identify strategic opportunities for integrating interventions that address violence against women into different areas, for example, health promotion, education, economic empowerment projects and community development.’ 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.
Available at https://www.icrw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Violence-against-women-in-Melanesia-Timor-Leste-AusAID.pdf Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 7 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Recommendation 1: The Australian Government should reaffirm and maintain its focus on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls as a priority in Australian Aid.
As part of this, the Australian Government should ensure Australian Aid continues to recognise and addresses the underlying causes of gender inequality, including harmful gender norms, and align program design, implementation, evaluation, data collection and resourcing to match long-term change timelines.
Recommendation 2: The Australian Government should recognise the gender norms that give rise to the disproportionate impact of unpaid care work on women, and assess programmatic approaches in Australian Aid for their impact on unpaid care including taxation and expenditure, social protection and employment.
To better target interventions that support a redistribution of caring responsibilities across genders, the Australian Government should continue to invest in understanding individuals’ time use through tools like the Individual Deprivation Measure.

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4.

STRENGTHENING THE IMPACT OF AUSTRALIA’S AID PROGRAM: OPPORTUNITIES TO STRENGTHEN THE EFFICACY OF A FOCUS ON WOMEN AND GIRLS 4.1 The efficacy of existing mechanisms and approaches to progress gender equality in Australia’s aid program The Government has established a range of mechanisms to progress gender equality and maintain a focus on women and girls in the aid program.
The twin track approach of the Gender equality and women’s empowerment strategy (prioritising targeted investment in gender equality and promoting more effective integration of gender equality in all areas of work) creates a solid framework to achieve the gender equality objectives of the Australian aid program.

This section focuses on the potential to strengthen outcomes through reinforcing mechanisms, resourcing and accountability arrangements.
Strengthening internal accountability for the 80% target for gender equality Presently, the primary driver of action and accountability for gender equality in the Australian aid program is the performance target that more than 80% of investments, regardless of their objectives, effectively address gender issues in their implementation.23 The Aid Quality Check (AQC) framework for gender equality has been strengthened and gender specialists support the implementation of this benchmark, helping ‘to ensure the robustness of the improved gender ratings and generate more realistic baseline performance data for many programs.”24 In addition, the Office of Development Effectiveness conducts random assessments of the AQCs, adding to the rigour of the process.
The comprehensiveness of this approach was noted by the OECD in its most recent peer review.25 Nonetheless, the gender equality target is the only performance target not to have been met, and remains persistently off track.

In the last reported period (2016-2017) “77% of aid investments effectively addressed gender equality in their implementation,”26 down from 78% in the previous year, with particular challenges reported in the Pacific.27 23 Commonwealth of Australia, DFAT (2014).
Making Performance Count: Enhancing the accountability and effectiveness of Australian aid, p. 8, available at: http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Pages/making-performance-count-enhancing-the-accountability-and- effectiveness-of-australian-aid.aspx 24 Commonwealth of Australia, DFAT (2017) Performance of Australian Aid, 2016-2017, p. 11, available at: http://dfat.gov.au/about- us/publications/Documents/performance-of-australian-aid-2015-16.pdf 25 OECD (2018), ‘OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: Australia 2018’, p. 47, available at: http://www.oecd.org/australia/oecd- development-co-operation-peer-reviews-australia-2018-9789264293366-en.htm 26 Commonwealth of Australia, DFAT (2018).
Performance of Australian Aid, 2016-2017, p. 11, available at: http://dfat.gov.au/about- us/publications/Pages/performance-of-australian-aid-2016-17.aspx 27 Ibid.
Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 8 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Strengthening gender equality outcomes regardless of delivery mechanism/partner A significant portion of Australian Aid is directed through multilateral investment (42% based on most recently available figures) or private contractors (21% on most recent figures).33 The Performance of Australian Aid Report 2015-2016 noted less than satisfactory outcomes in performance on gender equality in the agriculture, fisheries and water sector during the reporting period.
The Report drew a link between the increased proportion of investments in that sector involving partnership with private sector entities and the need to strengthen private sector awareness of and ability to address gender inequality.34 IWDA is also concerned that the gender equality performance of multilateral institutions is not as strong as it could be.
It could be productive to explore mechanisms to strengthen performance targets for gender equality in multilateral and private sector funding, including (in the context of private sector funding) through addressing limitations to transparency and accountability arising from commercial-in-confidence provisions of private sector contracting.
Recommendation 3: The Australian Government should maintain the commitment within Australian Aid to ensuring that “more than 80% of investments, regardless of their objectives, will effectively address gender issues in their implementation.” Recommendation 4: The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should action recommendations from the 2018 Performance of Australian Aid Report around strengthening internal processes to support the 80% gender equality performance target, including increased accountability and resourcing greater technical expertise, both in Canberra and at posts.
Recommendation 5: The Australian Government should introduce expenditure targets for principal and significant gender equality objectives in Australian Aid (determined by DAC criteria).

