Papua New Guinea

CARE in the Pacific PARTNERSHIPS RESEARCH REPORT

Partnership is central to CARE International’s global vision where poverty has been overcome and all people live with dignity and security. CARE International’s partnerships in the Pacific are carried out through CARE Australia managed country offices in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Vanuatu, and through the CARE in the Pacific team (which sits under CARE Australia) which manage partnerships in countries where CARE Australia does not have a country office. This currently includes Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu. CARE Australia is in the process of developing its Pacific strategy. Central to this process is understanding its approaches to partnership and supporting local leadership with its partners in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu. CARE in the Pacific commissioned this Partnerships Research to document its partnership approach and reflect key contributions and gaps to advancing localisation for its partners in the Pacific. The research was conducted during September and November 2021 and involved CARE in the Pacific and 12 partners in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu.

What this research report does
⮚ Documents CARE in the Pacific’s partnership approach and the key features of the partnership that are supporting locally led outcomes
⮚ Employs a qualitative approach drawing on the voice of partners through feedback captured during interviews, and secondary documentation related to CARE’s partnership and localisation practice, and current sector discourse on localisation to demonstrate how CARE in the Pacific is supporting localisation, and approaches hindering locally led outcomes
⮚ Identifies actions and approaches for CARE in the Pacific for charting a more strategic course for partnership and localisation by building on existing positive practices and considering areas for improving partnership practice to better support localisation

Key findings
Partnership findings
⮚ CARE’s partnership can be characterised by long-term and short-term partnerships. The long-term partnership is guided by a high-level partnership agreement with sub-agreements developed for project or program specific engagement. Capacity strengthening is focused on supporting organisation-wide learning and growth. The short-term partnership usually begins with CARE either securing or identifying a funding opportunity. Based on consultation and shared objectives, agreement is sought to work together and co-design proposals/projects. A sub agreement guides the engagement. Capacity strengthening (informed by due diligence assessments) is largely focused on ensuring partners can meet CARE’s program quality, administrative and financial requirements, including donor compliance requirements.
⮚ Both long-term and short-term partnerships are contributing to positive change, in advancing CARE’s strategic objective of achieving greater impact through partnerships, and for partners, helping to achieve positive change at organisational and community levels. Having both short-term and long-term partnerships allow for flexibility in the partnership and as partnering is also influenced by the amount of funding CARE has available to support partners. A long-term partnering approach would better position CARE to achieve its broader partnership goals for transformed partnerships in the Pacific for reduced poverty and inequality. A key consideration is for CARE to articulate how it will support partners who want to transition to long-term partnerships, the strategy to engage long-term partnerships and with which organisations it will establish such partnerships.
⮚ CARE’s approach is grounded in supporting partners to achieve their mandate and objectives, working within partners priorities, and partners strengths. Partners perceive CARE is taking a partner led approach that is based on shared values and complementary vision, and a strong commitment to partnership. This approach together with the provision of quality technical support in gender, disaster, and humanitarian programming is helping establish CARE as a partner of choice. This is noted by partners as a core strength of CARE’s partnership approach and an area that CARE should continue to build on.
⮚ CARE has strong foundational policies, processes, and principles in place for partnership, but these are not being consistently applied outside of project implementation. CARE has strong processes and principles in place for partnering but these are not being fully maximised, with the focus more on assessing project delivery and results and not partnership outcomes. This approach to partnerships is potentially hindering achievement of more meaningful partnership outcomes, including more effective programming. There is a desire from partners to have more conversations and participate in processes that are focused on assessing the partnership.
⮚ CARE is directly investing in partnerships in several ways: recruitment of dedicated staff and consultants to the CARE in the Pacific team including a Partnerships Coordinator, Gender, and Inclusion Senior Advisor (Fiji), Program Quality Coordinator, Finance & Grants Coordinator and Project Coordinators. CARE is also demonstrating ongoing financial investment in partners by mobilising consecutive funding with the majority of its partners. It will be important for CARE to consider and plan for future resourcing that may be needed to support a long-term partnering approach, acknowledging that CARE largely operates on project specific funding which directly influences the parameters of support CARE is able to provide to partners as this support has to fit within project budgets. Read More...

