This short policy brief states women’s empowerment is important because:
• Women’s empowerment contributes to economic growth.
• Marginalisation of women in Pacific island labour markets reduces the labour ‘talent pool’.
• The high level of violence against women is a major barrier to development.
It suggests a number of actions that can be taken:
• Temporary Special Measures to raise women’s political participation can increase women in decision making which can result in broad gains in women’s empowerment.
• Gender mainstreaming has had limited impact and needs to be further evaluated to identify constraints to progress.  
• Highlighting the costs of gender inequality can help build the political will to address it. The brief then includes data and arguments for improving women’s empowerment in the region.