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From Xoco Unlimited. This toolkit presents the impact of the pandemic on women by evaluating the relationship of employment, healthcare, and digital literacy to gender-based violence (GBV).

The Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has now completed an extensive research, engagement and outreach process to determine the potential of a menstrual health market (the market) across the Pacific Island countries.

In September 2018 the Criterion Institute, supported by DFAT and Pacific Readiness for Investment in Social Enterprise (Pacific RISE), facilitated a four-day workshop in Melbourne, Australia. The workshop brought together a diverse range of social and business actors focused on improving menstrual health management (MHM) in the Asia-Pacific region to understand and overcome inefficiencies and obstacles in the menstrual health market across the region. The workshop focused on understanding the challenges faced by local social enterprises and identifying opportunities to improve market performance, and how appropriate types of capital could increase local access to menstrual health products. Attention was also paid to the role public and private actors play in facilitating universal access to menstrual products and addressing systemic socio-cultural, educational and environmental barriers to menstrual health across the region.

The workshop brought together 43 participants from 13 countries: Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Timor-Leste, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Vanuatu.

This report presents lessons learned from menstrual health actors working in the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the local context of island-based nations. The first of its kind, it should be read as a unique case-study that captures the specific menstrual health challenges faced by countries with dispersed populations across large geographic locations with limited income and commercial access. It explores how innovative investment can be a means of facilitating a new market opportunity, enabling improved access to necessary healthcare products, and support venture creation for women-led businesses.

In this report, Rhia Ventures illuminate the link between access to comprehensive reproductive health care and business performance. Companies that provide care that include contraception and abortion coverage have improved rates of not only attracting and retaining employees, but building a strong pipeline of talent while delivering on diversity and inclusion goals. Ultimately, having a positive impact on a company’s bottom line and being prepared for increasing scrutiny from stakeholders.