MINISTER for Women, Children and Social Protection Sashi Kiran says there is a need to transform the underlying social norms and power structures that drive gender inequality.
Updating the Parliament on the Gender Transformative Institutional Capacity Development initiative, she said the “16 Days of Activism” campaign was an opportunity to break the silence around violence, promote respect, and call for collective action to protect women and girls.
“Today (yesterday) I rise to update this august House on the progress, achievements, lessons learned and the future direction of the Gender Transformative Institutional Capacity Development Initiative, a program central to Government’s commitment to building a more equitable, inclusive and gender-responsive public sector and Foster a “whole of government” approach to challenge and transform attitudes and practices rooted in patriarchy,” Ms Kiran said.
“The Gender Transformative Institutional Capacity Development Initiative (ICD) Phase One was implemented between 2021 and 2023, and targeted nine pilot ministries and agencies, including the Fiji Police Force.
“The ministry acknowledges the significant financial and technical support from the Government of New Zealand, the Government of Canada, and the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) as our civil society technical support partner.
“Phase one delivered a substantial body of work, including:
• enhanced competencies of officers across the nine pilot agencies;
• establishment of Gender Mainstreaming Action Groups (GMAGs);
• development of gender sensitisation and analysis toolkits;
• budget gender analysis products;
• COVID-19 risk management work plans; and
• rapid gender analyses in seven sectors — education, agriculture, trade and tourism, fisheries, forestry, youth and Fiji Police Force.”
She said, as they prepared for the second phase of this program, the ministry undertook a candid assessment of their progress to date.
“This reflection highlighted several important lessons that must inform our next steps.
“Firstly, the demand for support far exceeded our staffing capacity.
“Simply put, the level of interest across government was high, but our teams were too small to fully meet that demand.
“Secondly, we recognised the need to strengthen our monitoring and evaluation systems.
“While many trainings and activities were conducted, the mechanisms to measure their impact, both at the institutional level and in terms of real behavioural change, were not sufficiently robust.”
Ms Kiran said they noted that several ministries struggled to fully operationalise their Gender Mainstreaming Action Groups.
“Without adequate technical guidance and follow-up support, GMAGs and their Gender Mainstreaming Action Plans could not be embedded effectively within agencies.
“Finally, co-ordination across government on gender mainstreaming and gender-responsive planning and budgeting remained inconsistent.
“While there were pockets of strong progress, a whole-of-government approach requires more structured and predictable collaboration.”
She said these lessons provided them with a clear roadmap for strengthening the next phase of implementation, ensuring that the reforms pursued were both sustainable and transformative.
“For these reasons, the ministry commissioned a full redesign of Phase Two in February 2024.
“The next phase will be implemented over a five-year period, from 2025 to 2030, and is anchored in a simple but powerful goal: that all Fijians — women, girls, men, and boys, in all their diversity — are recognised as having equal value, equal rights to freedom from discrimination, and equitable opportunities to both contribute to and benefit from our national development.”
