An academic says more grassroots leadership programmes in the Pacific should lead to more political representation by women.
Women are poorly represented in Pacific parliaments - for example - in Papua New Guinea none of the 121 MPs in the current parliament are female.
There is talk in PNG of reserved seats - a device that has been successfully used in Bougainville for 17 years, and more recently, in Samoa.
Dame Carol Kidu, the only woman to have reached cabinet level in PNG. She was in parliament from 1997 to 2012 Photo: RNZI / Daniela Maoate-Cox
Dr Jess Collins, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute, said reserved seats remain a key part of the push to improve representation for women and leadership programmes at the grass roots level are also vital.
"Now this is a generational change. This isn't something that is going to be pushed through quickly. Things take time. It takes a whole of community approach, whole of the household approach."
"And I think those grassroots programmes are really super important to be able to help women, and men, to push through those gender roles and gender norms that are holding women back."
PNG is set for its national elections in June and a record number of women candidates are expected to line up.
PNG has been debating reserved seats for women for more than ten years but to date no progress has been made.
