COVID-19 has placed an unprecedented burden on the health, social and economic systems of Pacific Island Countries, the region is also facing the devastating impact of the climate crisis. Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Tropical Cyclone Harold further challenged the joint capacity of the Pacific region to respond to the situation. In addition to lockdown and disruption of supply chains, the cyclone brought heavy rains damaging food gardens, homes and infrastructure.
An initial rapid women’s human security assessment across the Shifting the Power (STP) Coalition in March clearly identified the importance of the peace-development-humanitarian nexus approach to COVID-19 and the cyclone. Priorities across the coalition were economic, health and food security, as well as community and personal security. As the Coalition found with the Samoa measles epidemic in 2019 and now with COVID-19, gender inequalities influence access to healthcare, resources, and information, all of which play a role in prevention, early intervention, and treatment. Through the STP Coalition, women leaders were able to adapt their work to support prevention, awareness-raising, and preparedness in the context of COVID-19. As members of the Pacific Humanitarian Protection Cluster, the Coalition ensured that response and recovery measures used gender, age, disability and location disaggregated data in order to protect the most vulnerable and support long-term solutions.
The initiatives coordinated by the STP Coalition are vital in a region where women’s representation in leadership and decision-making roles are extremely low, and where the impacts of climate change are the most severe in the world - Pacific countries make up four of the five countries most at risk of disaster. Despite increased attention to and investment in women’s leadership in decision-making across the region, women are still notably absent from visible leadership roles within mechanisms focused on responding to climate change and resulting disasters. This is reflective of the broader trend across the Pacific region of women’s low levels of representation in decision making and cultural norms that exclude women from public life.
Due to this limited access, women are often invisible in policymaking. Women’s organisations are not considered humanitarian actors, so their expertise is not valued or resourced in times of crisis, and they are frequently excluded or marginalised in humanitarian coordination mechanisms. The situation facing diverse women, including young women and women living with disabilities, makes it harder for them to access decision-making processes. Without their adequate representation in discussions around climate change and disasters, the default approach is techno-centric and ignores the realities for women, which include the burden of unpaid work, the increased prevalence of gender-based violence and food insecurity and the institutionalised marginalisation of women’s voices and leadership. Diverse women’s needs are marginalised through a one-size fits all gender approach that presumes all women have the same experiences in disasters.
Agnes Titus of the Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation has influenced the composition of the regional disaster management committee, “we spoke for the need to include women in the design table of this disaster management or disaster recovery…you could hear a pin drop because it was the first time for these men who normally go to these meetings to hear that. We stressed the fact that women’s needs are actually different from men’s needs and so we have to take these things into account when we are preparing for disaster and recovery.”
The challenges of 2020 do not come as a surprise. In 2015, STP Coalition members who are members of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) Pacific Network, worked with UN Women to integrate language on climate change in the Global Study on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and supported the innovative – at that time – language of Security Council Resolution 2242 on the impacts of climate change and the global nature of health pandemics on the trajectory of conflict. Now, as expressed in the consultation for the 2020 Peacebuilding Architecture Review on Gender, Climate and Peace in the Pacific, a key priority for women-first responders is to connect all parts of the Triple Nexus through a gender lens. This is evident through GPPAC Pacific and STP Coalition led initiatives including food security programmes, the use of innovative information and communication platforms and mainstream media, as well as the provision of emergency grants tackling the vulnerabilities of out of work women and girls.
The STP Coalition is calling on Pacific Leaders to ensure that the Pacific Humanitarian Pathway (PHP) on COVID-19 (a regional multilateral arrangement) tackles the drivers of gender inequalities in areas such as access to healthcare and economic recovery. They further recommend a multistakeholder process that ensures women’s rights organisations and Networks provide gender oversight to the PHP and national response and recovery measures; increased funding and capacity development to local and national women’s groups and dedicated funding for localised, women-led approaches to protection and livelihood and food security programmes.
The Shifting the Power Coalition was formed in the aftermath of Cyclone Pam (2015) in Vanuatu and Cyclone Winston (2016) in Fiji. It is the only regional alliance focused on strengthening the collective power, influence and leadership of Pacific women in responding to disasters and climate change. It is designed to strengthen the collective power and influence of diverse women-led local organisations in the humanitarian space. ActionAid Australia, a women’s rights focused humanitarian organisation supports Coalition members to engage in the humanitarian system. Together the Coalition members are also committed to inter-generational learning and leadership development. Together the Coalition is working to build evidence and capabilities, influence policies and practice, and support the leadership of Pacific women in humanitarian decision making at all levels. Together, we are starting a humanitarian revolution.