PNG unlikely to meet MDGs on women

By STEPHANIE ELIZAH
PAPUA New Guinea is unlikely to meet two objectives of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG), according to
a report on the Asia Pacific region’s progress towards these goals.
The report, which took in the views of women and girls living with HIV in PNG, the Philippines and India revealed that despite the tremendous work done in these countries to provide a conducive legal and policy environment, the challenges faced by women and girls were still not adequately addressed.
“I can not say much for women in Philippines and India but in PNG, over the past 16 months, many prominent commentators have stated that PNG is off track,” National AIDS Council director-general Wep Kanawi said.
“Our rating on MDG 3 and 6 compared with other smaller Pacific nations is very poor.
“PNG has done a lot but still there is yet a lot more to be done,” he said.
Kanawi said PNG, as a leading nation in the Pacific, must do
more to meet the MDG 3 of promoting gender equality and empowering women and MDG 6 of combating HIV, malaria and other diseases.
“We are not taking this lightly. We have established efficient monitoring and evaluation frameworks that would assist us in continuing to improve PNG’s progress in achieving the MDG 3 and 6 objectives,” he said.
According to the report, interviews with 35 women and girls in three centres in PNG identified several factors that impaired the capacity to eliminate gender disparities and manage HIV-related concerns.
These included:
* In-adequate allocation in the national budget for the education, employment and health-care for women;
* In-adequate HIV surveillance (partly attributed to infrastructure scarcity and partly to stigma associated with HIV/AIDS); and
* A complacent political leadership that under-allocates funds for HIV/AIDS interventions.
The UN resident coordinator David McLachlan-Karr said the releasing of the report was about the need for policy-makers to tailor their plans and policies towards providing assistance for women and girls living with HIV.