The Fiji Young Women’s’ Forum convened by Diverse Voices and Action for Equality (DIVA), Emerging Leaders Forum Alumni, Young Women Producers and Broadcasters - FemLINKpacific and the Young Women’s Christian Association, brought together young women leaders and activists aged 18 – 30 years from Fiji to discuss barriers and strategies to young women’s meaningful participation and representation in Fiji’s democratisation process.
With the theme of ‘Celebrating our Progress, Shaping our World’, the Conference highlighted the progress made so far towards gender equality while recognising that the Pacific Islands region has a long way to go to achieve substantive gender equality. The conference made a number of recommendations regarding the priority areas of violence against women, health and access to services, as well as on gender disaggregation in the context of the ‘data revolution’.
Ministers and officials responsible for women’s ministries and departments in 19 Pacific Island countries and territories attended the Fifth Pacific Women’s Ministerial Meeting in 2013.
The overall objective of the Fifth Pacific Women’s Ministerial Meeting was to consider the outcomes and recommendations from the 12th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women and to agree on ways to effectively integrate gender equality into national and regional development agenda.
The evaluation of the Rise Up! program found:
- 93% of participants reported that they shared information on what they learnt through Rise Up! informally with their peers, family and other community members.
- 78% of participants reported that they had increased their knowledge in the areas of human rights, women’s rights, gender, public speaking and leadership.
- 53% of participants reported increased confidence.
- 22% of participants reported increased self-esteem after training.
Papua New Guinea went to the polls in June–July 2017 for its ninth general election since independence. Despite a record number of women standing – around five per cent of the total number of candidates – no women were elected in any of the 111 seats.
This report draws on discussions from a debrief in Port Moresby in September 2017 with 26 women who contested the election. Participants had contested in all four regions of Papua New Guinea.
The report highlights some of the key themes that arose from these discussions, including:
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacts beyond people’s health that affect different aspects of day-to-day life. All people will be impacted in some way and must adapt to the pandemic, however men and women – or different groups of men and women – will not all be affected in the same ways. This is due to women and men play different roles and have different responsibilities in their homes and communities.