Project Title REACH Platform in the Pacific: Reaching the Furthest Behind First
Expected Contribution to UNPS Outcomes
Outcome 2 – Gender Equality By 2022, gender equality is advanced in the Pacific, where more women and girls are empowered and enjoy equal opportunities and rights in social, economic, and political spheres, contribute to and benefit from national development, and live a life free from violence and discrimination.
Outcome 5 - By 2022, people and communities in the Pacific will contribute to and benefit from inclusive, informed, and transparent decision-making processes; accountable and responsive institutions; and improved access to justice.
Outcome 6 - By 2022, people in the Pacific effectively enjoy a strengthened legal framework and institutions that deliver human rights protection in accordance with international commitments under relevant treaties, and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
Related SDGs SDG 5 Gender Equality, SDG16 Peace and Justice Strong Institutions – with the potential to deliver on more.
Regional Coverage Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tokelau, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau (others TBC)
Estimated Dates Sept 2019 – August 2022
Proposed Budget Overall USD $7Million (approx.NZD$10.75Million); single or multi-donor TBC
UN Women - $TBC
UNDP - $TBC
UN Implementing Partners Multi-Agency - A Joint UNDP and UN Women Programme
Other Partners National governments – particularly Ministries responsible for the advancement/ protection of women, children, social service
Beneficiaries Remote and rural women, men, girls and boys, including persons living with disabilities and those living in poverty
Background:
Pacific Islands Countries (PICs) face common challenges – often extreme remoteness and geographic isolation. These factors contribute to limited knowledge and awareness amongst citizens of their rights, their responsibilities, and state and non-state support services meant to benefit them.
Simultaneously, these same challenges limit the reach of state and non-state service agencies and effectively inhibit, even prevent, delivery of these services and rights. This is especially the case for the furthest behind - namely citizens living in remote areas on smaller islands and other remote rural areas – but especially so for the most vulnerable social groups, including women and girls (e.g. domestic violence survivors and single mothers), persons with disabilities, youth, children, LBTQI, the elderly – all of whom suffer serious challenges, in different ways, from being able to access services.
We see these challenges in most PICs, whether outer islands of the Tongan archipelago, tiny atolls spread across the Republic of the Marshall Islands, scattered islands that make up Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, the three larger island states of Yap, Pohnpei and Kosrae and larger atoll of Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia, likewise in the smaller villages that pepper the relatively accessible Samoan islands of Upolu and Savai’I. Even where in principle access is reasonable, government services are by and large still centered in capitals; citizens must travel at their own, often-significant, expense to access government services –presuming they are aware of them in the first place. This may require multiple trips where services require multiple processes to be completed – e.g. social benefits may require formal legal documentation, site visits/ assessments, proof of income, and/or establishment of a bank accounts – which require multiple stops and multiple forms of supporting documentation.
A central challenge is: how to raise knowledge among remote Pacific populations of their rights and government services – and to truly bring those services to them on site, effectively reaching the furthest behind first?
A Solution: The REACH Platform (Rights, Empowerment and Cohesion)
UNDP’s Pacific Office has been operating REACH approach in Fiji to respond to this dual challenge – funded by the Government of Japan and by UNDP. REACH offers an integrated government and non-government (NGO) platform together, to deliver awareness on key rights and responsibilities, and delivering government – or NGO - services directly to remote communities where access and services are limited.
Service providers conduct awareness raising and engage with the community directly delivering services. Services providers go door-to-door to ensure the persons with disabilities, the elderly and otherwise lessmobile citizens are actively included – literally bringing government services to their doorstep. Additionally, partner government agencies institutional strengthening and service provider individual capacity building on outreach are built into programming. Contents are continuously updated through lessons-learned, forming a continuous learning loop, and creating a proven innovation development space. This has taken place across the Fijian archipelago in urban, rural and remote maritime areas – reflecting similar challenges to physical access, citizen knowledge and access to services in PICs across the region. The REACH model successfully demonstrates an innovative integrated awareness raising/service delivery platform which brings services to the most remote populations, serving the furthest behind first.