Investments where gender equality is a principal objective should increase to 10% of sector allocable aid by 2020 and to 15% by 2025.

Investments where gender equality is a significant objective should increase to 70% of sector allocable aid by 2020 and to 80% by 2025.
Recommendation 6: The Australian Government should ensure full transparency in achievement of the gender equality performance target in funding to multilateral institutions and the private sector, including addressing limitations to transparency and accountability arising from commercial-in-confidence provisions of private sector contracting.
4.2 Increasing transparency and accountability The recent OECD Peer Review flagged that further work is required to strengthen accountability and transparency of operational evaluations, particularly to improve management responses (the OECD noted that only half of these evaluations received management responses) and the timely publication of the evaluations (the OECD noted that only 38% of evaluations were posted online within a year).35 Another challenge to clearly assessing efforts to address gender inequality in Australia’s aid program is the use of different methodologies across OECD reporting, DFAT's Budget Papers, Senate Estimates, the Performance of Australian Aid Reports, and Aid Program Performance Reports, making comparability difficult.
To address this challenge Australia should commit to greater transparency in the methodologies used in each of these tools, in particular to ensure that gender equality expenditure be systematically and consistently reported across the Australian development program, with a focus on increased transparency and consistency between domestic and international accountability mechanisms.

33 Performance of Australian Aid Report 2016-2017, p 19.
34 Commonwealth of Australia DFAT (2017) Performance of Australian Aid Report 2015-2016, p12, available at: http://dfat.gov.au/about- us/publications/Pages/performance-of-australian-aid-2015-16.aspx 35 OECD (2018), ‘OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: Australia 2018’, p. 96, available at: http://www.oecd.org/australia/oecd- development-co-operation-peer-reviews-australia-2018-9789264293366-en.htm Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 10 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 IWDA has previously recommended that the Australian Government prepare an annual report to the Australian Parliament on the promotion of gender equality in the Australian aid program.36 Such a report would support the focus on gender equality and highlight the gender equality achievements made possible by Australia’s aid program, improving accountability to citizens.
It would assist Government and other stakeholders to assess how policy commitments are being implemented and adjust efforts accordingly.

Increased transparency including about expenditure on gender equality will provide decision-makers, development partners and communities with improved information, enabling more informed dialogue and planning, and improved accountability.
Annual parliamentary consideration may also contribute to strengthening the gender-responsiveness of the Parliament, by strengthening understanding of what this requires and the benefits it delivers.
Recommendation 7: The Australian Government should align and make transparent its methodology for reporting on gender equality in the DFAT Budget Papers, Performance of Australian Aid Report, and Aid Program Performance Reports, and ensure consistency between domestic and international accountability mechanisms.
Recommendation 8: The Australian Government should mandate and resource the Minister for Foreign Affairs to present an Annual Gender Equality Report to Parliament demonstrating progress towards implementation of the Gender equality and women’s empowerment strategy.
4.3 Recognising the importance of investing in women’s rights organisations and movements to achieve gender equality37 The Australian Government recognises that autonomous women’s organisations and movements are a critical factor in changing discriminatory policy and legislation and progressing gender equality,38 and enabling approaches that are firmly rooted in local communities, contexts, needs and experiences.39 IWDA welcomes this recognition, which reflects the clear advantage of women’s rights organisations in undertaking work that requires connections to the community and an ability and willingness to engage in this work over long periods of time.40 However, current resourcing is not aligned with the significant contribution of women’s organisations towards gender equality, or the Government’s policy and program commitments.
Support for women’s equality organisations and institutions represented only 1.22% (22.379 USD million) of total sector-allocable aid in 2016.41 Strengthening support for women’s rights organisations would underpin their role and capitalise on the strategic benefits of working with women’s rights organisations and networks to accelerate progress towards gender equality.

