Policy Updates

On September 15, 2025, a UN Women report revealed that progress on women's rights is stagnating and regressing due to conflict, aid cuts, and a backlash against gender equality, and called on governments at the UN General Assembly in New York to commit to renewed action, highlighting that the US$420 billion needed annually to advance gender equality is a fraction of the US$2.7 trillion spent on the military.

The report, a gender snapshot monitoring progress on the SDGs, found that 676 million women and girls lived near deadly conflict in 2024, the highest number since the 1990s. Women are also more likely to be affected by rising food insecurity. The report projects that climate change could push an additional 158.3 million women and girls into extreme poverty by 2050.

Director of UN Women’s policy division, Sarah Hendriks, contrasted the US$2.7 trillion in annual military spending with the estimated US$420 billion needed to advance gender equality. The report also noted a digital gender divide, which if addressed, could lift 30 million women and girls out of poverty by 2050 and generate a US$1.5 trillion increase in global GDP by 2030. UN Women is calling for renewed commitments at the UN General Assembly, 30 years after the Beijing Declaration.

On July 27, 2025, the foreign and defense ministers of Australia and the UK issued a joint statement in Darwin, Australia, reaffirming their shared commitment to the WPS agenda.

The statement, released ahead of the 25^th anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, noted that the promise of the WPS agenda remains unfulfilled. The ministers expressed concern that women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by conflict and that their exclusion from peace processes prevents lasting security. The nations also highlighted their concern about the use of conflict-related sexual violence as a tactic of war.

Both nations committed to the full implementation of the agenda, including to:

• Promote women’s leadership in all areas of peace and security;
• Support women-led organizations and human rights defenders in conflict settings;
• Strengthen accountability mechanisms to address sexual and gender-based violence; and
• Collaborate internationally to advocate for the WPS agenda.

On July 21, 2025, analysis from the Lowy Institute interactive Southeast Asia Aid Map highlighted the impact that major US and European ODA cuts are set to have on South-East Asia’s LICs.

Australia continues to provide targeted assistance in areas such as gender, climate, and disability, but its overall ODA contribution remains low compared to other OECD countries. The Lowy Institute warns that without renewed commitments from Western donors, long-term climate adaptation and poverty reduction efforts in South-East Asia may suffer.

Stakeholders are encouraged to review ODA strategies to ensure effective and equitable support for the region.

On November 28, 2024, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong released a new International Disability Equity and Rights Strategy to improve the lives of people with disabilities throughout Australia’s humanitarian and overseas development programs.

Wong announced a further AUD12 million (US$8 million) to assist access to technologies such as prostheses and wheelchairs in the Indo-Pacific. The policy will focus on five areas including eliminating discrimination, partnering with people with disability, seeking equity in climate, and humanitarian action.

The strategy was released ahead of the UN International Day of People with Disability, held on December 3, 2024.

On November 27, 2024, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced an allocation of US$57 million to the Towards Universal SRHR in the Indo-Pacific Program.

Program partners UNICEF, the UNFPA, Marie Stopes International, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation would work to improve information, education and the quality of services on reproductive and sexual health.

This program aims to advance the rights of women and girls in Southeast Asia, and work to eliminate violence against girls and women.

On November 8, 2024, Austrailian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong has announced AUD10 million (US$7 million) in financing for an Innovative Indo-Pacific NGO Accelerator.

The funds would be provided to assist NGOs in increasing the scale of their initiatives to promote climate resilience and gender equality. It would have a particular focus on the Pacific.

Wong noted that NGOs have been leaders in areas such as micro-finance, impact investment, and impact bonds. Wong said the Accelerator would assist NGOs in expanding their impact by overcoming structural barriers.

Australia has taken an increasing role in assisting blended finance activities since 2022.

On September 20, 2024, the Papua New Guinean Minister for National Planning Ano Pala called for improved value and coherence from Australia’s assistance program.

Australia has provided over AUD637 million (US$433 million) annually to Papua New Guinea.

Pala criticized the spread of sectors in the ODA relationship, and the amount of funding going towards consultants and contractors. He referred to this as 'boomerang aid.'

The sectors in the agreed assistance strategy included cooperation on women’s rights, access to electricity, education, improved roads, and security.

Pala cited a major rebuild of the Angau Memorial Hospital, as a preferable approach to assistance. The hospital, in Papua New Guinea’s second-largest city of Lae, involved AUD250 million (US$170 million) of Australian development cooperation funding.

On August 28, 2024, the Lowy Institute found that gender equality was the principal target of around 3% of development funding in the Pacific, compared with a global average of around 4%.

The Pacific was found to have the lowest level of female political representation in the world. In addition, a much smaller proportion of women than men are in the workforce compared to the global average, and about two-thirds of girls and women had experienced domestic violence.

While Australia’s contribution was slightly beneath the global average for women’s development financing, it has spent US$6.4 billion between 2008 and 2021 on women’s investments in the Pacific.

On August 26, 2024, the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University announced its 2024 Australasian Aid Conference, to be held from December 3 to 5, 2024, at the Crawford School of Public Policy in Canberra, focusing on a range of sectors and aims to support development within the research community and promoting collaboration.

The conference is Australia’s largest annual meeting on international development and normally attracts some 600 participants, including researchers from the Pacific, Asia, and Australia.

The Development Policy Centre also planned to host a 2024 Pacific Migration Workshop on September 3, 2024. The workshop will focus on climate resilience and mobility, as well as the economic dimensions and social implications of migration.

Submissions are open until August 30, 2024, to propose possible panel events and papers.

On June 8, 2024, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong announced that Australian national Natasha Stott Despoja was re-elected to the 23-person UN committee monitoring the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Stott Despoja was previously Australian Ambassador for Women and Girls as well as an Australian senator. She was reappointed to the committee in her personal capacity, and will commence her second term on January 1, 2025.