Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development
Tonga Country Plan Summary
April 2014
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Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development: Tonga Country Plan Summary
Background
Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development (Pacific Women) was launched by the Australian Government at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in August 2012. Pacific Women is a ten-year, $320 million program, funded through Australian aid, which aims to improve the political, economic and social opportunities of Pacific women. Pacific Women will support countries to meet the commitments they made in the Pacific Leaders’ Gender Equality Declarations. Pacific Women will work with all 14 Pacific Island Forum countries.
After 10 years, it is expected that Pacific Women will have helped to:
Increase the effective representation of women, and women’s interests, through leadership at all levels of decision-making.
Expand women’s economic opportunities to earn an income and accumulate economic assets.
Reduce violence against women and increase access to support services and to justice for survivors of violence.
An important element of Pacific Women is delivering of support through individual country plans for the 14 Pacific Island Forum countries. These country plans provide the detail on what will be funded and how these funding decisions are made.Country plans represent locally relevant responses and align with country-specific gender policies and priorities.
Introduction
Through Pacific Women, the Australian Government will spend approximately $10.1 million over 10 years on initiatives supporting women’s empowerment in Tonga. The first three year plan includes five activities valued at $2.6million and will be implemented from 2014–2017 (see Table 1 for details).
The Tonga country plan was developed following a one-week design mission. Consultations were held with a broad range of stakeholders including: Department of Foreign and Affairs and Trade staff, government agencies, civil society groups including those representing women’s associations, women’s crisis centres, and youth groups, church leaders, law enforcement and court liaison, private sector organisations, individual women in business and micro-enterprise and Pacific regional agencies. The design mission was not able to visit rural districts or outer islands. A consultation was arranged with women drawn from two rural districts of Tongatapu, and another with District Officials from four constituencies on Tongatapu (the main island). There are only male Town and District Officials on Tongatapu, therefore the circumstances and priorities of outer island women were explored through interviews and reviewing documents. A deeper understanding of rural and outer island contexts will require future visits, as planned for year one.
The five activities funded in the first country plan will:
Strengthen the national response to violence against women
Research the impacts of the seasonal migrant worker scheme on women and men
Strengthen the organisational and technical capacity of women's organisations
Support the Government of Tonga to organise key women's events
Strengthen the gender responsiveness of designs, baselines and monitoring and evaluation frameworks of programs funded with Australian aid.
Rationale
The extent of violence against women and girls in Tonga was confirmed in the 2012 National Study on Domestic Violence against Women, which found that 1 in 3 ever-partnered women experienced physical violence and 68% of women had experienced physical violence by a person other than their partner. In June 2013, the Tongan Family Protection Bill was passed by Parliament. This Bill establishes domestic violence as a criminal offence and introduces expanded access to protection and restraining orders, including the authorisation of police to issue on-the-spot restraining and eviction orders to protect women. Over half of the first three-year budget will focus on reducing violence against women and expanding access to support services.
With the heavy reliance of Tongan households on remittances from overseas-based family members, and the Australian Government’s intention to expand access to the seasonal migrant worker scheme, it is critical to investigate the speculated positive and harmful impacts of the scheme on women, men and their families in the Pacific. Improving the evidence base will be a focus of the country plan and will support research into the social and economic impacts of the seasonal migrant worker scheme on women, men and families in Tonga.
Women in Tonga are predominantly concentrated in handicraft production, trade and education. The 2009 Household Income and Expenditure Survey showed that over one third of rural households relied on handicrafts (a largely female industry) for subsistence income. The large role that women play in agriculture and food production is under recognised in official statistics. Women and women’s groups have limited access to credit, business development skills and business knowledge. The country plan will support the implementation of training needs assessments of women’s organisations that support women in small and medium enterprise development.
The country plan will also continue annual funding to government for public events marking women’s issues, including White Ribbon Day and International Women’s Day. This funding, which has historically been provided through Tonga’s bilateral program, will now be consolidated through Pacific Women, creating administrative efficiencies as well as a greater profile for Pacific Women in Tonga.
