Papua New Guinea

Gender Community of Practice meeting in Bangkok, 13 to 15 September 2010

Managed by the regional gender team of UNDP in Bangkok, the Asia/Pacific Gender Community of Practice (CoP) was launched in 2006. The membership targeted UNDP Country Office (CO) staff, with the primary aim of supporting gender mainstreaming efforts within the CO policy and programme work. Since the inception of the CoP, the membership has expanded to over 200 members from 24 countries from the region and includes external partners from the government and civil society.

The Gender CoP helps to connect its members to experiences, knowledge, people and solutions. There are three critical elements or pillars of the CoP: a) the e-platform which houses knowledge and information as identified by the members themselves; b) the e-discussion list which allows members to share information about resources and events, post queries, or circulate documents for consultation; c) annual face-to-face meetings in the form of annual learning events which provide members with the opportunity to connect as well as learn about new emerging topics. Between 2007 and 2009, three learning events have been organized: 1. Skills Building workshop on Gender Mainstreaming targeted at Gender Focal Points (2007), 2. Experience sharing and exploring linkages on Gender and Climate Change targeted at Gender Focal Points and Environment Focal Points (2008); 3. Strengthening & revitalizing the community; providing learning space for concepts and frameworks on gender (2009).

This year's Annual Learning Event took place in Bangkok from 13 to 15 September 2010 and was the opportunity to interact, share experiences and discuss challenges and solutions to working on gender issues in key policy and programme areas in the Asia Pacific region.

Two principles stood at the forefront of the workshop. The first one - 'new learning' - provided space to learn about new tools, concepts and emerging issues. Sessions focused on integration of gender perspectives into development projects, accountability for gender equality results (Gender Marker tool), gender and macro-economics, gender and capacity development (focusing on gender sensitive capacity assessment), gender and crisis prevention and recovery (focusing on women's role in disaster risk management and Peace Building), gender-based violence (focusing on underlying and direct causes and the juxtaposition of activities of intervention and prevention), HIV, Gender and Human Rights, Knowledge Management (focusing on overcoming barriers to sharing knowledge, UNDP teamworks) as well as Action Planning for 2011.

The second principle of the workshop was 'new attitudes', focusing mainly on the involvement of men and boys as Partners for Prevention of Gender-based violence. This regional inter-agency (UNDP, UNIFEM, UNFPA, UNV) programme carries out research for informed action. Besides China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Cambodia, PNG is one of the countries where the programme will provide technical support.

A crucial part of the workshop was the 'story-telling' sessions, which provided the opportunity to share and showcase the work being carried out at the country level. Presentations were very original and included role plays and multi-media presentations. PNG's presentation focused on women in leadership, informing about the 22 reserved seats in PNG parliament and economic empowerment of women at the community level.

All sessions included presentations by experts and resource persons, passionate discussions and extensive and intense group exercises. It was of tremendous value to count with the participation of government counterparts and civil society. This not only allowed for a broader exchange of ideas and experience, but also encouraged participants to do a constant 'reality check' regarding terminology and concepts used and applied.