A significant impediment to the development of a coherent women’s policy has been the way in which bureaucratic structures responsible for women’s interests were allowed to evolve in a disjointed manner. After the launch of the Eight Point Plan, the then chief minister, Michael Somare, appointed an adviser on women’s affairs, Tamo Diro. A Women’s Unit was established in 1974 in the Office of Home Affairs located within the Department of Decentralisation. The Women’s Unit tried to appoint at least one women’s activity officer in each province. In 1975 a coordinator was appointed to oversee Papua New Guinea women’s involvement in the United Nations International Year activities; this included the holding of the first national convention for women. The National Council of Women (NCW) was formed at this historic convention. The establishment of the Council was formalized in 1979, with the passage of the National Council of Women Incorporation Act paving the way for the establishment of provincial councils of women (PCW) throughout the country. But the status of the NCW has been ambiguous: while formally a statutory body it has largely operated as a non-government organization, while at the same time functioning sometimes as an appendage or even a program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. A grant of K94,000 was reportedly given by the Somare government in 1978 to run NCW programs (Brouwer et al. 1998, 51).^[5] Dame Rosa Tokiel, the first president of the NCW, established a full-time secretariat to carry out its advocacy role.

The Women’s Office in the prime minister’s department was reorganized in 1978 and a Women’s Activity Section was established in the Office of Social Development within the Department of Decentralisation. In 1980, Prime Minister Chan felt that social development lacked the attention it deserved and so the Department of Community and Family Services was created under the leadership of Rose Kekedo (personal communication 2001; see also Department of Community and Family Services 1981). Both welfare services and women came under the new department. This was the first serious attempt to implement the equality provisions of the constitution and the national goals. The short lifespan of the department, however, meant that it had little time to do anything but put together a first comprehensive policy document on women. The department was abolished after a year, and the women’s functions transferred to the Office of Youth, Women, Religion and Recreation, located in the prime minister’s department. In mid 1983 the Office of Youth and Recreation became a separate department, while Women, Welfare and Religion were separated into a new department of Home Affairs. The Women’s Unit was upgraded to a division headed by an assistant director in 1983, with a staff strength of four. In 1988 Home Affairs, Youth and Recreation merged into the Department of Religion, Home Affairs and Youth (DRHAY). The staffing level rose to nine. This bureaucratic arrangement continued until the Department was downgraded to an office under the Skate government and transferred to the Department of Provincial Affairs in 1999, as the Office of Church and Family Affairs. That decision was reversed a year later when the Morauta government restored its departmental status. The department was renamed Social Welfare and Development in 2000. In 2002, for the first time a female member of parliament (the only female member of parliament), Dame Carol Kidu, was appointed minister for Social Development. Under her direction the department underwent a major restructuring, resulting in further reduction of staff in the Women’s Division (which was renamed Gender and Development Division). The following year the Department was renamed yet again, as the Department of Community Development, reflecting the department’s ‘community development’ focus.

Constant reorganization has contributed to the Women’s Division’s inability to plan for systematic implementation of the 1990 Women’s Policy. Decentralization has further contributed to confusion and frustration. Meanwhile, in the provinces and districts, the WID and GAD units have not been properly addressed with usually one officer in charge of women, welfare, sports, youth, and other functions.

A UNIFEM Gender Mainstreaming Project mounted in 1988 led in 1992 to the establishment of a Gender Unit in the Department of Planning and Implementation. The intent was to facilitate the mainstreaming of women’s issues and concerns into project planning and implementation processes across all sectors. However, over the years, the one officer allocated to the unit has been given other responsibilities, such as justice, and law and order. Other gender units were established after the Beijing conference in 1995, in the Departments of Agriculture and Livestock, Commerce, Labour and Employment, Police, Education and (until 1997) Fisheries. Over the past five years, however, the effectiveness of coordination and monitoring by the Women’s Division has been hampered by restructuring and retrenchment initiatives by the government, and the Women’s Division has virtually collapsed.

