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Forum of Pacific investment fund chiefs endorses minimum gender data collection standards

PORT MORESBY, PAPUA NEW GUINEA (6 June 2023)—The Pacific Islands Investment Forum’s (PIIF) annual Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Forum has endorsed the establishment of minimum standards on gender-related data collection among its members, helping drive policies that will support women’s financial security in their later years.
The CEO Forum, which brings together CEOs of the Pacific’s largest investment and retirement funds, met on 27 March 2023 in Port Moresby to discuss best practice, share investment experiences, provide opportunities, and raise relevant issues affecting investment funds.
PSDI Economic Empowerment of Women Specialist Sarah Boxall addresses the PIIF CEO Forum.
This year’s Forum included a workshop on “Women in Super” in which CEOs discussed best practice on sex-disaggregated data collection; potential retirement fund products and strategies to target Pacific informal sector workers, an outsized proportion of whom are women; and financial literacy programming.
The workshop was facilitated by the PIIF Women in Super working group established in 2022, which supports members to implement reforms to increase women’s access to retirement fund benefits. The Women in Super working group is supported by the Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative (PSDI), an Asian Development Bank (ADB) technical assistance program in partnership with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand.
Following the workshop, the PIIF CEO Forum annual general meeting endorsed the establishment of minimum standards for sex-disaggregated data collection.
All Forum members will now collect and publish sex-disaggregated data on their membership and workforce, and include this data in their annual reports from 2024.
“The collection of these datasets by PIIF members will be crucial in the formulation of strategies and policies that help Pacific women save for retirement,” the PIIF Secretariat’s Damien Beddoes said. “I applaud the Women in Super working group’s work on this initiative.”
PSDI Financial Growth Analyst Michelle Bavuudorj at the PIIF CEO Forum.
PIIF members also endorsed Women in Super resolutions on the expansion of financial literacy programs for members, and on the establishment of a “subgroup” to consider strategies to facilitate fund contributions from the Pacific informal economy.
PIIF is an industry group of 20 Superannuation, Provident, Trust, and Sovereign Funds in 12 countries across the Pacific region. PIIF represents the savings and financial wellbeing of more than 1.6 million members - providing a platform for collaboration, education, and co-investing to improve financial security for Pacific people.
ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.