The Australian Government is Tonga’s largest grant-based aid donor, with the bilateral aid contribution equivalent to 22% ($32 million) of the Tongan national budget in the 2012/13 financial year. Given the scale and reach of the Australian bilateral program in Tonga, the limited articulation of gender equality objectives within the current program, and the interest expressed by Post and sector program staff, the country plan includes the appointment of a Tonga Gender Equality Advisor to work with Post and the Division of Women’s Affairs to strengthen gender analysis and gender mainstreaming processes. Through the Tonga Gender Advisor position, Pacific Women will provide additional technical support to DFAT programs in Tonga to ensure that program design properly addresses the needs of women and men, and to ensure that monitoring and evaluation is gender sensitised and captures positive change.
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Table 1: Three-Year Plan 2014-2017
Activity Name / Activity Summary / Expected Outcomes / Timeframe / ValueEnhanced knowledge and evidence to inform policy and practice
Research on impacts of seasonal migrant worker scheme on women and men / › Investigate the social and economic impacts of the seasonal migrant worker scheme on women and men in migrant-sending households in Tonga
› Develop recommendations for measures to protect or enhance benefits of the scheme for women and men / › Evidence on the social and economic impacts of the scheme on women to inform the program and enhance protections and benefits for women
› Improved gender responsive seasonal migration programs / Three years from 2014 / $550,000
Positive changes in social norms, values, practices and attitudes towards gender equality and women’s agency
Funding to government for key women's and violence against women events / › Continuation of annual tranche to government to fund Division of Women’s Affairs media and events for International Women’s Day, White Ribbon Day etc. / › Maintenance of national profile for women’s issues and the elimination of violence against women (EVAW) / Three years from 2014 / $48,000
Increased economic opportunities for women
Capacity assessment and support to women's organisations / › Design for package of capacity development for identified women’s organisations that are supporting women in small and medium enterprises
› Provision of capacity development sessions, individualised follow up and mentoring, which may include support for development of business strategies and marketing strategies / › Strengthened organisational and technical capacity of leading women’s organisations in Tonga
› Increased knowledge of capacity and challenges of supporting women in small and medium enterprise to inform Phase II / Three years from 2014 / $74,500
Reduced violence against women and expanded support services
Integrated package to respond to violence against women / › Provide core funding to two existing violence against women (VAW) service providers
› Resource a consultation for a costed implementation and dissemination plan for the Family Protection Act (once passed)
› Fund dissemination plan, including Tongan language version of the Act, and a series of community conversations on what men and women perceive to be the root cause of violence against women
› Facilitate a process to produce a set of minimum standards and referral pathways for survivors of violence. This includes consultations with women, including women with disabilities, rural women on Tongatapu, young women and women on at least one outer island / › Increased quality and coverage of services for survivors of violence
› Strengthened multi-sectoral action for the prevention and response to VAW
› Increased community awareness of VAW as a crime, and of services available
› Stronger collaboration between service providers / Three years from 2014 / $1,446,000
Improved gender outcomes in education and health
Gender Advisor to strengthen design and M&E of programs / › Engage a gender specialist to strengthen DFAT’s gender focus of sector wide programs. Priority programs include: Curriculum development under the Tonga Education Support Program, Tonga Health Systems Support Program; Tonga TVET Program; and UNDP Tonga Governance Strengthening Program
› Provide capacity building in gender analysis, gender mainstreaming and use of gender responsive data for sectoral program managers and Government of Tonga counterparts / › Improved outcomes for women in sectoral programs
› Increased counterpart capacity to analyse and use sex-disaggregated or gender-specific data for programming
› Generation of evidence on women’s voting and leadership prerogatives / Three years from 2014 / $292,080
Operational Support / Monitoring and Evaluation
Effective management and monitoring and evaluation of the country plan / › Gender Advisor will provide advice and technical support to the formation of a M&E framework for the country plan / › High quality and quantity of M&E data from Pacific Women funding / Three years from 2014 / $233,029
Funding for activities under this plan is subject to budget availability.
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