Importance of including women’s need in global development
(100 words)
Answers
These women work tirelessly with limited resources and little support. The Ministry of Community Affairs – their office in the tiny provincial capital Buala – suggests grandeur far surpassing the fact that it is a pokey, falling down building with missing floorboards, five staff and one shared computer that is riddled with trojans and only fires up intermittently when the diesel generator that powers the ramshackle government buildings has enough fuel. Isabel Province is a long, rugged island of 30,000 people, with a single hospital that takes many people more than a day to reach. Child birth claims the lives of far too many women, infants and sometimes both. Family violence is the norm. This is the reality of rural life in the Solomon Islands. And, in a country where 80 per cent of the population live in rural areas, it is the rural people who most want development.
As part of my work I supported a small alliance of government, health, police and church workers to form an integrated response to the almost endemic rate of family violence – “The Isabel United to Stop Family Violence Team”. The team worked long hours outside of their normal work days, took on additional work and received no remuneration for all their extra commitment. The group consisted almost exclusively of women, some of whom were simultaneously educating others about family violence whilst experiencing it at home. I have never seen a group of women more passionate about achieving change.

Isabel Women march for International Women's Day © Claire Varley
These women want development but development is happening too slowly.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard used the recent Pacific Islands Forum to announce a $320 million aid initiative called “Pacific Women Sharing Pacific Development.” Delivered over ten years, this fund will expand women’s leadership and economic and social opportunities, provide support for practical change at national and local levels, and partner with government and civil society groups. In her speech Prime Minister Gillard said that not only is gender equality “the right thing to do; it’s also the clever thing to do” because by all accounts we know that when you empower women, the whole community benefits.
To put this into context, the Pacific has the lowest representation of women parliamentarians in the world (five per cent compared to a global average of 18 per cent). In the Solomons there is currently only one female national Member of Parliament.
The Pacific also has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world with as many as 69 per cent of women experiencing it. The Solomon Islands Family Health and Safety Survey found that nearly two in three Solomon women had experienced intimate partner violence.
Australia provides half of all global overseas development aid to the Pacific. This amount makes up 25 per cent of Australia’s total overseas aid budget (the Pacific is set to receive 1.2 billion in the 2012-13 cycle). AusAID considers gender a cross-cutting theme across all sectors and the recent Gillard initiative is an impressive commitment, particularly as the ten-year lifespan of the initiative bucks the trend of the short-term development project cycle. But some development workers have met the announcement with measured caution.
Kate Higgins is the Pacific Program Manager for Anglican Overseas Aid (AOA, formerly Anglicord). She has been working in the Pacific for the past five years and currently oversees all development programs in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Kate is impressed by the Gillard initiative, especially its long-term outlook and its commitment to women. However she is apprehensive about the flow on effect to civil society and grassroots organisations that often see little trickle down from such large-scale funding initiatives. Her major concern is that when rural and grassroots women’s organisations get overlooked, development projects are less likely to achieve their goals. One of the chief reasons behind this is a clash of cultural ideas about development. In the Solomon context this often happens around the idea of “human rights”, which many locals see as an imposed Western ideal.
Women like the Honourable Rhoda Sikilabu – the first female Deputy Premier in the Solomon Islands – who is one of the only women to ever be appointed to her district’s House of Chiefs. And Loretta Soaki, the hard-working young Women’s Desk Officer who is the sole government employee responsible for women’s development for the entire Isabel Province.
These women work tirelessly with limited resources and little support. The Ministry of Community Affairs – their office in the tiny provincial capital Buala – suggests grandeur far surpassing the fact that it is a pokey, falling down building with missing floorboards, five staff and one shared computer that is riddled with trojans and only fires up intermittently when the diesel generator that powers the ramshackle government buildings has enough fuel. Isabel Province is a long, rugged island of 30,000 people, with a single hospital that takes many people more than a day to reach. Child birth claims the lives of far too many women, infants and sometimes both. Family violence is the norm. This is the reality of rural life in the Solomon Islands. And, in a country where 80 per cent of the population live in rural areas, it is the rural people who most want development.
As part of my work I supported a small alliance of government, health, police and church workers to form an integrated response to the almost endemic rate of family violence – “The Isabel United to Stop Family Violence Team”. The team worked long hours outside of their normal work days, took on additional work and received no remuneration for all their extra commitment. The group consisted almost exclusively of women, some of whom were simultaneously educating others about family violence whilst experiencing it at home. I have never seen a group of women more passionate about achieving change.

Isabel Women march for International Women's Day © Claire Varley
These women want development but development is happening too slowly.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard used the recent Pacific Islands Forum to announce a $320 million aid initiative called “Pacific Women Sharing Pacific Development.” Delivered over ten years, this fund will expand women’s leadership and economic and social opportunities, provide support for practical change at national and local levels, and partner with government and civil society groups. In her speech Prime Minister Gillard said that not only is gender equality “the right thing to do; it’s also the clever thing to do” because by all accounts we know that when you empower women, the whole community benefits.
To put this into context, the Pacific has the lowest representation of women parliamentarians in the world (five per cent compared to a global average of 18 per cent). In the Solomons there is currently only one female national Member of Parliament.
The Pacific also has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world with as many as 69 per cent of women experiencing it. The Solomon Islands Family Health and Safety Survey found that nearly two in three Solomon women had experienced intimate partner violence.
Australia provides half of all global overseas development aid to the Pacific. This amount makes up 25 per cent of Australia’s total overseas aid budget (the Pacific is set to receive 1.2 billion in the 2012-13 cycle). AusAID considers gender a cross-cutting theme across all sectors and the recent Gillard initiative is an impressive commitment, particularly as the ten-year lifespan of the initiative bucks the trend of the short-term development project cycle. But some development workers have met the announcement with measured caution.
Kate Higgins is the Pacific Program Manager for Anglican Overseas Aid (AOA, formerly Anglicord). She has been working in the Pacific for the past five years and currently oversees all development programs in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Kate is impressed by the Gillard initiative, especially its long-term outlook and its commitment to women. However she is apprehensive about the flow on effect to civil society and grassroots organisations that often see little trickle down from such large-scale funding initiatives. Her major concern is that when rural and grassroots women’s organisations get overlooked, development projects are less likely to achieve their goals. One of the chief reasons behind this is a clash of cultural ideas about development. In the Solomon context this often happens around the idea of “human rights”, which many locals see as an imposed Western ideal.
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