It is clearly supported in evidence that strong, autonomous women’s movements are essential to realising women’s rights.
For example, the World Bank’s Voice and Agency research concluded that women’s movements are crucial to build the necessary consensus for progressive policy and legal reform.42 Women’s rights organisations also play a vital role in reaching women in marginalised communities43 and enabling those without power, status and rights to have a voice and to advocate for basic rights.
Indeed, the Development Leadership Program, an international research collaboration to which Australian Aid 36 See IWDA’s submission to the Inquiry into the International Aid (Promoting Gender Equality) Bill 2015, https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary Business/Committees/Senate/Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade/Gender Equality Bill 2015/Su bmissions 37 IWDA understands ‘women’s rights organisations’ to be civil society organisations, networks and coalitions led by and for women with the primary objective of working to advance gender equality and women’s rights.
Our definition includes local grassroots, regional, national and international organisations.

38 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2016), op.

cit.

; See also Klugman, J., et al., (2014), op.
cit., 6: Amplifying voices 39 IWDA (2018), ‘Global Goals: Women’s Rights Organisations and Movements’, policy brief, available at: https://iwda.org.au/assets/files/Supporting-Womens-rights-Organisations-and-Movements-March-2018.pdf; see also Derbyshire et al (2018), Politically informed, gender aware programming: five lessons from practice, available at: http://publications.dlprog.org/GAPP- BriefingNote-A4BW.pdf 40 Esplen, E. (2013), ‘Leaders for Change: Why support women’s rights organisations?’ Womankind Worldwide, p. 7, available at: http://www.pao-iraq.org/ar/images/pdfs/leaders.pdf 41 As reported to the OECD Creditor Reporting System, purpose code 15170 42 Klugman, J., et al., (2014), ‘Voice and Agency: Empowering women and girls for shared prosperity’, World Bank, p.169, available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/19036 43 OECD (2016), ‘Donor support to southern women’s rights organisations’, p.5, available at: https://www.oecd.org/dac/gender- development/OECD-report-on-womens-rights-organisations.pdf Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 11 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 contributes, concludes “that, on balance, political and governance experts have more to learn from women’s groups and gender advocates than the other way around.”44 IWDA’s work with partners across the region provides direct evidence of the importance of supporting coalition building as a strategy for change in contexts where women remain significantly under-represented in formal decision-making roles.
In the Solomon Islands, networks of women were instrumental in seeing the Family Protection Bill passed in 2014 and implementation of this is a focus of the Solomon Islands Women’s Forum established in 2016.

In Fiji, the Fiji Young Women’s Forum was a driving force behind youth policies being included in candidate platforms in the 2014 election.
In Timor-Leste, networks of women were successful in seeing the Law against Human Trafficking passed in February 2017, a process which commenced in 2012 and required the engagement of a coalition of civil society actors.

Women’s rights organisations are also crucial contributors to peace and stability.
Engaging with local women’s organisations and networks in conflict-affected countries and ensuring that women participate in democratisation, peacebuilding and development processes is key to the success of the women, peace and security agenda.45 Governments cannot realise their commitments alone.

