Women politicians from around the Pacific are meeting their Australian counterparts in Sydney this weekend to work on how to lift the number of women in the region's parliaments.
The Pacific Women's Parliamentary Partnerships Forum, the first step in a new AusAID-funded project, has been organised by a cross-party group of Australian women MPs.
One of the organisers, Lisa Baker, says the primary aim of the forum is decide how best to spend the project's five-year allocation of almost four million US dollars.
The Western Australian MP says it is critical that the Australian women involved shed any expectations of what needs to be done.
"Don't inflict your own expectations over what should be the case on someone else. So, find out, is it too sensitive, how do we work on the ground with the men and the women in the community and in the parliament."
The chairperson of Women in the Commonwealth or w.comm, Lisa Baker.
