UPDATE

A total of 27 commitments were made for Asia Pacific Breakthrough, totalling $1,026,845,822 – almost $1.2 billion – was confirmed.  These Commitments are noted in the Asia Pacific Breakthrough program, the only addition being UNFPA’s commitment to gender equality and sexual reproductive health in the Asia Pacific Region, as allocated to its regional programmes between 2008-2011, USD $19,227.000.  This was announced during the Summit by Ms Thoraya Obaid as Executive Director, UNFPA.

This brought the total commitments or recommitments to almost $1.2 billion for programs to benefit women and girls in the Asia Pacific region

Oxfam’s project of $50,000 from the project booklet was supported, but as yet the other projects in the project booklets are unfunded. It was noted that the Project Booklet was designed to provide suggestions to potential investors to generate interest.

COMMITMENTS

In 2009, a Call for Commitments was made to faith communities, multilateral organisations, foundations and development and women’s NGOs, asking them to commit to new resources, programming and advocacy to advance women and girls worldwide. The following Breakthrough Commitments will draw on new resources, employ creative approaches and partnerships and will have achievable and sustainable results. We would like to acknowledge and congratulate all of the organisations that have made commitments.

AusAID

Government of Victoria

The Victorian Government is committed to the pursuit of women’s equal participation in all aspects of Victorian life. The Women’s Policy Framework 2008-11 has been developed to build on the strengths of existing Victorian policies and programs on gender equality. Informed by feedback from Victorian women and in line with national and international policy developments, the Framework establishes four priority areas for improving the lives of women:

1. Justice and safety
2. Education, work and economic independence
3. Health, wellbeing and community strengthening
4. Representation and equity

These priority areas are based on the themes contained in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). While the four priority areas reflect different dimensions of individual, family and community life, obviously women’s experiences intersect across these respective areas and positive improvements in one area will impact on outcomes in other areas. The Framework adopts a whole-of-government approach to develop strategic priorities for Victorian women. Developing policy in this way allows for the immense diversity in Victorian women’s aspirations and experiences, while focusing the Government’s efforts on women’s shared interests.
Since 2005, the Victorian Government has invested over $140 million in a comprehensive range of reform initiatives to better respond to violence against women. This included $6m to Victoria Police over four years to establish multidisciplinary centres where services could be co-located with specialist police investigators to provide more victim-centred responses to victims of sexual assault.
The Leadership Grants Program 2010 is a $500,000 initiative aimed to extend and support new networks of women interested in taking up leadership roles. The grants are part of the Victorian Government’s commitment to creating a community where women have equal representation and can fully participate in all aspects of community and public life.
In 2009 a $50,000 commitment was made to upgrade the Victorian Women’s Register which aims to increase the representation of women on Victorian Government boards and committees. The upgrade will make the register a publicly searchable website. This will provide non government organisations, including private businesses with access to the register to access the best women candidates for their boards.
The Victorian Government has continued its commitment to rural women with the allocation of $660,000 over two years for the Rural Women Leading Change initiative. This will ensure the continuation of the five part-time Women and Drought Community Engagement Officers employed across Victoria.
The Victorian Government will continue to work to create effective partnerships with its stakeholders, engage with Victorian women and community partners and evaluate its reforms to contribute to innovation in all policy areas.

Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA)

Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Australia reaffirms its commitment to women in its development program. This commitment is based upon our foundational belief that all people – as persons created in God’s image – and in particular women and children, have the right to protection and a life free from poverty, violence, sexual exploitation and all other forms of abuse. ADRA Australia uses a gender lens, rather than just a women lens, as the position of women cannot be advanced without a due consideration of the broader gender relationships in a community. We recognise, however, that in some situations women-specific projects are needed. Consequently a number of our on-going projects are women/girls-specific, including income generation for women in Nepal and Fiji, food security for women in Mongolia, women’s literacy in Cambodia, PNG and Solomon Islands and anti-trafficking of young hill tribe girls in Thailand. These current commitments for 2009/10 are valued at $600,000.

