SUBSCRIBE TO THE GENDER JOBS NEWSLETTER

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

Under its existing Strategic Note 2024-2028, PNG Country Office continues to deliver programmes that are aligned to global norms, policies and standards under four thematic areas; Women’s leadership and political participation; Women’s Economic Empowerment; Ending Violence Against Women; Women, Peace, Security and Humanitarian Actions

UN Women’s work on economic empowerment has focused on strengthening informal economy markets- their management, working conditions, recovering women’s incomes and opportunities for business diversification. UN Women has continued to contribute to improving working conditions for women informal traders through capacity building for market managers, promoting women’s inclusion in governance, and raising public awareness of hygiene and women’s rights. Furthermore, UN Women has supported recovery of women’s incomes through financial literacy, business skills development and access to finance. 

Key to labour force participation and employment rates for women is their engagement in agriculture and fishing for household consumption in rural areas, where some 87 per cent of the population is concentrated. Limited access to formal sector opportunities restricts economic growth, especially for women, who face both formal and sociocultural barriers to formal employment, including GBV[i]. As a result, most women engage only in the informal sector, primarily in agriculture and micro- and small-scale retail. Meanwhile, women who enter the formal sector struggle to reach management level: just 13.8% of firms had a woman as a top manager in 2015. Estimates indicate that if women had equal employment opportunities, PNG’s GDP per capita could be 20.8% higher. Financial inclusion is growing rapidly across the country, partly because of the expansion of mobile banking services, but as with economic participation, women’s financial inclusion lags behind men’s. 

UN Women is seeking to engage a consultant to lead the design of the women’s economic empowerment strategy in alignment with agreed priorities in the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2024-2028). In particular, the role requires strong knowledge and experience in developing and implementing initiatives focused on business development and women’s financial inclusion, women’s voice and agency and social protection. It also requires supporting and developing mutually reinforcing partnerships with relevant regional bodies, Government counterparts, UN organisations, private sector, financial institutions, and CSOs – including deeper understanding of emerging issues in financing for gender equality.