United Nations Development Program in partnership with Australian Government and the Joint Parliamentary Women’s Caucus -PNGs National Parliament and Bougainville House of Representatives has held Woman in Leadership retreat, which was launched on Thursday 09th November 2023 and is running a one-day retreat today Friday 10th November 2023 at the Hilton Hotel here in Port Moresby.
The joint Parliamentary women speakers plays a pivotal role in unifying forces for female members of the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea and this retreat is to bring all women leaders in the national level together to advocate and empower each other.
This transformative gathering unites influential women leaders from across the nation to foster unity, cooperation, and strategic initiatives.
The primary objective is to advocate for Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment, Women’s Political Participation, and the eradication of Gender-Based Violence (GBV)
UNDP Residence Representative Mr Nicholas Booth in his opening remarks stated that gender Inequality is certainly among the biggest challenges PNG faces.
“In the UNDP Inequality Index, Papua New Guinea ranks 169 at the bottom, but Gender based Violence, PNG is at the highest level in the Pacific and the Pacific level of Gender Based violence is the highest in the world.”
Mr Booth stated that this is an incredibly serious problem that needs to be addressed.
“But here is the extra dimension of the problem, you will never see Gender Inequality and you will never get to gender equality unless women have the same power as men, unless women lead equality with men.”
Mr Booth added that here in PNG the ceiling is like concrete, and it takes strong women do break through it and the question is, how do women break through that?
That is why the Woman in Leadership retreat is important it creates a space for powerful women who can come together and can work together.
“Having a retreat like these joint women coercers is such an important way for powerful women leaders to come together for advocacy, to work on issues around them, to learn the tricks and to share the strategies.”
Mr Booth further encouraged all women to empower and share and let us spread the partnership for women’s leadership at every level throughout this country.
“Country PNG bai i nonap stap orait sapos ol meri ino stap.”