Australian Red Cross

As part of the International Federation of Red Cross, Australian Red Cross is committed to ensuring that all programs benefit both men and women according to their different needs. This approach aims to increase the impact of development programming by meeting the specific needs of the most vulnerable men and women.
An active gender working group within Australian Red Cross aims to increase awareness and skills of staff and volunteers in considering and responding to the social differences between vulnerable women and men when designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating international programs.
The group encourages the use of gender analysis in all international programs. In 2009, Australian Red Cross conducted evaluations on integration of gender in Disaster Management and Water/Sanitation sectors and will focus in the coming year on implementing recommendations from these reviews. In addition Australian Red Cross is reviewing both its gender and sexual/ reproductive health policies to ensure that they reinforce commitment to gender equality in all of its programs.

Australia for UNHCR

Australia for UNHCR’s purpose is to provide life changing humanitarian support to refugees and other displaced people who come under the care and protection of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)  It does this by engaging Australians in UNHCR’s work and by raising funding for UNHCR’s international humanitarian programs.

More than 80% of refugees are women and children with over 50% of refugees in camp situations women and girls.
During the past three years Australian donors have contributed over $600,000 to support reproductive health programs for refugee women and girls in Myanmar, Chad and Somalia, educations programs for girls, vocational training and women’s  livelihoods as well as womens ’safe house’ in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan.

Our ongoing commitment is to raise $750,000 over the next 3 years to fund projects supporting women and girl refugees.

Australian Women Donors Network

The Australian Women Donors Network will support the launch of the Victorian Women’s Trust’s Gender Lens by promoting it through a series of workshops that will encourage increased investments in projects for women and girls. This framework document will also highlight the relationship between gender and inequality and the role of grants organisations in wider social change.

In addition, the Australian Women Donors Network together with the International Women’s Development Agency, Reichstein Foundation, Sydney Women’s Fund, Victorian Women’s Trust and UNIFEM will support the second phase of the Women Moving Millions campaign as it develops internationally by facilitating the Australian visit for Helen LaKelly Hunt, President and Founder of Women Moving Millions and Chris Grumm, Executive Director of the Women’s Funding Network. The goal is to bring together donors to encourage gifts of $1 million or more to women’s funds or projects in Australia and Asia Pacific.

Baptist World Aid Australia

Baptist World Aid Australia (BWAA) approaches development by respecting the dignity of all people because without exception they are made in the image of God. Our approach emphasises the inherent worth of every person and the importance of people living with dignity in community with others. Baptist World Aid Australia believes that women and men, girls and boys, have the same entitlement to respect for their human dignity and to participate actively and meaningfully in any development programming.
BWAA is committed to mainstreaming gender in partnerships and programming and believes that development and relief responses are more effective when they are based on a thorough understanding of the needs, vulnerabilities, interests, capacities and coping strategies of men and women. BWAA supports programs that are informed by such understanding and aim to enable men and women to empower themselves and achieve equitable roles and workloads, access to and control of resources, decision-making power and opportunities for skills development.

B4MD

More than 3 million women in developing countries of the Asia Pacific are employed as a result of outsourcing within the contact centre and IT services sectors from businesses in countries such as Australia, Europe and the USA. Whilst the economic case for offshore outsourcing is well articulated, there is little or no dialogue within the industry on the social impacts as they relate to women. Business for Millennium Development Goals (B4MD) together with the Asia Pacific’s leading contact centre and outsourcing analyst, callcentres.net, has committed to support women’s empowerment by facilitating a discussion and debate on these issues, both amongst the business community and in the media. Callcentres.net will convene a debate at the Asia Pacific Breakthrough Summit and will highlight areas of interest to the media on the outcomes. B4MD will lead a business mission in 2010 to India to uncover the impact of offshore outsourcing on the empowerment of women and what policies need to be adopted by business to ensure positive and lasting social impacts for women.