Project REACH: Fast Facts 2015 – December 2018 FIJI
Knowledge & Awareness Raising
• 956 remote Fijian communities received REACH missions
• 22,233 people bene tted from REACH awareness raising
• 9,306 were Women – 42%
• 9,050 were Men – 40%
• 3,877 were Children – 18%
Government Services Delivered through the REACH Platform
• 37,807 services were provided to REACH Bene ciaries
• 21,587 of these service requests ful lled were requested by, and delivered to, women – 57.09%
• 16, 220 of these services requests ful lled were delivered to Men – 42.91%
• 517 Persons with Disabilities received services in remote locations (1.4% of services)
Project REACH: Fast Facts October 2018 – May 2019 TONGA
Knowledge & Awareness Raising
• 17 remote Tongan communities received REACH missions
• 575 people bene tted from REACH awareness raising
• 307 were Women – 54%
• 206 were Men – 36%
• 62 were Children – 10%
• 0 was persons with disabilities – 0%
Government Services Delivered through the REACH Platform
• 2,715 services were provided to REACH Bene ciaries
• 1,683 of these service requests ful lled were requested by, and delivered to, women – 61.9%
• 1,005 of these services requests ful lled were delivered to Men – 37%
• 23 of these services requests ful lled were delivered to children – 1 %
• 4 persons with disabilities received services in remote locations (0.1% of services)
Project REACH: Fast Facts October 2018 – May 2019 SAMOA
Knowledge & Awareness Raising
• 10 remote Samoan communities received REACH missions
• 867 people bene tted from REACH awareness raising
• 375 were Women – 43%
• 463 were Men – 54%
• 29 were Children – 3%
• 0 was persons with disabilities – 0%
Government Services Delivered through the REACH Platform
• 986 services were provided to REACH Bene ciaries
• 487 of these service requests ful lled were requested by, and delivered to, women – 49.4%
• 497 of these services requests ful lled were delivered to Men – 50.4%
• 1 of these services requests ful lled were delivered to children – 0.1 %
• 1 persons with disabilities received services in remote locations (0.1% of services)
AWARENESS
TOTAL: 1442
A core innovative strength of the platform is the ‘vertical integration’ of services; as is common for government services globally, applications/requests entail multiple requirements for applicants – steps to be completed in proper sequence, which may otherwise prove impossible to complete in remote locations. Integrated missions which include all relevant agencies and able to fulfil documentary requirements ensure services requests are fulfilled on-site – for example, process of obtaining a Death Benefit in Fiji is dealt with on-site: a social welfare officers receive applications/conduct assessments, the Ministry of Justice provides official death certificates, Provincial Officials on hand provide legal attestations where needed, and bank accounts are opened by private sector banks provide an account number into which monthly deposits are then made. In this respect, the REACH platform exists simultaneously as a project focused on improving access to justice, access to government services, strengthening national institutions to deliver on both, with particular emphasis on women’s empowerment, empowerment of Persons Living with Disabilities, reaching those living in remote locations.
Most recently, UN Woman and UNDP began testing the REACH model in Samoa and Tonga, focusing on establishing national REACH integrated service delivery platforms, but with increased emphasis on creating safe and accessible entry points for women and girls to disclose gender-based violence and to ensure REACH information and services include safe and confidential access to information and services – with the ultimate aim of enabling responses to sexual and domestic violence, and providing new and effective entry points to referral mechanisms for survivors living in remote areas.
While the services in Samoa were mainly legal in nature, in particular, we saw success with the pilot approach in Tonga in this respect. The Family Protection Legal Aid Centre (FPLAC) under the Ministry of Justice participated in the REACH missions carried out on Tongatapu and Eua Island. Given the FPLAC is in start-up phase and quite small, only one staff member from the FPLAC was able to participate each of the 2 missions. Despite this we saw the following results:
• 222 services were delivered by FPLAC to a total of 575 beneficiaries of the REACH sessions;
• 1 out of every 2.5 beneficiaries at REACH sessions accessed services from FPLAC;
• Disaggregated - 114 women, 75 men benefitted;
• That constitutes 8% of total services delivered on the REACH missions (222 out of 2715 total services delivered) – 22 services per day for the 10 days spent on mission;
• Additionally, and potentially most importantly, during the final lessons learned workshop in May, 2019, FPLAC confirmed at least 3 VAW survivors travelled from Eua to Nuku’alofa to access FPLAC’s support services on their own initiative after the REACH team had visited and left their communities; while only a trickle, it demonstrates firm proof of concept and identifies potential new areas where additional support and services could be included to increase access.
