WNC’s Inaugural Meeting: ‘Turning the Tide Towards Parity’
July 24, 2017
When did Women Around the World Start Voting?
August 26, 2017
The women of the Pacific region are amongst the most discriminated against in the world. I am talking about the 14 tiny island states that dot the Pacific Ocean…islands such as Fiji, Samoa, Nauru, Tuvalu, Kiribati etc. The women of these nations suffer shockingly high domestic violence and maternal death rates, do most of the work for a fraction of the male wage and have virtually no representation in public office.
Just under 3% of all elected leaders in the Pacific are women. It is the lowest percentage in the world. The Pacific region is now officially far worse on women’s parliamentary equality than the Gulf states. In fact, half of the Pacific island states feature in the bottom 20 countries in the world for women’s participation. Seven of the bottom twenty are from the Pacific and two (Vanuatu and Micronesia) are equal last, with no women representatives at all. Others such as Tonga, Tuvalu and the Solomons only have one.
Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during a visit to Australia for the Pacific Islands Forum recently became disturbed by the issue of women’s representation. In my brief conversation with him he acknowledged that he had needed to be speedily backgrounded on the issue and that Papua New Guinea (3 out of 111) in particular disturbed him.
The problem for women seeking public office is complex. Certainly there is overt discrimination and the refusal of men to vote for a good woman candidate is well documented but the endemic corruption is also a factor. Women with little access to wealth (or pigs) are in no position to offer the traditional feast that a successful candidate is expected to provide. We can’t propose solutions that border on corruption but what is the answer?
The women who I have worked with in Bougainville, the Solomons, and PNG are all articulate, intelligent and hard working. They are seemingly perfectly equipped to run a powerful campaign and become great MPs but without intervention this will never happen.
Julie Bishop, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs acknowledges the need for greater support for women in these areas. Writing about the Solomons she agreed with an OECD report that concluded that “investment in gender equality yields the highest returns of all development investments”. She also put her finger on one of the main problems for women’s representation in the Pacific, the corruption of the political system… “the greater the influence of women in public life in developing countries, the less corruption exists”.
The creation of the UN Global Ambassador for Women position has been the result of a sustained campaign by women’s organisations and development agencies. The Australian Council for International Development, the peak body for non government aid and development agencies was heavily involved with the campaign. We urged that the position be modelled on the hugely successful US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues appointed in 2009 by Hillary Clinton.
For those of us in the development sector, we are particularly keen that the Ambassador act as a champion for the role of women in the aid programme. Recent aid effectiveness reviews show us that aid delivered to women is the most effective mode of delivery.
The previous Australian Labor Government announced that “an immediate practical priority will be working with the US and our Pacific partners on domestic violence in the region” but was unable to get much done before electoral defeat. With 60% of the Pacific countries having no domestic violence legislation and two in three women having reported physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of their spouse or partner, such support is long overdue.
Then the next step is to get some more women elected to the Parliaments of Vanuatu (0), Micronesia (0), Tuvalu (1), Tonga (1), the Solomons(1), Palau (2), Nauru (2), Nauru (2) and Palau (2).
Dr Meredith Burgmann is the former President of the Legislative Council of NSW; and The Australian Council for International Development, the peak body for non government aid agencies. She has been involved in training women candidates in Bougainville, PNG, The Solomons and TimorL’Este.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington on Thursday. Leon Neal/Getty Images
CNN
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the White House on Thursday could be his final chance to convince a receptive American president of his country’s war aims.
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The precise details of the “victory plan” Zelensky plans to present in separate meetings to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are unknown, having been closely held until they are presented to the American leaders.
But according to people briefed on its broad contours, the plan reflects the Ukrainian leader’s urgent appeals for more immediate help countering Russia’s invasion. Zelensky is also poised to push for long-term security guarantees that could withstand changes in American leadership ahead of what is widely expected to be a close presidential election between Harris and former President Donald Trump.
The plan, people familiar with it said, acts as Zelensky’s response to growing war weariness even among his staunchest of western allies. It will make the case that Ukraine can still win — and does not need to cede Russian-seized territory for the fighting to end — if enough assistance is rushed in.
That includes again asking permission to fire Western provided long-range weapons deeper into Russian territory, a line Biden once was loathe to cross but which he’s recently appeared more open to as he has come under growing pressure to relent.
Even if Biden decides to allow the long-range fires, it’s unclear whether the change in policy would be announced publicly.
Biden is usually apt to take his time making decisions about providing Ukraine new capabilities. But with November’s election potentially portending a major change in American approach to the war if Trump were to win, Ukrainian officials — and many American ones — believe there is little time to waste.
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Trump has claimed he will be able to “settle” the war upon taking office and has suggested he’ll end US support for Kyiv’s war effort.
“Those cities are gone, they’re gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn’t have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt,” Trump said during a campaign speech in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday.
Comments like those have lent new weight to Thursday’s Oval Office talks, according to American and European officials, who have described an imperative to surge assistance to Ukraine while Biden is still in office.
As part of Zelensky’s visit, the US is expected to announce a major new security package, thought it will likely delay the shipping of the equipment due to inventory shortages, CNN previously reported according to two US officials. On Wednesday, the US announced a package of $375 million.
The president previewed Zelensky’s visit to the White House a day beforehand, declaring on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly his administration was “determined to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to prevail in fight for survival.”
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“Tomorrow, I will announce a series of actions to accelerate support for Ukraine’s military – but we know Ukraine’s future victory is about more than what happens on the battlefield, it’s also about what Ukrainians do make the most of a free and independent future, which so many have sacrificed so much for,” he said.
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