Fifty national and provincial officials and civil society representatives from across the country came together in Port Moresby at a three-day workshop with an aim to develop concrete activity plans to guide work to address gender-based violence (GBV) from April 22-24, 2022.

The meeting was organised by the Department for Community Development and Religion, in partnership with UNDP as part of the EU-funded UN Spotlight Initiative on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls. It brought together provincial officials from all 20 provinces, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and NCD, alongside national officials working to address GBV.

During the opening ceremony, DFCDR Secretary Mr Jerry Ubase stated: “GBV has a terrible impact on the people of our country. It harms women and children in every single province – in every single town and village. It is our jobs as public servants to implement the Government’s commitment to end GBV. It is very important that we all work together.”

Mr Ubase stressed the importance of developing concrete plans that could be funded and implemented immediately. He stated: “I am hopeful that we will have some very clear action plans and budgets that my own team can use – in partnership with UNDP – to more effectively allocate and disburse the national GBV budget so that it has a real impact. I am very clear that the funding must be spent properly so that people on the ground feel a real change in their lives from the work we are doing. Everything we do, we need to consider how it will change people’s lives – how we can make things better.”

In the 2022 National Budget, the Government allocated 7.93 million Kina to DFCDR to address GBV. DFCDR is now working with key partners to ensure the funding is disbursed accountably and is used to support priorities such as addressing sorcery accusation related violence', establishing more safe houses and implementing more GBV prevention programmes.

At the opening statement, Ms Julie Bukikun, UNDP Assistant Resident Representative, also pledged the support of the UN to working with national and provincial partners to end GBV. She stated: “The UN is working to support the Government of PNG through the EU-funded UN Spotlight Initiative for Ending Violence Against Women and Children. The Spotlight Initiative is a partnership between the European Union and United Nations which brings together UNDP, UN Women, UNFPA, and UNICEF to work in partnership with the PNG Government to progress implementation of the National GBV Strategy - as well as other sectoral strategies of relevance - to improve GBV health responses, policing, and access to justice.”

The meeting ran for three days, from Tuesday 12 April to Thursday 14 April. Participants engaged with a range of different national officials, technical specialists, and civil society experts. Through this meeting, it is expected that provincial officials will have developed clear implementation plans to guide their efforts throughout 2022 to address GBV.