The REACH platform is an innovative model, establishing the platform through which UN agencies can support governments to reach the furthest behind first – assisting remote communities. It is an ideal platform for delivering, and accelerating delivery, on the SDGs, particularly for SDG 5 Gender Equality and SDG 16 Peace Justice and Strong Institutions – with the potential to impact on additional SDGs, contingent upon the services ultimately included in each national REACH platform established.
UNDP is currently continuing implementation in Fiji with the additional of innovative technology designed to lend transparency on delivery of government services (the Start to Finish Service Tracker – S2F). In addition, UN Women and UNDP continue support to national government stakeholders and service providers, as part of the Samoa and Tonga pilots.
Scaling Project REACH to the Pacific
UN Women and UNDP propose to develop a full 3-year regional project to bring REACH to the Pacific, leveraging existing expertise and programmes, with high impact for beneficiaries, ensuring the furthest behind – especially rural women, girls and children – are reached first across the Pacific.
To this end, UNDP and UN Women are requesting approximately USD$7 million (approx. NZD $10.75Million) to expand and integrate the REACH model to select countries across the Pacific. The final selection of countries for inclusion is be subject to discussion and confirmation given the direct bearing on final budget; however potential countries may include: Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau in the North Pacific; other Pacific Islands could also be included.
Key Regional REACH Activities include:
1. Convene a Regional REACH Seminar: Through regional events and contact networks, UNDP and UN Women have already identified potential key implementation partners across the Pacific – members of government well-poised to become REACH “Champions” within national government, supported by our REACH implementation experts. We will commence with a regional-level launch workshop convening all key actors from participating in single location for an induction to the approach and introductory lesson
to share best practices learned in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. UNDP project staff and key Government of Fiji will present their experiences and lead participants through planning exercises to begin identifying potential participants in their own national REACH Platform (e.g. mapping exercise of national services), forming the foundation for subsequent activities in target countries.
2. Convene Local Launch and REACH Platform Support Trainings in each Target PIC: To cement full government buy-in, an initial publicized launch session will be held. UN staff and local Pacific Government counterparts will share their positive experiences with the approach, re-enforcing regionally relevant south-south triangular cooperation. UNDP and Fijian Government counterparts will then convene an in-depth Platform Support Training and Coordination session immediately following the launch. The Platform Support Training Session will be both an iterative process to identify mission participants and related services for inclusion (based on demonstrated national priorities, services available, interrelated process and interrelated needs to ensure complete start-to-finish integration) as well as training on implementation modality, effectively establishing the national platform. In the Platform Support Strategies, UN Women will support the participants to analyse the REACH services and approaches to identify different ways to increase safe entry points for women to disclose experiences of sexual and gender based violence and ways to improve the delivery and content of services and information for women and other vulnerable groups. Specific strategies for outreach to people living with disability will also be identified and woven into the implementation of REACH service delivery.
3. Support Implementation of Pilot Missions: UNDP will support integrated REACH Platform missions in participating PICs; the initial missions are always treated as pilots given they are the first outings. Easily accessible locations are chosen and maximum capture of information on the experience is the focus - what went right, what went wrong, what can be learned from it, ensuring the way forward is fully informed in light of those lessons. Our support will include planning, coordination, budgeting and ultimately accompanying execution in the field. Each mission targets multiple villages/locations (usually 5) over approximately 5 days, and includes an advance planning mission to iron out all logistics and identify key service needs to help inform services included in the platform for that location. The number of beneficiaries reached with knowledge/awareness raising and delivery of services depends on the scope.
4. Convene Lessons Learned Workshops & Support toward Longer Term Sustainable Nationalization: UNDP with key National government counterparts in each country will jointly convene a lessons-learned workshop upon completion of the pilot missions to: identify key challenges, successes, to foster a space for innovation to improve delivery, determine future strategy that ensures national sustainability. We will ensure continuous learning and space for continuing innovation are integral elements of the project. Emphasis will be placed on fully entrenching the REACH integrated platform as the “norm” rather than the exception, working toward achieving SDGs- helping orient government service providers toward a more pro-active model – bringing themselves to the people rather than passively awaiting citizens to discover and seek such services.
