Women's political and administrative leadership in the Pacific

Abstract

Improving women’s leadership and political participation has proved to be a key developmental challenge for Pacific Islands Countries, particularly the Melanesian countries (Barbara and Haley 2014:48). Since its inception the Australian Aid Program’s flagship gender equity initiative – Pacific Women (AusAID 2012) – has supported a range of activities aimed at improving and better understanding women’s leadership and decision making in the region (Pacific Women 2015). 1 Drawing upon this objective, and the available research and analytical work, this paper provides an overview of women’s political and administrative leadership in the Pacific. It has been prepared to inform forthcoming design work being undertaken by Pacific Women. The paper incorporates and expands upon an earlier concept note we prepared to inform the original Pacific Women design (Haley and Zubrinich 2012), and considers women’s leadership and participation as it relates to formal institutions and processes, including national and subnational government, the public sector and civic engagement (c.f. Domingo et.al. 2015; and McLeod’s (2015) political, administrative and civil society leadership)