CARE Australia

CARE Australia has a longstanding commitment to the empowerment of women as the central pillar in its approach to alleviating poverty and addressing social injustice. The valuable contributions that CARE’s projects make to women’s lives are quickly wiped away without deeper changes in the structures, rules and power relations that define how a society allocates resources among its citizens. Throughout our work we:

• ensure all of our programs enhance the empowerment of women including through robust gender analysis at each stage of the project cycle;
• increase the full opportunity for engagement of women within CARE;
• build constituencies to support women’s empowerment in the developing world;
• ensure women’s needs are addressed during emergencies
• CARE Australia is committed to a three year target of increasing our program by $7 million to help an additional 100,000 women bring lasting change to their families and communities. Examples of specific activities include:
• Supporting women to earn an income and take on leadership roles in their communities
• Helping women in developing countries survive pregnancy and childbirth
• Ensuring girls have equal access to education
• Improving access to legal rights, especially in relation to violence against women

Caritas Australia

Caritas Australia is committed to working with local communities to advance equality between women and men in all aspects of life. In partnership with the communities of Asia, the Pacific and beyond we shall address the root causes that lead women to live in abject poverty because of the power, attitudes and decisions exercised by men. In our continuing our engagement of a holistic development of all people Caritas Australia is working towards long term sustainable development as the core to our poverty eradication strategies. The focus on sustainable agriculture, HIV prevention and programs that focus on the empowerment of women, are crucial in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. All our partnership programs will include a focus and provide strategies which empower women to have a place of respect and leadership within the community.

Footprints Network

The Footprints Network is an alliance of e-commerce businesses and their customers. Using web technologies, Footprints aggregates thousands of micro-donations made with online transactions, to fund community development projects that help end poverty. Two billion of the world’s population live on less than $2 a day. Women are most affected by poverty both in terms of impact and numbers. Women make up 70% of the world’s poor and they are the most disadvantaged. Poverty diminishes their rights and their opportunities.
Footprints is committed to working with our NGO partners to fund projects that alleviate the impacts of crushing poverty and make a tangible difference to the lives of women living in impoverished communities. As part of our commitment to Asia Pacific Breakthrough, Footprints will invite our NGO partners to submit new projects for funding through the Footprints Network, specifically targeting gender equality or maternal health. These projects will raise $100,000 in 2010 for projects that empower women to change their lives and transform their communities.www.footprintsnetwork.org

Foundation for Young Australians

The Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) has a vision for an Australia where all young people achieve their full potential and are valued by all. This fundamental value comes from our belief in and commitment to equal access, ensuring opportunities are attainable for all young people, regardless of ability, cultural, racial, social or economic background. We believe all young people have the courage and the potential to create positive, impactful change by working together, pushing boundaries and learning from past experience. The Foundation for Young Australians believes this should be true for young people all over the world regardless of gender.
The Foundation for Young Australians has welcomed Breakthrough’s participation in the 2009 Youth Action Conference that brought together 500 young Australians to learn about, engage with and make a commitment to Breakthrough and the issues around Millennium Development Goals three and five. The Youth Action Conference raised awareness among the young people of Australia about the importance of gender equality both in their own lives and in their community. The Foundation for Young Australians will commit to developing a DVD of the Youth Action Conference workshops and use FYA events and networks to promote the Asia Pacific Breakthrough during 2010.

Global Peace Initiative for Women

The Global Peace Initiative of Women (GPIW) is committed to helping women affected by the war in Iraq. To help them heal, senior leaders of the GPIW from around the world will join with women leaders in Iraq to work through their experiences and assist in their preparation to recommence education, enter or rejoin the workforce and participate fully in their communities. The Global Peace Initiative for Women will be investing $50,000 in this project, supporting between 50 and 100 widows.

