Fiji Multi-Country Office
UN Women’s Fiji Multi-Country Office (MCO) works with governments and civil society organisations across 14 Pacific Island countries and territories to address gender inequality, empower women and build more inclusive societies.
Within the Pacific, there is a growing recognition that empowering women fuels thriving economies, spurring productivity and growth. To this end, some progress towards gender equality has been made at regional, national and community levels.
Notable achievements to close the gap in gender equality in the Pacific include the fact that there are now more girls then ever enrolled in schools and graduating, more women taking up senior professional roles, and new legislation to protect women and girls from domestic violence.
Despite these gains, there is still much work ahead.
While women are increasingly active in the business sector, they are still more likely to be in low wage or unpaid family employment. The Pacific still has the lowest global percentages of women in leadership roles including the world’s lowest overall average of women in parliament.
And although women are now more protected by domestic violence laws passed in 10 Pacific States between 2008 and 2014, the Pacific still has twice the global average of violence against women. Further, increasingly severe natural disasters in the region pose a risk to women, with women and children 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster than men.
To address these issues, UN Women Fiji MCO focuses on delivering on four interlinked programme areas underpinned by support for intergovernmental and normative processes:
- Women’s Political Empowerment and Leadership (WPEL)
- Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)
- Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG)
- Gender and Protection in Humanitarian Action (GPiHA) and Disaster Risk Reduction
The Fiji MCO Office covers Fiji, Solomon Islands, The Republic of Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati, Samoa, Tuvalu, Tonga, Vanuatu, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Tokelau, Niue, Cook Islands.
