About Us
The Pacific Women’s Leadership Research and Development Group sits within the Cairns Institute at James Cook University. Our research and development work relates to the Cairns Institute's research theme – Social, Economic & Environmental Justice – the goal of which is to assist communities to respond to social and environmental change and increase social inclusion through projects committed to social justice, health and wellbeing.
Our Group comprises researchers, policy makers and practitioners from Australia and PNG with interests in Pacific women’s leadership in various domains. The regional focus of our research embraces Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and PNG, which have the lowest Human Development Index of Pacific countries, being ranked 140, 151 and 155 respectively out of 189 countries in 2020[1]. The Global Gender Gap Index, which benchmark’s national gender gaps on economic, education, health and political criteria, rated PNG 135 and Vanuatu 141 out of 156 countries in 2021. No Gender Gap Index was provided for the Solomon Islands due to lack of data.[2]
Our research aims to address these gender gaps by focusing on the value of strong women’s leadership and the contributions women make to improving the quality of life in their communities over time.
[1] Human Development Index rankings 2020; https://hdr.undp.org/en/data
[2] Gender Gap Index 2021: WEF_GGGR_2021.pdf (weforum.org)
For further information on this research group, contact Dr Lesley Clark