Fiji Humanitarian Landscape evolving to embrace Inclusion and Intersectionality:Leave No One Behind

The Pacific Islands region faces severe vulnerability to the climate crisis, with increasing frequency and intensity of disasters such as tropical cyclones, floods, and earthquakes. Fiji, a part of this region, is especially susceptible to these events. Disasters and the climate crisis exacerbate existing forms of discrimination based on gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, class, religion, […]

Recognizing the role of women in supporting marine stewardship in the Pacific Islands

The study analyzes support for fisheries management through the adoption of ethical principles that can initiate change in individual behaviour, attitude and actions implicit in the current policies for achieving sustainable fisheries. It highlights that women can potentially play important roles in many Pacific Island coastal communities through their multiple responsibilities, and should therefore, be recognized as key agents for such change. Using the case of four villages in Fiji, the study demonstrates the close interaction between women and children. As primary caregivers and fishers, women are instrumental in instilling the desired social and moral values in children at a young age, the critical years in the development of children’s cultural and value systems. Women would influence children to follow fishing practices that are sustainable and support the protection of the marine environment while at the same time, nurture the culture of marine stewardship and marine citizenship. This, in turn, could encourage individual’s voluntary action that can simultaneously serve multiple societal objectives including the reduction in fisheries management costs. Recognizing women’s direct and indirect role in the fisheries sector and empowering them in this regard is, however a necessary condition.

Transforming communicative spaces: The rhythm of gender in meetings in rural Solomon Islands

Women’s lack of participation in important decision making is noted as an obstacle to sustainable development in many parts of the world. An initial issue for gender equity in environmental decision making in many developing country contexts is not only women’s inclusion but also their substantive participation in decision-making forums. In this article I examine […]

Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin (March 2023)

This 37th edition of the Pacific Community’s (SPC) Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin has 19 original articles from the Pacific region. As borders opened, most organisations have quickly ramped up their work. As a result, there has been an astounding surge of work on gender in fisheries and aquaculture. We seemed to be making real […]

Supporting women’s leadership during COVID-19: Women leading and influencing in the Pacific

Pacific women are active and vital contributors to the development of their communities. While it can be difficult for Pacific women to assume leadership positions in politics and to some extent the private sector, they often play important leadership roles in community-based organisations, churches and social movements. It is therefore important to better understanding how […]

Gender equality and economic empowerment in the Solomon Islands and Fiji: a place-based approach

The economic empowerment of women is emerging as a core focus of both economic development and gender equality programmes internationally. At the same time, there is increasing importance placed on measuring outcomes and quantifying progress towards gender and development goals. These trends raise significant questions around how well gender differences are understood, especially in economies dominated by the informal sector and […]