The conceptual shift from WID to GAD was developed ‘after recognition of the slow progress in equalizing power in gender relations’ (Goetz 1997, 5). This involved a reassessment of concepts, analysis and approaches in gender equality. ‘WID approaches had been based on a politics of access while GAD recognizes the importance of redistributing power in social relations’ (ibid.). A permanent gender desk has since been established in the Department of Planning and Implementation, but given the number of projects, both donor-driven and government-initiated, budget preparations and the general workload on department staff, it is almost impossible for the person at the gender desk to keep track of the various projects from formulation, design and development through to implementation. The department has experienced its share of restructuring: at least four times since 1992. WID and GAD units in line departments are usually the first to be axed when budget cuts occur.

The 1995 Organic Law on Provincial Governments and Local-level Governments had a similar effect; indeed its impact has been more severe since it transferred control of women’s programs to provinces (see National Monitoring Authority 1998). The Women’s Division no longer runs programs from the national office. Decentralization has meant that, in most provinces, one officer is charged with women’s affairs, often in conjunction with sports, welfare, youth, and other functions. In the 1980s, when the national government began implementation of the NWDP, liaison between the national department and provincial governments was much stronger, especially in provinces where a provincial coordinating committee (PCC) had been established. There was also coordination between various provincial agencies whose work covered women, such as non-formal education, health, agriculture, and business development. The provincial women’s officer coordinated the meetings of the PCC. This made for better coordination of extension work with women, and facilitated parallel programs in the rural areas. By the 1990s this linkage had become difficult to maintain. The national department’s ability to sustain projects under the NWDP declined, as Papua New Guinea experienced a series of economic and financial crises. The pivotal link between the national department, provincial governments, provincial women’s councils and districts—the Community Women’s Organisers (CWO) scheme — was gradually phased out. Some provincial governments re-engaged their CWOs, had them retrained, and appointed them as provincial women’s officers. But the linkage between provincial and national departments has become tenuous at best, as provincial governments have shown a tendency to determine their own priorities and programs. Funding for women’s programs is now dependent on the whim of provincial governors and their provincial administrations, specifically the joint planning and budget priority committees in the provinces. A few provincial governments, including Sandaun, Gulf, New Ireland and Oro have developed, or are in the process of developing, their own women’s policy.

The national Department of Community Development now has the important role of monitoring the implementation of women’s policy and programs at the provincial level. In general, the bureaucratic structures required to implement women’s policy and women’s development are not well developed. Those provincial governments which are doing fairly well with regard to women’s development are, not surprisingly, also provinces which have well-organized provincial councils which are pushing for women’s development. But most provinces suffer from bureaucratic and political indifference. Some are bewildered by constant changes caused by restructuring, retrenchment, reforms, and the high turnover of political leadership. One province which has gone ahead in mainstreaming gender is Manus: It has legislated the establishment of a single provincial women’s policy mechanism bringing government and non-government machineries together in Pihi Manus. Pihi Manus has been incorporated into the Manus provincial government structure, ensuring government funding for its programs.

Women were mobilized into a ‘movement’, ostensibly to participate in development. But the training needs of those who worked within the Women’s Division were often overlooked. Feminist academics became involved in the exciting new field of feminist scholarship, but the field of Women’s Studies was virtually unknown in the various training institutions engaged in human resource development, such the University of Papua New Guinea and the Papua New Guinea Institute of Public Administration (the former Administrative College). Ironically, while certain women leaders began to demand a move away from welfare-oriented programs, most of the staff who were employed in the Women’s Division graduated from the University of Papua New Guinea with Social Work degrees. While civil servants in other departments underwent specialist training, as career diplomats, agricultural officers, teachers, even kiap, women’s officers received no such specialist training; women’s officers were supposed to know how to institutionalize women and gender policies and processes because they happened to be women.

Feminist policy advocacy within the state in Papua New Guinea has never been an issue, while in Australia, Papua New Guinea’s colonial forebear and mentor, it became highly developed (see Watson 1990; Sawer 1998). Further, women’s policy development and implementation was never a government priority in Papua New Guinea. In the 1990s attempts were made through a number of donor-funded projects to institutionalize WID and GAD, but this proved difficult in an entrenched, male-gendered bureaucracy.