5. Ongoing Support to Missions: Integrating REACH into Government Practice: Longer Term mission planning will help determine the requisite inputs through establishment of longer term goals, strategy, mission schedule and requisite budget for implementation. The emphasis will be to push the initiative toward nationalization, ultimately toward self-sustainability. The continuing need and shape of ongoing UNDP support to execution of field missions would be determined at this stage, with long-term sustainability in mind – at the regional level support would mainly take the form of technical assistance with the addition of any requisite implementation support on the ground. National level lessons learned workshops in each participating country will be supported at regular (annual) intervals throughout the project’s lifetime to ensure feedback into project execution and continuous learning and improvement of the approach; UNDP to date has facilitated lessons learned sessions, compiling all information into accessible knowledge products to be shared with stakeholders, and will do so at regional, and global level. As the core platform is established, the inclusion of additional rights/services and service delivery methods becomes possible; in Fiji, for example, this resulted in the inclusion of socio-economic and sexual/reproductive health rights. The inclusion of additional services becomes relatively straightforward
for example, mobile tuberculosis testing, screening for sexually transmitted infections, economic inclusion programmes, etc..
6. Promoting South – South Knowledge Exchange and Peer-to-Peer Learning in the Region: Near the end of the Project, a final regional workshop will be held, focusing on lessons learned, with the aim to produce a comprehensive knowledge product capturing the region’s shared experiences. Likewise, it will aim to formally establish a regional REACH network (e.g. akin to a community of practice) and platform for government service providers, further cementing national sustainability throughout the region.
Key Strategies of the REACH Platform in the Pacific:
‘Hub and Spokes’ Approach to regional programming, emphasizing South-South Cooperation. Technical expertise in both UNDP and the Fijian Government developed under the existing Project REACH will form the backbone of a technical assistance hub based in the UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji, Suva, Fiji, with added EVAW/SGBV technical expertise provided by the Pacific UN Women MCO located in Suva.
From Fiji, our UN team with Fijian counterparts will deploy to participating PICs and support development of national systems as described above. REACH personnel and Fijian Government counterparts will serve as active technical resource people on missions to each participating country, bringing lessons-learned from the Fiji REACH experience, serving as a neutral convening body and go-between for government Ministries, helping to identify synergies and connections which are key to ensuring integrated service delivery approach. The footprint of these teams will be intentionally light with sustainability strategies built in to ensure national leadership through “champions” on the ground, effectively forcing nationalization of the initiative within the project period – simultaneously, “Hub and Spokes” will prove more economical than establishing offices in each participating country. As the initiative is taken up nationally, support from the central hub will shift to remote technical and coordination support.
This approach retains merit and can act in support of any bilateral projects developed. The “Hub” still plays a vital and complementary role, namely: providing the platform for ongoing technical assistance and advice on the road to nationally sustainable programming, supporting a network of South-South cooperation and peer-to-peer learning between participating countries in the region, convening and compiling best practices and lessons learned from the entire region to be fed back into improved programming, acting as an innovation incubator by supporting development of innovative solutions for both regional and national level issues which can be piloted in multiple participating countries simultaneously, and ensuring a coordinated, coherent and detailed approach to monitoring and evaluation across all projects in the region.
The REACH platform emphasizes continuous learning, problem solving, solution sharing, and innovation to better meet shared challenges. Similar regional level cooperation platforms exist, such as Pacific Island Forum and Pacific Islands Law Officers’ Network Pacific.
Promoting inclusion of services that benefit women. Women in the Pacific often find themselves in the most vulnerable of situations due to a confluence of factors – patriarchal society and household disempowerment, domestic and gender-based violence, falling through the gap created by the intersection of formal and informal justice systems. Yet women retain key roles, often the lead in securing government services which benefit the entire families. REACH has seen particular benefit to women who have accessed more social welfare services than men, in addition to accessing economic empowerment support services and health services which otherwise would been impossible to access in the absence of knowledge and presence in their communities. Given the staggeringly high rates of domestic/family violence across the Pacific, EVAW knowledge and awareness raising coupled with relevant health services and legal referral mechanisms will be included, focusing on developing further innovative means to ensure women and girls at risk of – or experiencing - sexual and domestic violence are properly reached.
