Shifting the Power Together: Pacific Women-Led Responses to COVID-19  

The Shifting the Power Coalition Handbook, produced with the support of the Feminist Humanitarian Network, presents lessons learnt from the Samoa response to the 2019 measles pandemic and how the STP Coalition has played a role in documenting the gendered impacts of the health emergency and gaps in the response.

The handbook also draws from experiences of partners in Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu responding to Tropical Cyclone Harold which brought additional challenges to COVID-19 prevention and response efforts. Many of these recommendations were featured in the Coalition’s advocacy brief.

The handbook is a tool to guide engagement with the ongoing COVID-19 response and prevention of future disasters with specific sections dedicated to women with disabilities as well as young women.

Read the Handbook Here

Shifting the Power Coalition: Communicating Local Priorities and making Global Connections

In collaboration with the Generation Equality Forum Civil Society Advisory Group, with the support of the NGO-CSW Committee, Shifting the Power Coalition partners convened “On the Mat” consultations to connect local and national priorities with global commitments to support diverse women’s leadership on Peace and Security. The consultations focused on the Women-Peace-Security and

Humanitarian Action Compact with Coalition partners collectively calling for:

• Accessible and inclusive communications
• Safe spaces for women and girls in all their diversities.
• Financing locally-led, women-led responses.
• Building strong networks of local women leaders to strengthen engagement in national humanitarian spaces such as the cluster system and push back against INGO led spaces
• Valuing women’s indigenous and localised knowledge
• Recognising women’s organisations as critical actors in localising WPS and humanitarian action.
• Going beyond gender equality approaches to intersectional ones that lift up the experiences and agency of diverse women, including women with disabilities, young women, rural women and LGBTIQ communities.
• Through our partnerships with the Feminist Humanitarian Network and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict we will continue to amplify local strategies to reinforce the power and voice of feminist movements and young women in the implementation of the WPS and Humanitarian Action Compact.

This project is supported by the Australian Government and ActionAid Australia