Feminist Footsteps: A View from the Pacific Women's Triennial Conference: Women’s Economic Empowerment

Women’s economic empowerment is a game changer to make significant financial rewards for families, communities and national GDPS said Mareva Lechat-Kitalong, Adviser & Legal Counsel, Office of the President, French Polynesia who noted that the Beijing+25 Pacific report describes a number of the challenges to progress gender equality in economic spheres – from the micro to the macro-level. These challenges have been exacerbated by COVID19.

A panel of Pacific women from brought advice and solutions as well as recommendations for new actions to address the persistent barriers. The speakers were - Manuamata Vai Tupou-Roosen, Director General, Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Evonne Kennedy, Executive Director, Business Coalition for Women, Papua New Guinea, Heiura Itae-Tetaa, Founder, Speak Tahiti, French Polynesia, Adi Maimalaga Tafunai, Executive Director, Women in Business Development Inc, Samoa, Una Valenitabua, Programme Manager, The Australian Volunteers Programme.

“If we get employment right, it flows on to the families” says Dr. Tupou-Roosen one of the few women leading a regional inter-governmental organisation in the Pacific, ensuring that the work of the FFA is making a difference in the lives of Pacific islanders through the sustainable use of fisheries. The FFA she says has worked to remove the barriers to women’s employment in the fisheries sector including in leadership roles and so actions that make changes in the institutional arrangements within the sector and within government policies to remove structural inequalities.

The organisational cultures need to change to ensure that women are provided pathways for leadership, beyond opportunities to training programmes. This means tackling all forms of gender-based violence that impeded women’s economic empowerment – whether it is in the informal or formal sector.

Partnerships with government, private sector and women’s civil society can develop solutions that benefit women says Evonne Kennedy adding that this requires changes to the organizational structures that companies can adopt and adapt: “We work with people in the organisations on how to address the physical, emotional and occupational risks. There needs to be buy in by the leaders of the organisation, and recognize this is affecting the business community at large.” More than 50 companies are now collaborating with the Business Coalition of Women, “this is about safety impacts in the community”.  

Partnerships can also enable rural women access training as well as markets, as well as collection and analysis of data says Adi Maimalaga Tafunai particularly when you need to ensure programmes are relevant across the 22 Pacific Islands countries “We need to focus on women and youth including with persons with disabilities. It’s important that we have good database and information that can ensure the government departments have current information particularly from the informal sector.”

Despite the lack of a regional hub, Tafunai highlighted how Women in Business networks across 11 Pacific Island countries are also sharing information and organising learning exchanges with Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu adding that one of the learnings has been that the growth of the informal sector can be invested in by not running workshops but actually investing in small business development: “It is very important that we are sharing with each other. One dream is that we share our markets.”

Culture she stressed is an integral part of success: “People learn differently and do things differently. Over the years we have found working with families to explain why a woman needs to be supported in her economic enterprise, even weaving. It is important to have the families involved.”

Coalitions for women in business and sharing markets is an idea that Kennedy agrees with.

In French Polynesia, Heiura Itae-Tetaa is not only reclaiming the use of indigenous language but she is also excited about using new information – communication technology which she feels is an opportunity to make culture more accessible.

Una Valenitabua highlighted the challenges of access, including physical access for women with disabilities: “we are working on enhancing the skills ready programme for inclusive schools to enable students to earn an income. This support includes vocational training, progressing the students to participate in the job interview process – especially females, what they need to expect from your employers.”

However, the closure of hotels because of COVID19 means women with disabilities who have entered the tourism sector compete with able-bodied colleagues so there is clearly a need for disability inclusion in economic recovery plans.