Working with civil society coalitions at national and international levels is particularly critical, as they provide a means for connecting and aggregating the work of many organisations.
Australian aid program support for women’s rights organisations and networks is particularly important at a time of shrinking space for civil society and where women’s rights organisations are facing increasing backlash,46 as the OECD notes: Women’s rights groups and movements are a crucial antidote to regressive for ces that are pushing back gender equality gains… it is more critical than ever that women’s groups in the global south are supported to show that demands for gender equality stem from and are legitimate in their communities and societies.
At the same time, the shrinking of civil society space has entailed severe attacks on women’s rights activists, groups and movements, which are at risk precisely because of their work to challenge gender norms and power structures.

This mak.es it all the more essential that donors resource women’s groups and movements so that they have the resilience to weather threats, and build safe and enabling environments in which civil society can thrive.
47 The Australian Government could also promote partnership with women’s rights organisations, build their capacity, and build partner capacity in working with them, by requiring consultation with and support for such organisations as a condition of funding, especially for programs where gender equality is classified as a significant objective.
International NGOs and private contractors implementing DFAT-funded programs related to gender equality and women’s empowerment should be consulting with local women’s organisations as part of building sustainable change.
This expectation could be included in contract conditions and engagement with, and support for local women’s rights organisations integrated in selection and monitoring processes.48 It is critical to combine such an expectation with core funding for women’s rights organisations, to avoid a few organisations with capacity spending the bulk of their time contributing to consultation processes of others (sometimes with limited commitment or capacity to action advice) rather than driving their own change priorities.
44 Duncan Green, 2018, How can a gendered understanding of power and politics make development work more effective?, Available at: https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/how-can-a-gendered-understanding-of-power-and-politics-make-development-work-more-effective/ 45 IWDA (2017), ‘Foreign Policy White Paper Submission’, available at: https://iwda.org.au/assets/files/IWDA-Submission-DFAT-Foreign- Policy-White-Paper-2017.pdf 46 IWDA (2018), op.

cit.

; OECD (2016), op.

cit.


; AWID (2013), ‘New Actors, New Money, New Conversations: A Mapping of Recent Initiatives for Women and Girls’, available at https://www.awid.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/New%20Actors%20FInal%20Designed.pdf 47 OECD (2016), op.

cit., p.6; Esplen., E (2013), op.

cit.

; Horn, J.
(2014), ‘Supporting Social Movements to Advance Women’s Rights and Gender Justice’, available at: http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/ids-document/A68552?lang=en 48 IWDA (2016), ‘Global Goals: Women’s rights organisations and movements’, available at: https://iwda.org.au/assets/files/Womens-rights- organisations-and-Global-Goals-Policy-Brief-9.3.18-update.pdf Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 12 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Recommendation 10: The Australian Government should invest in effective funding models that support women’s rights organisations, networks and coalitions to deliver positive outcomes for gender equality, including:  Core and flexible funding  Long-term, multi-year funding  Funding to support women’s leadership and movement building  Funding through women’s funds or feminist NGOs to support local organisations Recommendation 11: The Australian Government should engage Australian Aid delivery- partners and women’s rights organisations in discussions about how to provide funding that supports women’s rights organisations and women human rights defenders to mitigate and respond to backlash and threats related to opposition to gender equality.
5.

IMPLEMENTING AUSTRALIA’S AID PROGRAM: CROSSCUTTING ISSUES TO CONSIDER WHEN FOCUSSING ON WOMEN AND GIRLS 5.1 Recognising the diversity of women and girls Women and girls are not a single, homogenous group.

Their needs and interests also vary across the life course and with rural/urban location.

Discrimination on the basis of disability, sexual orientation, identity and expression, age, religion or ethnicity can intersect to deepen marginalisation.
Frameworks for analysis, policy development, programming and implementation, and for assessing outcomes and impacts, need to consider and incorporate the diverse, intersecting factors that shape the lives of women and girls.

This will improve programming supported by the aid budget, ensuring it is responsive to women and girls’ diverse needs and circumstances, and that progress on gender equality benefits all women and girls.
IWDA applauds the priority accorded by the Australian Government to gender equality and freedom of expression as key pillars of Australia’s term on the Human Rights Council (2018-2020), including the focus on ‘combating homophobic and transphobic attitudes by promoting equality for all.’ Integrating this focus across the aid program and diplomacy will support realisation of this objective and gender equality priorities more broadly.
Brief analysis and case examples from IWDA’s work with partners below highlight intersections between gender equality and other areas of disadvantage and discrimination faced by women and girls in the Indo-Pacific region.

