We are excited to report that Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop today announced $3 million of funding over three years from the Australian aid program to establish the Papua New Guinea Family and Sexual Violence Case Management Centre (CMC).
In her announcement, Ms Bishop committed Australia to “continue to deliver broad-ranging assistance to help Papua New Guinea to provide essential services to survivors of family and sexual violence.”
She said that “Australia will fund a new PNG Family and Sexual Violence Case Management Centre in Lae, with a team of individual case workers to ensure women and children receive medical support as well as the immediate shelter, legal support and other services they need. The team will train other service providers, and advocate for more effective services.”
The CMC is a new PNG-based non-governmental organisation managed by a committee of PNG and Australian stakeholders. It is currently in the preparatory phase, and will commence work in Lae, PNG’s second largest city, later in 2014.
The goal of the CMC is to improve access to and effectiveness of services for the survivors of family and sexual violence in PNG, initially in Lae. In line with this, the CMC will undertake three types of activities: case-management services for survivors of family and sexual violence; co-ordination with other service providers; and operations- and research-based advocacy
We are also delighted to announce that Oxfam will be partnering with us. Australian aid funding will flow to Oxfam, and from Oxfam to the CMC. Through the partnership with Oxfam, the CMC will also be able to benefit from its vast experience of working with partner organizations, and tackling gender-based violence, including in PNG.
Several of us at the ANU have been involved in getting the CMC off the ground, and will be involved in the monitoring and evaluation side of things. We are extremely grateful to the Australian Government for their funding, all of which will be going toward direct service delivery for survivors and related support costs. We are covering our own costs at ANU, as are many others involved in this project. At this stage, we’d also link to thank all our colleagues and friends in both PNG and Australia who have worked together to get this initiative off the ground.
We are involved in this project because we think the issue is important, this response potentially useful and catalytic, and because good monitoring and evaluation will be critical. We also think that more collaboration between Papua New Guinean and Australian individuals and institutions will advance the cause of PNG development, and is in both countries’ interests.
Check out the CMC website for more information. To follow the progress of this project as it develops, subscribe to the CMC mailing list. We welcome queries and expressions of interest. Email us at info@pngcmc.org.
Do you know more about the pharmaceuticals that were removed from the funding list? Was this a matter of drugs issued without regulation?