GENDER AND COVID-19 VACCINES Listening to women-focused organizations in Asia and the Pacific

More than a year into the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed across at least 176 countries, with over 1.7 billion doses administered worldwide. Combating the pandemic requires equitable distribution of safe and effective vaccines, however, women and girls are impacted by gaps both in the supply side and the demand side that hamper equitable distribution of the vaccine. Evidence reveals that 75 per cent of all vaccines have gone to just 10 countries, and only 0.3 per cent of doses have been administered in low-income countries. Very few of COVID-19 vaccines are going to those most vulnerable. The vaccine rollout in Asia and the Pacific has been relatively slow and staggered amid secondary waves of the virus. India, despite being the largest vaccine developer, has only vaccinated 3 per cent of the population and continues to battle a variant outbreak that, at its peak, was responsible for more than half of the world’s daily COVID-19 cases and set a record-breaking pace of about 400,000 cases per day.5However, the small Pacific nation of Nauru, reported a world record administering the first dose to 7,392 people, 108 per cent of the adult population within four weeks. Bhutan also set an example by vaccinating 93 per cent of its eligible population in less than two weeks. That success could be at risk, given the situation in India and the suspended export of vaccines. Read More...

Initial Rapid Gender Assessment Report Papua New Guinea 2015 El Niño

A Rapid Gender Analysis (RGA) is designed to provide information about the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of women, men, girls and boys in a crisis. The objective of this RGA is to provide an overview of the gender relations between men, women, boys and girls in those Papua New Guinea’s highland provinces affected by drought and frost as a result of the 2015 El Niño event.
This initial gender analysis and subsequent recommendations will serve to inform CARE International in PNG’s (CARE PNG) programming response to the 2015 El Niño event in ways which respect the different needs of women, men, girls and boys in El Niño affected communities in Papua New Guinea. Read More...

CARE Rapid Gender Analysis Papua New Guinea – Highlands earthquake

Natural disasters, such as the earthquake that hit Papua New Guinea on the 26th of February are discriminatory events
affecting women, men, girls and boys differently. Drawing on precrisis information, the rapid analysis finds that women and girls are likely to be placed at particular risk due to their increased workload and caring responsibilities1. The destruction of the food gardens deprives women of family food but also of their main source of livelihood. Girls and women are also likely to face secondary gendered risks that result from the disaster, including increased domestic violence, sexual violence, forced marriage and accusations of sorcery. Structural gender inequalities and additional challenges in accessing health services are likely to further impair their sexual and reproductive health at a time when
they may be exposed to increased risks of unwanted pregnancies, STIs and HIV Aids. Inequalities at home may also
expose them to particular risks of food insecurity, eating least and last when food becomes scarce. Female-headed
households and widows require particular attention: With less bargaining power, scarce financial resources to purchase
essential goods and deprived of the required skills to rebuild their shelters, they are at increased risk of exploitation. The population displacement resulting from the earthquake is likely to generate tribal fights, bearing direct consequences on men’s security and indirect consequences for the rest of the community. Read More...

Papua New Guinea COVID-19 RGA

The impacts – direct and indirect – of the COVID-19 pandemic fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in society. PNG presents a range of contextual challenges, including difficult geography. Access to quality health services is limited, due to a lack of infrastructure, equipment, and qualified personnel3. Services are easily stretched or overwhelmed, and provision of specialised services and intensive care is limited. In the current situation, this can pose a problem of access to care if the number of infected people increases4. Coupled with gender inequality, which remains pervasive across the Pacific, in particular in the critical domains of leadership and decision making, access to and control of resources and gender-based violence5, the public health response to COVID-19 can become immeasurably more complex. Read More...

Assessment on the Impact of the El Niño Event in PNG, October 2015

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is currently experiencing the effects of an El Niño event, which includes warmer weather and significantly reduced rainfall. According to the National Weather Service (NWS) in Papua New Guinea and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, this dry hot spell, which began in May 2015, will continue into early 20161.