They underline that an inclusive approach is integral to realising gender equality.
As noted recently by the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), “Australia is a recognised world leader on disability inclusive development, and is well placed to ensure consideration of the needs of people with disabilities is mainstreamed across aid investments, particularly by implementing its strategy Development for all: 2015–2020.”54 It is crucial that when implementing this strategy and in developing a post-2020 strategy, that the Australian Government’s approach addresses the intersections between disability and gender and the implications for rights, voice and agency.
This includes addressing the discriminatory attitudes against women with disabilities that condone and perpetuate violence against them.

Strengthening alignment and integration of the gender equality and development for all strategies in implementation could contribute to the overall efficacy, coherence and impact of Australia’s aid program.
Increasing the effective involvement of women with disabilities in shaping and implementing initiatives funded by the Australian aid program would reflect the principle of ‘nothing about us without us’ and support practical integration of gender and disability considerations.
54 ACFID (2018), ‘Inquiry into the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ACFID Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade’, p. 5, available at: https://acfid.asn.au/sites/site.acfid/files/201803%20ACFID%20Submission%20to%20FADT%20-%20UNSDG%20Inquiry.pdf Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 15 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) 2012-2018 (NAP) and the next iteration of the NAP (NAP 2) in development, due to come into effect mid-2019.
Australia’s approach to date has focused primarily on the protection of women in conflict or the recruitment of women to defence forces.

Given evidence about the essential role of women’s leadership and substantive participation for sustainable peace, NAP 2 is an opportunity for Australia to expand its focus from protection to prevention, prioritising the full and effective participation of women in the maintenance of peace, security and conflict prevention.
This focus should locate women as leaders of the women, peace and security agenda and their leadership as instrumental to achieving sustainable peace.

The impact of NAP 2 would also be strengthened by:  A whole of government implementation plan that aligns implementation responsibilities and resource allocation, and facilitates and resources leadership and coordination;  Identifying and resourcing women, peace and security activities within country programs.
 Strengthening monitoring and evaluation of NAP 2 by identifying specific targets and goals and assessing progress, overall and by implementing agencies.58 The Australian Government is well placed to be a leader in ensuring that the women, peace and security agenda is at the centre of efforts through the aid program to support Goal 16 and that connections are made between Goal 5 and Goal 16.
More generally, Australia can play a leadership role on WPS in the Indo-Pacific through the aid program by supporting development of technical expertise on WPS, drawing on the experiences and expertise of women in the region, and ensuring that diverse women’s voices inform Australia’s WPS approach.

IWDA can play an important role to enable this engagement through our work in the region and our membership of the Steering Group of the Australian Civil Society Coalition on Women, Peace and Security.
Unfortunately, the Government’s ability to contribute to human security through the aid program has been significantly reduced by substantial cuts to expenditure.

This stands in direct contrast to the huge increase in investment in defence capacity to address security challenges.
By 2021, for every dollar we spend on aid, Australia will spend $11 on defence.59 This reflects a narrow and incoherent approach to national security, and one which is at odds with Government’s policy leadership on women, peace and security and jeopardises the Government’s ability to make sustained progress on peace and security.
Recommendation 15: The Australian Government should ensure the next National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security is fully costed, including resourcing for coordination and leadership, dedicated resourcing linked to specific activities.

Support should be provided for the development of technical expertise and informed approaches to women, peace and security in the region.
Recommendation 16: The Australian Government should ensure that the second National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security prioritises women’s participation and that women’s voices in the region inform the development of the second NAP and Australia’s approach to women, peace and security.

