Where are the women in local government in Fiji?

Although we are currently witnessing a increase in commitments to gender equality on regional and national agendas, there is an apparent apathy towards understanding the role and contribution of women in and to local level governments and therefore to basic service delivery. The Strengthening Women’s Participation in Municipal Governance (SWPMG) Program in Fiji has been raising the question: Where are the women at this level? Who is benefiting from council services? Are services being designed for those who access them?

The Strengthening Women’s Participation in Municipal Governance (SWPMG) Project is a collaborative project between the Commonwealth Local Government Association Pacific Project and IWDA with funding support from the UN Democracy Fund. The purpose of this project is to to respond to three key dimensions of women’s role in local governance: increase the participation of women in leadership and management roles in local government; increase women and men’s role in local government planning processes and increase the capacity of councils to ensure service delivery is gender sensitive.

Preliminary research undertaken by the SWPMG Project in Fiji suggests that women are significantly under-represented in local decision making processes (as leaders, managers and citizens). The majority of women employees hold support positions within the administration, finance and health service, and less than 25% of local government positions in total are held by women. Women in senior management positions represent less than 8% of the local government workforce. The statistics show that decision-making roles in local government have been largely held by men; 85% of councillors and 90% of senior managers in 2008 were men. Women’s poor representation in leadership positions has implications for women’s rights, democracy and service delivery at the local government level. This research has highlighted that whilst local government provides an logical entry point for women interested in a political career, or to participate in planning and implementing policies and activities that directly affect their families and communities, it is also here that many people still hold strong cultural beliefs that women ‘are not up to the challenge’

Local government service delivery in Fiji has a history of being gender-blind. Women’s limited role in management and decision making positions, the fact that none of Fiji’s 12 municipal councils have gender equality policies or collect gender disaggregated data, over 70% of council staff have never received gender training, and less than 30% are aware of Fiji’s national, regional and international obligations towards achieving gender equality are all contributing factors to the gender blind approach to service delivery. The lack of women’s voices in consultation processes together with the lack of data and information about women’s needs means that council services designed to support women are often based on men’s perspectives of women’s context and concerns, and may not actually serve women’s needs. Women’s lack of voice in council service provision can result in inappropriate or poorly designed services, ongoing difficulties for women in accessing services and inefficient use of council’s scarce resources.

The SWPMG project has produced two short reports to explore the issue of women’s role in local government in Fiji and the gendered aspects of service delivery at this level which can be accessed here. The SWPMG project is working to progress the goals of the project through:

• Raising awareness of the benefits of increasing the participation of women in leadership roles in local government
• Undertaking research on the current status of women in local government
• Establishing a national ‘women in local government network’
• Encouraging councils to adopt equitable and appropriate human resource practices
• Encouraging councils to adopt gender aware policies, consultation processes and programs to improve planning processes and service delivery outcomes

For more information about this project, please contact Claire Rowland.

Position Papers

Download position-paper-1-fiji-swpmg_creating-space-on-the-mat-where-are-the-women PDF

Download position-paper-2-fiji-swpmg_creating-space-on-the-mat-service-delivery PDF

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 24th, 2010 under Fiji, Recent.