Fiji National Action Plan to Prevent Violence Against All Women and Girls 2023-2028

Fiji created history in June 2023 when it became the first Pacific Island Country and second of its kind in the world alongside Australia, to develop and launch a whole-of-government, whole-of-population, inclusive, costed, and evidence-based national action plan that explicitly focuses on the prevention of violence against all women and girls.

The National Action to Prevent Violence Against All Women and Girls 2023-2028 – or Fiji NAP – already has a commitment of a $1 million Fijian Dollars for FY 2023 – 2024 from the Government of Fiji to stop violence before it starts, as well as $6 million Fijian Dollars from the Government of Australia. The Fiji NAP is the first of two five-year plans intended to establish the foundations for the Government of Fiji’s long-term commitment to prevent VAWG.

Thirteen settings, covering the breadth of Fiji society were consulted, both in-person and virtually, across Fiji which sought input from over 2,100 diverse women, men, and youth across Fiji’s four divisions. At the launch, five key settings - education, sports and recreation, informal sector, faith and traditional institutions - committed to tangible actions with milestones for the first 18 months of implementation.

In addition to the funding allocation by ministries, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Protection commits to setting up a dedicated national Coordination and Implementation Unit, developing a transformative national communications strategy to promote positive gender and social norms and facilitate a Community Attitudes Survey to set a baseline for attitudes towards women and girls and the issue of violence.

The development of the Fiji NAP was supported by a Secretariat, comprised of MWCSP, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre, and UN Women (as technical assistance to the Government of Fiji), and the Fiji NAP Technical Working Group (made up of key civil society organisations and government ministries) to provide strategic and technical oversight as the NAP develops.

UN Women’s support is through the Partnership to End Violence Against Women and Girls (Pacific Partnership). The Pacific Partnership is funded primarily by the European Union, and the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, and UN Women.