5.3 Sexual and reproductive health and rights Australia’s commitment to promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights in the aid program is welcome.
Universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is central to the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

These rights unlock the freedom and opportunities that stem from good health and access to education and employment.
Better health and the ability to plan pregnancies for a time that best suits the woman enables her to further her education and participate in the workforce, helping break the cycle of poverty, gender inequality and disadvantage that can span generations.
Women who know about and use sexual and reproductive 58 Humanitarian Advisory Group, ‘Independent Interim Review of the Australian National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2012- 2018’, available at: https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/nap-interim-review-report.pdf 59 Purcell, M (2018).
‘We can influence our region far better with aid than guns,’ Sydney Morning Herald, available at: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/budget-2018-we-can-influence-our-region-far-better-with-aid-than-guns20180507-p4zdwj.html Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 18 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 health services tend to be healthier, better educated, more economically productive, and more empowered in their households and communities.
In these households, children tend to be healthier, do better in school and grow up to earn higher incomes.

Australia can strengthen its approach by continuing to champion SRHR as a core part of Australia’s agenda to promote gender equality; through funding organisations working on the ground, who have deep knowledge of the socio-cultural context and attitudes towards gender equality and their impact on realising SRHR; and by continuing a focus on the most under-served in our region.
The Individual Deprivation Measure includes family planning as one of 15 modules to assess multidimensional poverty.

This is important for revealing gender disparity.

IDM data enables new insights into the relationship between SRHR and other dimensions of deprivation.
Recommendation 17: The Australian Government should continue to champion sexual and reproductive rights as a core part of Australian Aid in the Indo-Pacific region and uphold its previous commitment at the 2012 Family Planning Summit to invest at least AU $50 million per year in contraception and contraception-related information and services.
Recommendation 18: The Australian Government should continue to support organisations working on the ground to deliver sexual and reproductive health services and continue to focus on the most under-served in our region.

5.4 Do No Harm Women’s economic advancement and empowerment are also critical to achieving gender equality.
Research undertaken by the ANU and IWDA, Do No Harm, found that women’s economic empowerment programs undertaken in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands can have positive outcomes through women’s access to and control over money; women’s increased financial literacy; women’s increased leadership and decision-making; peer support among women; and challenging of gender norms at family and community levels.
However, the research also found that some women participating in such programs experience violence, some of which is related to their increased economic independence.

Challenging unequal gender roles and norms can lead to men using violence against women as a way of reinforcing gender inequality and their power over women.

The research also found that increasing women’s economic contribution to the household did not necessarily result in greater economic equality within the partnership.
Given the focus in Australia’s aid program on both women’s economic empowerment and ending gender-based violence, the Do No Harm findings underline the critical importance of: Integrating a ‘do no harm’ approach in women’s economic empowerment programming   Directly addressing community-based gender norms as part of women’s economic empowerment programming.

Including men as a target of work to transform gender norms.
 IWDA used the research findings to develop a series of practical toolkits to support community organisations to address violence against women in women’s economic empowerment programs.
The Toolkits are framed around program design, implementation and monitoring and include five principles to minimise violence:  Supporting women victims/survivors of violence  Transforming gender inequality   Changing men’s attitudes and behaviours that support gender inequality and violence against Increasing women’s participation in programs.

women.

 Partnering with experienced violence against women providers.
A Do No Harm approach should also be integrated in programming approaches to women’s leadership.

As women move into public and political spaces, they can be at increased risk of violence.
An Inter-Parliamentary Union Study on the experiences of 55 women parliamentarians Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 19 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 from 39 countries across five regions revealed that 81.8% of respondents had experienced psychological violence during their parliamentary term.60 Recommendation 19: The Australian Government should integrate evidence on harm minimisation in to women’s economic empowerment programming (including private sector development opportunities) and ensure that Australian Aid funds gender transformative women’s economic empowerment programming.
6.

ALIGNING AUSTRALIA’S AID PROGRAM: 2030 AGENDA AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS In 2015, the Australian Government adopted the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and committed to achieving its transformative action agenda for a more peaceful, just and sustainable world.

The Goals recognise the central importance of gender equality and women’s rights.
Meeting these commitments requires accelerated action, and mechanisms and structures in place to achieve the 17 SDGs by the 2030 deadline.

