DFAT
October 2020 - May 2021
The Challenge
In 2020, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade decided to embark on a new gender equality initiative for the Pacific, as the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development program was coming to the end of its 10-year life and had recently been evaluated. In particular, DFAT wanted to have a new program that was more Pacific-led and owned.
The solution
Strategic Development Group was engaged to facilitate the design process. We provided a senior team member to be the key facilitator, as well as a project manager. We worked with 5 other team members selected by DFAT – including 3 Pacific women - including one woman with a disability, one Pacific man, and one Australian woman. Within a constrained timeframe, we worked to produce a High-Level Framework Design for a new 5-year program to be called “Pacific Women Lead”.
Our approach was to undertake an open and accessible consultation process to hear what women and men in the Pacific would like to see in Pacific Women Lead. This consultation process included:
Multiple online consultation workshops using a digital consultation tool called Menti
Targeted meetings with key stakeholders
Opportunity for written submissions
Document analysis, including the recent Evaluation of the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development
At key stages, we met with and sought feedback from the Minister for Foreign Affairs’ Pacific Women Advisory Board.
The outcome
We delivered to DFAT a High-Level Framework Design that set out the shape of the new gender-equality initiative “Pacific Women Lead” built around the following three key priorities:
Women’s leadership promoted
Women’s rights realised – with a focus on health, safety, and economic empowerment
Pacific Partners increase the effectiveness of regional gender equality efforts
The Framework Design also proposed a delivery model based in the Pacific and hosted by SPC as the key pacific regional delivery agency in relation to gender equality, and we supported DFAT and SPC in the development of the funding agreement for this role. We also proposed a shift from an Advisory Board to a Governance Board and set out the Terms of Reference for the Governance Board. By early 2022, Pacific Women Lead was in operation.
(Image credit: Julia Whitwell (ADF) via DFAT)