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) – Australian Research Council Partnership

IWDA has committed funding for three years as the Industry Partner for an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant to address shortcomings with existing measures of gendered poverty and of gender equality and develop alternatives that better reflect the circumstances of poor women.
The research partners include the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the Australian National University, Oxfam Great Britain (Southern Africa office), Philippines Health Social Science Association, and the University of Colorado at Boulder Field work will be conducted in six countries in Asia, the Pacific and Africa. Some 2000 women will be involved in research about gendered poverty and the factors that define gender inequality for poor women and indicate improvements in their circumstances.
The aim is to develop new indices of poverty and gender equality that poor women and organisations working with them consider capture information about their situation and how it is changing, that are widely usable, robust and select and weight input data so as to generate credible findings.
The research has the potential to transform how we see and measure poverty and gender inequality. It will enable better assessment of impact, more informed choices about where to focus scarce resources, and a sounder basis for poverty and gender-related policy development and service delivery. IWDA hopes that over time, demonstrating more clearly what works in transforming the circumstances of poor women will be a powerful tool in mobilising additional resources to overcome gender inequality.
The overall research project is valued at $1.2 million. IWDA has committed $210,000 over three years plus in-kind resources totalling $117,000, a total commitment of $327,000.

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) – Gender Matters Bulletin

Beginning in 2010, IWDA is committed to producing a biannual Gender Matters bulletin. The series will be a vehicle for sharing research learnings and policy insights to inform and support the Australian international development community’s efforts targeting women’s empowerment and gender equality. Each issue of Gender Matters will provide development practitioners with a succinct update on strategies, approaches, experiences, case studies and learnings from gender-focused research, policy analysis and development work undertaken by IWDA and its partner organisations in Asia and the Pacific. The initial issues in the series will focus on key themes of IWDA’s work: livelihood and economic empowerment, safety and security, environmental sustainability, and civil and political participation. The total investment committed to this initiative is $20,000 (per annum).

Opportunity International Australia

Across India, microfinance is empowering millions of women to start their own small businesses. With a steady source of income, these women can better support their families by improving their health and living conditions. Empowered with the tools they need to work toward a brighter future for their children, women become more confident, are more likely to participate in community decisions and are better able to confront gender discrimination.
Opportunity International Australia’s partners in India are currently supporting close to 950,000 clients, 94% of whom are women, providing them with a chance to work their way out of poverty. Opportunity international Australia also directly supports four microfinance institutions in Indonesia and the Philippines, collectively serving over 500,000 clients.
Over the next four years, Opportunity International Australia is committed to facilitating the empowerment of women and girls across the Asia Pacific and the globe and will commit to increasing the number of microfinance institutional partners in India from 13 to 25, to support over five million clients.
Since the India program was established 18 months ago, Opportunity International Australia has invested over $17 million in its partners and the organisation is committed to continuing this support as they expand and reach out into more communities.

Oxfam Australia

Oxfam Australia acknowledges gender is a key determinant of poverty and injustice, and we know that it is women who are most often and most seriously disadvantaged. Oxfam is committed to striving for gender equality by improving the lives of women and girls – their status, opportunities, and experiences. Further, we are committed to the empowerment of women and believe every woman has the right to gain power over their lives and live free from violence. When communities empower women to become leaders and take action to create a more just world, change happens. Oxfam Australia is committed to making this change happen.
Oxfam Australia will commit to funding new programs that support young women from communities in over 100 countries, including Australia. These new programs will change
attitudes, ideas and beliefs about gender relations; and increase opportunities for women to be actively engaged in critical leadership, decision-making and change processes. Oxfam Australia will fund and develop specific programs to

• Strengthen the control women have over their land and natural resources
• Improve women’s access to economic assets and other essential services
• Reduce violence against women and girls
• Ensure women’s sexual and reproductive rights are protected and enhanced
• Address the differential impact of HIV and AIDS on women and girls
• Improve the outcomes of women and girls affected by natural emergencies and war and conflict

Plan International Australia

Under international conventions, girl and boy children, women and men have rights. However, girls’ rights and opportunities are frequently limited from birth simply because they are girls. Unless development programs confront issues of gender inequity, girl children continue to be denied their rights; girls grow up to face the same limited opportunities as their mothers, and the cycles of poverty and disadvantage are continuously reproduced.
Plan International Australia is committed to increasing its focus on gender equality over the next five years. This will include reviewing existing institutional practice, programs, policies and approaches and investing in developing the capacity of Plan International Australia and partners to ensure that gender dimensions are taken into account across all development programming policy and systems, and in our engagement with the Australian community and government. As part of this commitment Plan is conducting the global Because I am a Girl campaign to ensure that the special issues of girls in developing communities are understood and addressed. Plan International Australia will profile and distribute the annual Because I am a Girl: The State of the World’s Girls report, until 2015.