Aligning Australia’s Aid Program with the SDGs will support this process.

6.1 Gender equality focus in Australia’s implementation of the SDGs Gender equality is an enabler and accelerator for all the SDGs.
The 2017 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) Thematic Review of SDG 5 identified progress on gender equality as critical to delivering on all the SDGs, and a priority across every region.61 A focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment would strengthen the efficacy of Australia’s approach to the SDGs.

It would provide a strategic mechanism for avoiding siloing and integrating action across goals that are interconnected and interdependent.
Notably, the interdependence of the goals and the need for this to guide effective implementation was identified as a key priority at the HLPF in 2017.

As the Australian Government implements the SDGs, explicitly connecting targets across goals will support effective action.

For example, progress on the unpaid care target under Goal 5 is linked to progress on Goal 6 on universal access to clean water and sanitation and Goal 8 on decent work and economic growth.
Efforts towards peace, justice and strong institutions under Goal 16 are linked to the Goal 5 target to ensure women’s full and effective participation at all levels of decision-making.

Deliberately making these links will reduce siloing and promote effectiveness and coherence.62 Recommendation 20: The Australian Government should align Australian Aid with the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Australian Government should ensure an integrated approach to implementing the Goals that includes a clear focus on gender equality and women’s rights, and recognises the crucial role of gender equality in achieving not just the gender goal and targets, but the entire agenda.

6.2 A commitment to leave no one behind The commitment to leave no one behind is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda and needs to be a key focus in implementing the SDGs.
This requires an inclusive approach that considers the diversity of women and girls and the intersecting factors that contribute to experiences of discrimination.
As noted in section 5.1, because the Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM) collects information about a range of characteristics (including gender, age and disability), it can be disaggregated, providing new insights into the impact of the factors influencing deprivation, for individuals and groups, and how multiple factors interact to produce and deepen deprivation.
By measuring on a four-point scale, the IDM helps to reveal the nature and depth of poverty, which assist governments and organisations to tackle poverty more effectively through better targeting of policy and programming.

60 Inter-Parliamentary Union (2016), op.

cit.
61 High Level Political Forum (2017), ‘Thematic review of SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’, p. 4-5, available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/14383SDG5format-revOD.pdf; Wahlen, C. (2017), ‘What are Regional Priorities for HLPF 2017?’, available at: http://sdg.iisd.org/commentary/policy-briefs/what-are-regional-priorities-for-hlpf-2017/ 62 See recent report from UN Women (2018), ‘Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, details the relevance for gender equality across all of the SDGs.
Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 20 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 6.3 Engaging civil society and women’s right’s organisations Consultation and cooperation with civil society is integral to achieving the SDGs, as recognised in Goal 17.
An inclusive approach to engagement, particularly with individuals and groups who are under-represented in existing representative and consultative mechanisms, is vital to effectiveness and achieving the commitment to leave no one behind.

This includes engaging with the voices and needs of diverse women and girls and with women’s rights organisations, networks and coalitions.
The Australian Government has a role to play, domestically and through the Australian aid program, in promoting the role of diverse women and the importance of women’s rights organisations and machineries for gender equality as agents for change63 and leaders on the 2030 Agenda.

Support for civil society is particularly relevant in a context of closing spaces for civil society engagement.
This impacts significantly on civil society operating under constrained social norms, such as women human rights defenders and women's rights organisations.

A legitimate space in which to operate is a critical foundation for women's rights organisations and women human rights defenders.

Shrinking civil society space is thus a critical constraint on achieving gender equality.
We commend the Government for its focus on gender equality in the Human Rights Council, and urge an integrated approach to gender equality and freedom of expression, including championing the role of civil society and advocating for civil society space as a foundational, liberal democratic principle and an enabler of gender equality.
6.4 Resourcing and coordination mechanisms Resourcing a whole of government coordination mechanism and a formal mechanism to coordinate the participation of civil society, particularly women’s organisations, networks and coalitions, will support inclusive, effective and efficient achievement of Australia’s commitments under the SDGs.
IWDA recommends that the Government continues to fund a multi-sectoral secretariat to coordinate action on the SDGs and input into Government processes to enable coordination of the SDGs across federal, state and local governments, as well as providing a hub for facilitating engagement with civil society organisations, business and academia.
IWDA also recommends the establishment of a Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Advisory Group comprised of gender equality experts drawn from across the private sector, academia, and civil society representatives with both a domestic and an international program focus.

