Pacific-Grounded Approaches: Adaptive Practices in Gender-Climate Organisations

Rahkel Mercy ()
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Rahkel Mercy: Australian National University

A chapter in Gender and Development: Perspectives from Australia and the Pacific, 2026, pp 181-203 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Analysis across 14 Pacific nations reveals that gender-climate organisations work differently from conventional development approaches, creating locally specific structures that are locally grounded rather than externally driven. Drawing on Cornwall and Rivas’s framework distinguishing ‘instrumental’ from ‘transformative’ approaches, complemented by Lawless et al.’s (2022) ‘Tinker-Tailor-Transform’ typology for assessing Pacific gender interventions, this chapter examines how civil society organisations adapt and shift decision-making authority to communities rather than merely including them in existing structures. Desktop mapping across 14 Pacific nations and fieldwork in Fiji in 2024 identifies three interconnected patterns: organisational autonomy within networks where members retain independence while leveraging collective voice; relational resource distribution that reshapes funding relationships into capacity-building partnerships; and community-controlled knowledge validation that ensures communities maintain authority over determining what knowledge is legitimate. Case studies of Pacific civil organisations show how these patterns operate as integrated approaches that exhibit characteristics Lawless et al. (2022) categorise as ‘transformative’ approaches that address root causes of inequality rather than symptoms, moving beyond what Cornwall and Rivas (2015) identify as ‘instrumental’ approaches that include marginalised actors without changing underlying power relationships. The findings suggest that organisations can function as mechanisms for power redistribution when they implement patterns that are locally developed rather than imposed external models.

Date: 2026
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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-95-4842-2_9

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