UN Women’s New Representative for Fiji Multi-Country Office (MCO), Ms Delphine Serumaga, paid a courtesy call to the Permanent Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs, Mr Yogesh Karan, this afternoon (16/12/2022).
On behalf of the Fijian Government, Mr Karan congratulated and extended his best wishes to Ms Serumaga for the new role. He reaffirmed the Fijian Government’s commitment to work closely with the UN Women on the advancement of gender equality and women empowerment in Fiji and beyond.
Mr Karan commended the UN Women’s exemplary partnership in the Pacific region notably in these key areas: Women’s Political Empowerment and Leadership, Women’s Economic Empowerment, Ending Violence against Women and Girls, Gender and Protection in Humanitarian Action and Disaster Risk Reduction.
UN Women’s support towards Fiji’s national economic recovery and resilience-building efforts in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the natural disasters was also acknowledged at the meeting.
Mr Karan welcomed the UN Women’s partnership with the Fijian Government for the UN Women’s new Strategic Note for 2023-2027, which is currently being developed and will be finalized by the end of March 2023, with indicative five priority areas remaining as in the Strategic Note 2018-2022: “Governance and Participation in Public Life, Women’s Economic Empowerment, Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, Women, Peace and Security, Humanitarian Action, and Disaster Risk Reduction.”
He expressed appreciation to UN Women for its unwavering support to the Fijian Government and relevant stakeholders in accelerating the economic empowerment of women in Fiji. Over the next 5 years, UN Women is determined to enhance the Markets for Change (M4C) project which promotes gender equality through the economic empowerment of women market vendors in Fiji and the plan is to further empower the rural women in Fiji by increasing their accessibility to the markets in lucrative tourism and business sector.
M4C Phase 2 will seek to further enhance these three key components: (1) The socioeconomic security of women market vendors is further improved.
(2) Local governments, market management and other decision-makers are gender-responsive, effective and accountable to women market vendors.
(3) Physical market structures and operating systems are improved to make markets more gender-responsive, safer, more accessible and resilient to disaster risks and climate change.
M4C project plans include; Progressing infrastructure projects in Levuka, Nausori, Savusavu and Ba in Fiji, with the continuation of COVID-19 support to the municipal markets and market vendors, training and services to be expanded to reach out to more remote rural women vendors and extended capacity-building support to women market vendors’ leadership and resilience.
Ms Serumaga said she looks forward to the Fijian Government’s continued partnership in advancing women’s empowerment and building more inclusive societies.
She reasserted her support for the inclusive approach taken by the Fijian Government in promoting the best interests of women and girls in education, leadership and economic empowerment and every other aspect of their development.
Advancing a National Prevention Strategy in Fiji is also an important area of cooperation whereby UN Women is the primary technical adviser to the Government of Fiji, Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation in the development of Fiji’s National Action Plan (NAP) to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Fiji is the first country in the Pacific to embark on the development of such a plan and the second in the world, alongside Australia. The NAP is a whole of Government, a whole of population, evidence-based, measurable, inclusive and cost-five-year plan (2021-2026) with an emphasis on stopping violence before it starts. National consultations were launched on 25 November 2020 by the Fijian Prime Minister, and over 2,000 people across a wide range of sectors have been consulted to date.
UN Women is a global champion for women and girls, and it works to accelerate progress in meeting their needs worldwide.
