At the Women Deliver Conference 2026 in Melbourne, a small Pacific delegation is staking a louder claim on the global gender-equality agenda — and demanding that funders and policymakers listen on Pacific communities’ terms. Benjamin (Ben) Patel, representing the Pacific Sexual & Gender Diversity Network (PSGDN), told delegates the network is using the high-profile event to push for visibility, political power and funding that reflects lived realities across the islands.
PSGDN has a presence on the conference floor — including a booth and an LGBTQI corner — and is staging what Patel described as a “soft launch” of newly completed research into the lived experiences of lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women in the Pacific. Patel said the findings are being presented at Women Deliver because “too often, narratives about the Pacific are shaped by others, by outsiders who don’t fully understand our context.” The network is deliberately centring Pacific voices and storytelling to ensure data and policy discussions reflect local realities rather than external assumptions.
A central thrust of PSGDN’s intervention is challenging binary views of gender and womanhood that dominate many global discussions. “A lot of the time, we are talking in binaries – male and female, but that does not reflect the full reality of our communities,” Patel told this publication. He said PSGDN’s work explicitly includes lesbians, bisexual women, queer women and trans men who were assigned female at birth, arguing these identities must be recognised in programming, policy and funding decisions.
Funding practices are a particular flashpoint. Patel warned that many grassroots Pacific groups struggle to access resources, and when they do receive donor support it often comes with conditions that require organisations to reshape their mandates. “In many cases, donors expect us to change our mandate to fit their criteria. They want us to align with their priorities, rather than recognising our realities,” he said. PSGDN is calling for a shift in how funding is approached — insisting that donors respect community leadership and local knowledge and “fund our programmes on our terms.”
The timing of PSGDN’s push is significant. Women Deliver 2026, held in Melbourne, has been described by advocates as an unusual opportunity for Pacific visibility because it draws global attention to issues affecting the Asia-Pacific region. Patel noted that the Pacific is frequently overlooked when people speak of “Asia-Pacific,” and that a conference of this scale presents a rare chance to put Pacific LGBTQI experiences on the table. He also highlighted the conference’s youth presence: “This year’s Women Deliver has the largest number of young people attending. That is a significant achievement,” Patel said, framing youth participation as a powerful engine for broader social change.
PSGDN’s appearance at Women Deliver is being positioned as both a visibility exercise and an advocacy moment: to present new research, to correct outsiders’ narratives about Pacific sexual and gender diversity, and to press for funding and policy shifts that empower community-led solutions. With sessions, a booth and targeted outreach, the network aims to translate conference attention into concrete recognition of Pacific priorities in global gender and health agendas.
As the conference progresses, PSGDN’s interventions will be watched by regional partners and donors alike for signs of whether international funders will move from listening to meaningful adjustments in how support is offered to Pacific sexual and gender diversity organisations.