Pursue door-to-door inclusive service delivery for Persons Living with Disabilities. Persons with Disabilities are often truly the furthest behind in many PICs, unable to travel for services – potentially even unable to physically access government buildings housing relevant officers. The REACH approach effectively entails a research-action approach - door-to-door service delivery that serves the dual purpose of continuing to map Persons Living with Disabilities throughout the Pacific in addition to delivering those services directly on their door step.
Emphasizing Impact to Beneficiaries and Visibility. In addition to broader lessons learned workshops to capture and harness knowledge from the field, the REACH approach also includes constant monitoring mechanisms through on site impact assessments undertaken with beneficiaries. This serves the joint purpose of confirming impact – or highlighting challenges that need to be addressed – while simultaneously presenting excellent human stories that demonstrate in a highly compelling fashion the true benefit of the resources and efforts put into the REACH platform. UNDP has effectively turned these stories into vibrant films and compelling
Organizational Capacity and Comparative Advantage: Leveraging our Existing Work
Given the complementary programming strengths and demonstrated ability to work in close partnership on the REACH approach, UNDP and UN Women are uniquely placed to implement this project effectively.
Beyond the REACH approach, UNDP works across the Pacific region on diverse projects. We retain a country presence, and therefore footprint, across the Pacific. Additionally, UNDP provides operations support agency for other UN agencies, and operates a regional Joint-Operations Centre in Suva, ensuring full administrative, logistical, procurement, and programming support to UNDP and many other UN agencies operating in the Pacific region. UNDP offers value for money through cooperation and cost-sharing with other UNDP projects and UN agencies – for examples cost-sharing of staff, overheads, expenses, and partnerships for implementation of activities; this not only decreases project implementation costs, but also magnifies reach and effects of project activities. This approach has already been proven in the UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji. Through work on this programme in Fiji, UNDP has established a reputation in the Pacific for being able to establish and effectively deliver large justice programming challenging, complex and politically sensitive environments. UNDP develops and implements ‘signature solutions’, programming developed based on global evidence for justice programming, tailored appropriately to the context – among which REACH is included. Most recently, in March 2019, UNDP a Regional Rule of Law Conference in Nadi with key justice stakeholders from the regional to discuss key justice issues – this included a presentation from the Government of Fiji on the strength of the REACH approach, after which participants from 11 PICS1 agreed the REACH approach would be of immense interest and benefit in their nations, some actively requesting such assistance.
UN Women is implementing a comprehensive approach to prevention and response to VAWG in Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Samoa. The UN Women programme is part of the Pacific Partnership to End Violence Against Women and girls which brings together governments, civil society organisations, communities and other partners to promote gender equality, prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG), and increase access to quality response services for survivors. The Pacific Partnership is funded by the European Union, the Australian Government and as of July 2019, the New Zealand Government in Vanuatu. The Programme’s additional partners include the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the Pacific Community (RRRT).
Under the Pacific Partnership programme, UN Women is advancing a regional strategy to support national governments in the development of approaches and systems for strengthening a set of coordinated multisector services (police, counselling, health, shelter and legal aid) and localised referral pathways for responding to cases of gender-based violence. The REACH programme offers an innovative, cost effective model to supporting relevant frontline service providers to share information about services and offer immediate legal aid, counselling services and/or health and safety as needed. REACH provides a unique approach to increasing access to information and services that can have immediate impacts safety, health and wellbeing of women, girls and children.
UNDP and UN Women have a proven track record in leveraging each agency’s expertise to support Pacific Islands Governments improve access to justice, human rights, and prevent and response to domestic and sexual violence – entirely in line with the aims of both the Sustainable Development Goals, and the United Nations Pacific Strategy. By coming together and jointly supporting a regional REACH programme, we believe we can support a sustainable and innovative approach to decentralised access to information and services, indeed, reaching the furthest behind first.