Room to Read

Room to Read commits to improving gender equality in education through a girl-based approach. We aspire to ensure that girls have equal opportunities to attend secondary school, the support they need to continue in school (including creating a girl friendly school environment), and an opportunity to improve their life skills. As a result, girls in our program will complete secondary school and have the life skills necessary to negotiate key life decisions. Room to Read is committed to investing over AU $16 million by the year 2014 in our Girls’ Education program, reaching over 10,000 girls by 2010.
Room to Read envisions a world in which all children can pursue a quality education that enables them to reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world. According to the World Bank, educating girls is the single best investment in the developing world. When girls learn, their families, communities, and societies benefit. These benefits include the reduction of child and maternal mortality, improvement of child nutrition and health, lower fertility rates, enhancement of women’s domestic role and their political participation, improvement of the economic productivity and growth, and protection of girls from HIV/AIDS, abuse and exploitation. Further, skills such as self-confidence, self-awareness, decision making and problem solving will better prepare a girl for the challenging situations and decisions she faces during, and after, her adolescence. Our combination of increased formal education at the secondary level and key life skills development creates a strong program focused on improving gender equality in education.

Salvation Army Australia Southern Territory

The Salvation Army fully supports the United Nation’s eight millennium goals and focuses its community development programs, across 118 countries, on contributing to the achievement of these goals. It particularly supports the third and fifth goals in the context of the Asia Pacific Breakthrough Alliance and Summit: Gender Equality and Maternal Health.
The Salvation Army’s Australia Southern Territory funds numerous programs in the Asia Pacific region, in partnership with the international Salvation Army in Indonesia and other countries to contribute to the objectives of Millennium Development Goals three and five, including the establishment and operation of kindergartens and crSches; day care centres and services for special needs children; nursery, primary and secondary schools; camps and youth centres; child and community development projects; family care and mothercraft centres; girls’ homes and hostels for young women; hospitals and clinics; maternity hospitals and nursing academies; as well as child sponsorship and social enterprise activities.
In the past year the Australia Southern Territory allocated $620,000 to the region with a substantial proportion committed to empowering and educating women and children and $250,000 US has been committed for the next five years to establish The Salvation Army’s work in The Solomon Islands.
The Salvation Army welcomes the renewed focus of the millennium goals provided by the Asia Pacific Breakthrough Alliance and Summit and considers the third and fifth millennium goals to be a motivational driver of its activities.

Save the Children Australia

Save the Children Australia’s Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health Program has been operating in the Sayaboury Province in Laos over the past 17 years and has already achieved Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 on child health and maternal throughout one province
Over the next nine years, Save the Children Australia will expand the program and reduce maternal and infant mortality across the entire Luang Prabang province. The program in Luang Prabang province will reach 432,018 people, including 233,230 women.
Save the Children has also made a global commitment, through a worldwide campaign to contribute to the achievement of MDG 4 by increasing the coverage of proven health and nutrition services and practices that have a high impact on reducing lives, and to strengthen and make more accountable government systems to sustain and maintain the increased coverage. The campaign will also address the health and wellbeing of mothers to accelerate progress towards MDG5.
The total estimated funding commitment for rolling out the Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health Program into each district in Luang Prabang province over a nine year period is AUD $10,805,882. Save the Children Australia has already committed to and secured some external donor funding for the first three year phase, which will cost $4,721,406.