This Advisory Group would inform Australia’s thinking and policies on gender equality and women’s empowerment as integral to the 2030 Agenda and to provide expert opinion and advice to the Interdepartmental Committee.
As an alternative model, IWDA supports ACFID’s call for a multi-sectoral reference group to enhance the transparency and effectiveness of the Inter-Departmental Committee, comprised of members from civil society, academia and the private sector.
This group should include gender balance in membership, gender expertise among members, a co-chair model with gender balance and crosscutting issues, including gender equality and women’s empowerment, as a standing agenda item.64 Of course, adequate resourcing is integral to achieving the gender equality goals and targets.
The areas of commitment in the Addis Ababa Action Plan on Transformative Financing for Gender Equality developed by UN Women, the OECD and UN member states are also relevant here and mutually supportive.
These focus on domestic and international policy actions and public resources for gender equality and women’s empowerment, creating an enabling environment and resourcing partnerships and data to monitor progress.65 Recommendation 21: The Australian Government should action the areas of commitment in the Addis Ababa Action Plan on Transformative Financing for Gender Equality.
63 See ‘IWDA and the Global Goals: Driving Systemic Change’, available at: https://iwda.org.au/resource/iwda-and-the-global-goals-driving- systemic-change/ 64 ACFID (2018), op.

cit.
65 United Nations (2015), ‘Addis Ababa Action Plan on Transformative Financing for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment’, available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/8131Action%20Plan%20on%20Transformative%20Financing%20for%20GEWE.pdf Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 21 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 7.
EXPANDING THE IMPACT OF A FOCUS ON WOMEN AND GIRLS: THE NEED FOR GENDER SENSITIVE AID FOR TRADE Trade policy is interrelated with gender equality as trade policies are strongly redistributive and often generate complex and contradictory effects on women’s access to employment, livelihood and income.

Often, societies where women experience economic or social discrimination do not fully benefit from the effects of globalisation and trade integration.
Reducing gender bias is particularly important in lower income contexts where inequalities between men and women are large.

Trade can be a catalyst for gender equality; however, the effects of trade liberalisation and globalisation on women so far have been mixed.

In some cases, trade liberalisation has exacerbated existing gender inequalities and worsened women’s economic and social status.
One factor behind these negative effects is that trade policies are often designed and implemented without considering gender issues.

Gender analysis is essential to ensuring effectiveness and understanding of how policy and programming will impact women and girls.

It also helps to ensure decision-making is not ‘gender blind’ and considers the impact of a policy, program, project or other activity on women, men, boys and girls and on the economic and social relations between them.
This maximises opportunities to progress the rights of women and girls and avoids unintended adverse consequences.

This includes trade, consistent with a whole of government approach to progressing gender equality.

Integrating gender analysis into all Aid for Trade activities, including research and data collection, will ensure decisions are more informed, effective, sustainable and contribute to outcomes that meet the needs of both women and men.
Strong, existing gender-impact assessment methodologies (for example, those used by USAID),66 could be used by the Australian Government to integrate gender equality outcomes into trade policies.

These can be used prior to commencing negotiations, to identify priority areas (bringing a gender lens to prioritising sectors), and to monitor implementation to identify and manage any disproportionate impacts.
Recommendation 22: The Australian Government should integrate gender analysis into all Aid for Trade activities, including design, implementation, research and data collection.
66 Women’s Edge Coalition (2003), ‘Framework for a Trade Impact Review’, p. 9, available at: https://www- tc.pbs.org/now/politics/tradeimpact.pdf Submission: Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo Pacific and its role in supporting our regional interests 22 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 61