Women leaders from across Bougainville came together last month in a major push to advance inclusive peacebuilding, strengthen grassroots advocacy, and shape a collective vision for the region’s future.
More than 200 women from across Papua New Guinea’s Autonomous Region of Bougainville convened in Arawa, Papua New Guinea, on 7 May 2025 for the first-ever Bougainville Women, Peace and Security Summit.
The two-day summit aimed to advance women’s leadership, knowledge-sharing and collective action on the Women, Peace and Security agenda in Bougainville’s. The Government of Papua New Guinea, the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) and women’s civil society organizations organized the summit with support from UN Women, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund.
Bougainville’s President, Ishmael Toroama, and UN Resident Coordinator Richard Howard opened the summit. Its theme, “sustaining peace in Bougainville,” highlighted women’s critical role in Bougainville’s peace process, including in bringing an end to the conflict in 1997, negotiating the Bougainville Peace Agreement and building and sustaining peace across the region in the decades since its signing.
Participants engaged enthusiastically in women-led and moderated discussion on topics including law and order– particularly in relation to gender-based and domestic violence– conflict resolution, and the impact of climate change and resulting food insecurity. The summit also included an evening session on cyber-security, a valuable addition for entrepreneurial women developing small, climate-resilient businesses, utilizing social media and embracing online banking.
In addition to the summit, the UN also organized trainings for Bougainville women and youth human rights defenders, equipping them with advocacy and legal skills and tools to to strengthen grassroots human rights initiatives in their communities.
The National Council of Women, fully functional for the first time in six years, played a key role in representing women from across the country and one of the summit’s follow up actions is the convening of a national women, peace and security summit in the second half of 2025.
Bougainville’s Women, Peace and Security Summit, alongside the “Empower Her” Peacebuilding Fund project are part of a larger commitment by the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) and the broader UN system to the Bougainville peace process and to prevention in Papua New Guinea.
The independent moderator for the Bougainville post-referendum peace process receives continuous political support from the DPPA Liaison Officer in collaboration with a process design expert from the Standby Team of Mediation Experts as well as the Resident Coordinator and UNDP.
“Over 100 participants traveled from both Papua New Guinea and across Bougainville to voice their perspectives and aspirations for gender-responsive development and to address shared challenges in achieving a peaceful future. Their voices carried the hopes of entire communities — and the determination to create lasting change,” said Stephen Liston, UN Liaison Officer, Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.
The Peacebuilding Fund has invested more than $35 million in the peace process since 2015, with recent commitments from partners including Australia, the European Union, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom ensuring ongoing support to the moderator.
From mid-2024, the UN’s PNG Country Fund and Peacebuilding Fund will commit an additional USD $18 million to a second phase of the Highlands Joint Programme on peacebuilding, gender-based violence and sorcery accusation-related violence, in addition to work on livelihoods and youth, peace and security.
Papua New Guinea’s recently adopted National Prevention Strategy, aligned with the Pact for the Future, and with close World Bank and UN collaboration, will provide an invaluable framework for Papua New Guinea’s commitment to peacebuilding in the years ahead.
The participants at the Bougainville Women, Peace and Security Summit emphasized the central role of women in this peacebuilding journey, calling for sustainable, inclusive development, safety and freedom, representation in decision-making, business opportunities and an equal stake in the future of Bougainville.