Palau

The Australian Government, through Pacific Women, has committed approximately $1.4m over 10 years (2012–2022) on initiatives to support women’s empowerment in Palau.

There are two key documents providing information about the gender equality work in Palau:

Figures

(cumulative to June 2019 unless otherwise stated)

Community awareness and outreach

  • Two staff from the Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs and the Ministry of Health have attended the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre’s (FWCC’s) Male Advocacy for Women’s Human Rights and Against Violence against Women program.

Enhancing agency

  • The Palau Gender Mainstreaming Policy 2018 is endorsed, following consultations and a workshop with government and partners.

Achievements

Leadership and Decision Making

  • Bringing together women parliamentarians from the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, the Pacific Women’s Parliamentary Partnerships Project (WPPP) annual forum was an opportunity for Palau’s first woman Senator and Vice-President, Senator Sandra Pierantozzi, to discuss strategies to overcome the factors that constrain women’s political participation.

Economic Empowerment

  • Credible, evidence-based information and analysis on the context of women’s economic empowerment in Palau is now available following support from the Pacific Community (SPC) for a scoping study on women’s economic empowerment.
  • Implementation of POETCom’s Building Prosperity for Women Producers (BPWP) and processors, and women owned businesses, through organic value chains project, began with a two-week series of workshops and consultations in September 2019. BPWP is a four-year project.

Ending Violence against Women

  • Recommendations from the five-year review of the Palau Family Protection Act 2012 are providing a roadmap for the Ministry for Community and Cultural Affairs to strengthen coordination and availability of services for survivors of domestic violence.
  • Two male government staff members are applying feminist approaches to their work dealings with women survivors of violence. The representatives from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs are using the knowledge and strategies they learned about gender equality and the causes of violence against women in FWCC’s month-long Male Advocacy for Women’s Human Rights and Against Violence against Women program to respond appropriately to women survivors in their workplaces.

Enhancing Agency

  • Support for a gender analyst in the Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs is producing sex-disaggregated data to identify gender gaps to inform policy making. Examples include an analysis of the social security data on formal sector employment and gross earnings in Palau and a report on the Sustainable Development Goals and gender.
  • The Palau Gender Mainstreaming Policy was endorsed in 2018, following consultations and a workshop convened by SPC’s Progressing Gender Equality in the Pacific (PGEP) with the Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs as part of the policy development process. PGEP continues to support Government of Palau to improve its gender mainstreaming capacity.

Pacific Women partners in Country

Government of Palau: Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs.

Other partners: Australian International and Community Relations Office, Department of the House of Representatives; Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre; Pacific Community (SPC): POETCom, Progressing Gender Equality in the Pacific and Regional Rights Resource Team; UNICEF; and Pacific Women’s regional partners.

Details on activities for each country, including those supported by the regional program, are available via the interactive map. The full list of program partners can be found here.