Staff Reporter
Auckland, October 17, 2021
Gender inequalities have been rampant in society but these are being addressed on priority as a part of the government’s response to Covid-19, Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Rosy Akbar has said.
Speaking at the Fourth Pacific Women Leaders Meeting, she said that Fiji has been adversely affected by the second wave of Covid-19 in recent months, plunging the economy and businesses into deep distress.
Structural challenges
“Covid-19 has exposed the structural gender inequalities and issues across every sphere in our society. Despite these almost ubiquitous challenges, there are positive solutions that we can apply to steer our societies and economies out of the disastrous impact of the pandemic and into constructive change. We can change course into concrete, coordinated, inclusive, collective, evidence-based and transformative actions,” she said.
Hosted by the Australian government, and co-convened by the Samoan government, the virtual meeting aimed to reinforce the shared commitment of the region to women’s resilience and leadership at all levels in the Pacific.
Ms Akbar share Fiji’s experience in managing Covid-19 and shared her government’s long-term vision to accelerate the realisation of gender equality and empowerment of women.
Three Priority areas
Fiji’s efforts and investments will be focused on three strategic priority areas, namely, ending gender-based violence against all women and girls, promoting women’s economic empowerment and improving protection, preparedness & resilience to disaster, she said.
“This will be realised through the application of a whole of the government, the whole of the population, transformative and evidence-based approaches with an emphasis on leadership and decision-making for all women. The approaches account for a comprehensive gender-transformative institutional capacity development and improvement of availability and access to quality sex-disaggregated data and gender statistics,” Ms Akbar said.
Women Leaders Meeting coming
The meeting noted that the first Pacific Islands Forum Annual Women Leaders Meeting will be held later this year or early in 2022 under the chairmanship of Fiji. As the Minister in charge, Ms Akbar said that she has invited the member countries of the Pacific Islands Forum to attend the forthcoming Meeting.
She also delivered an intervention in the first agenda item which was, ‘Gender Equality in the Covid Context.’
Ms Akbar said that the second wave of Covid-19 that hit Fiji in late April 2021 resulted in 51,000 cases and 650 deaths.
“This has not been an easy year. We navigated an unprecedented situation and journey, where our lives were disrupted, impacted, isolated and upturned. However, I am pleased to announce that Fiji is now becoming one of the fastest-vaccinated countries in the world. Over 80% of adults in Fiji are fully vaccinated, and more than 96% have received at least one dose,” she said.