UNIFEM

UNIFEM Australia is committed to raising awareness of the issues facing women and girls across the globe by investing more than $140,000 in two key projects: Gender Equality Online and Gender Analysis Workshops.
Gender Equality Online: UNIFEM Australia will be launching the first gender and development focused online discussion forum on International Women’s Day 2010. This discussion forum will allow women across Australia to engage directly with policy debates not only concerning themselves but women and girls across the world. UNIFEM Australia has invested over $40,000 in this project and is looking forward to engaging more women across Australia in issues relating to gender and development.
Gender Analysis Workshops: UNIFEM Australia believes it is essential that marginalised women, and the groups and organisations that represent them, are empowered to play a more supported role in ensuring gender equity within Australia. UNIFEM Australia will be holding workshops in 2010 which will allow for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) women, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds (CALD) women and Women with Disabilities (WWD) to build their capacity to conduct gender analysis at local, state and national levels and to actively engage with important international instruments which support them in ensuring their gender equity. UNIFEM Australia has invested $100,000 in this project and is looking forward to the workshops beginning in 2010.

Victorian Women’s Trust

The Victorian Women’s Trust has invested $80,000 to develop a resource called A Gender Lens which is designed to train Foundation Trustees and staff on how to apply a gendered approach to grantmaking. It aims to guide changes in grantmaking policy across the philanthropic sector.

WaterAid Australia

WaterAid Australia transforms lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world’s poorest communities. WaterAid Australia works in South East Asia and the Pacific and currently has programs in Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea and Laos and aims to have country programs in four more countries by 2015.
One in eight people do not have access to safe drinking water and two in five people do not have adequate sanitation. Many benefits of water, sanitation and hygiene projects particularly impact upon women. As the main collectors of water it is often their lives that change the most dramatically. WaterAid is committed to gender equity and strives for women to be involved in all stages of project implementation, from building through to managing the water schemes. For example we insist on 30 – 50% representation of women on community committees. This can impact on women’s roles, relative to men, in village and family structures, including increased involvement in domestic financial decision-making and political decisions.
As part of its commitment to Asia Pacific Breakthrough and Millennium Development Goals three and five, WaterAid will ensure all program strategies are designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated to ensure they reach women. Further, WaterAid Australia will ensure a consistent understanding and application of gender equity and inclusion across our organization both internally and in our relationships with our external partners including international agencies, donors, national governments, partners and communities.

World Vision Australia

World Vision has long recognized the importance of gender equality in both its programmes and organisational operations. As part of this ongoing commitment to gender, World Vision Australia (WVA) will undertake a number of new gender equality initiatives, increasing our commitment to gender by over $1.2 million In November 2009, World Vision will launch its global Health Campaign. The campaign will focus on maternal and child health, seeking to address the preventable deaths of young children and their mothers. Organisationally, WVA will also undertake a review of its commitment towards gender equality by conducting an internal audit measuring WVA’s progress towards gender equality goals. Recognising the need to engage actively with youth on the issues of gender, WVA will also develop an education kit for Grade 7-10 students which will encourage the discussion of gender into geography curricula which will be distributed amongst schools and various Teachers Associations.
In the area of gender program resources, WVA, in partnership with World Vision Indonesia, will support a new project which addresses the needs of out-of-school girls and boys in Karubaga Province through a specific gender equality framework. WVA will also consciously promote, mainstream gender and trial new gender approaches in an innovative Local Economic Development Program. The program aims to increase household income and wealth with the end goal of increasing female participation and improving access to and control over household resources. In addition, WVA commits to prioritise funding for specific gender projects up to the total value of $100 000 per annum for 3 years.

World YWCA

In response to the challenge of HIV, violence against women and gender inequality in Asia and the Pacific, the World YWCA will host a training on sexual and reproductive health and rights for up to 30 young women leaders from Asia and the Pacific in Melbourne, who will then participate in the Breakthrough Summit on Women, Faith and Development. Valued at over $100,000 and supported by UNFPA, the World YWCA, YWCAs of the region, the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement and many individual donors, the program will be delivered by young women for young women. Young women will take the messages from the Breakthrough Summit to the World Parliament of Religions, to the Commission on the Status of Women 2010 and to the Vienna International AIDS Conference. Together, young women leaders will build capacity around respectful, healthy relationships, violence prevention and HIV prevention, including condom programming; and develop advocacy, facilitation and project management skills. The World YWCA is committed to ensuring the active engagement of young women at Breakthrough and their contribution to the future alliance of women, faith and development leaders; and will begin the development and resourcing of an ongoing regional young women’s leadership programme