In order to better understand the needs and capabilities of affected communities, CARE International in PNG (CARE PNG) undertook a series of assessments in three droughtaffected provinces between September 21 and October 2 2015. In parallel to the needs assessments, CARE PNG did a rapid gender analysis on the differing impact of the drought on women, men, girls and boys. The assessments were done in OburaWonenara (Eastern Highlands Province), Menyamya (Morobe) and Gumine (Chimbu) districts in communities not yet covered by National Disaster Center (NDC)-led assessment teams. Read More...

Initial Rapid Gender Assessment Report Papua New Guinea 2015 El Niño: Select Communities of Eastern Highlands, Morobe and Chimbu (October 2015)

A Rapid Gender Analysis (RGA) is designed to provide information about the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of women, men, girls and boys in a crisis. The objective of this RGA is to provide an overview of the gender relations between men, women, boys and girls in those Papua New Guinea’s highland provinces affected by drought and frost as a result of the 2015 El Niño event.

This initial gender analysis and subsequent recommendations will serve to inform CARE International in PNG’s (CARE PNG) programming response to the 2015 El Niño event in ways which respect the different needs of women, men, girls and boys in El Niño affected communities in Papua New Guinea. Read More...

CARE Rapid Gender Analysis Papua New Guinea – Highlands earthquake

Rapid Gender Analysis (RGA) provides information about the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of women, men, boys and girls in a crisis by examining their roles and their relationships. Due to the current limited access to the areas affected by the Highlands earthquake, this document is meant as an initial analysis of gender roles and relations, drawing on pre-crisis information and the limited data that has become available since the disaster. Its purpose is to better understand the gender dynamics within the populations CARE PNG serves.

The objectives are to better understand:
 how women, men, girls and boys are affected by the earthquake
 the impact of the earthquake on gender dynamics
 emerging opportunities to provide an emergency response that meets the differing needs and protect women,
men, boys and girls.
Read More...

CARE Rapid Gender Analysis COVID-19 Pacific Region, 26 March 2020 [version 1]

Globally, including the Pacific, development and humanitarian settings pose particular challenges for infectious disease prevention and control. For the Pacific, COVID-19 presents a range of contextual challenges. These include multiple islands, vast distances and limited resources. In most Pacific Countries, access to quality health services is limited, due to a lack of infrastructure, equipment, and qualified personnel.

This preliminary Rapid Gender Analysis has the following objectives:
● To analyse and understand the different impacts that the COVID-19 potentially has on women, men,
girls and boys and other vulnerable groups in the Pacific context

● To inform humanitarian programming in the Pacific region based on the different needs of women,
men, boys and girls with a particular focus on Gender Based Violence (GBV), Health, Water,
sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Women’s Economic Empowerment. Read More...

Better Governance for Education End of Project Evaluation Report

Better Governance for Education (BG4E) is a 4 year project (July 2016 – June 2020) funded by the Australian Government’s ‘Australian NGO Cooperation Program’ (ANCP) with a total budget of 1.7 million Australian dollars. It is a pilot project that aims to develop and test a model that shows that better governance (and therefore better decision-making, resource allocation, project implementation oversight, monitoring & evaluation) results in improved service delivery. BG4E is based on CARE International’s Governance Framework, which states that if marginalised citizens are empowered, if power-holders are effective, accountable and responsive, and if spaces for negotiation are created, expanded, effective and inclusive, then sustainable and equitable development can be achieved, particularly for marginalised women and girls. The project worked intensively in four school communities, within the Obura Wanenera District, and at sub-national level in 3 districts (Obura Wonenara, Okapa and Lufa) within Eastern Highlands Province.

The evaluation focused on answering four key evaluation questions:

1) IMPACT - Has improved gender inclusive governance led to better service delivery in education?

2) MODEL - Has this project produced a proven or promising approach?

3) RELEVANCE - How relevant is the project to the policy context?

4) SUSTAINABILITY - Are the outcomes and impacts likely to be sustained after the end of the project? Read More...

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