‘....figures show that even if Pacific traditions accord respect and a special position for women as we know they do, the male dominated administrations of Pacific Islands countries have systematically undermined their potential to participate in leadership by keeping them out under one pretext or another. We have seen this happen in several countries including refusal to accept reservations to ensure numbers and even allowing them to demonstrate inside parliaments’

Last month, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously voted on a move to establish the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, called the UN Women for short, in a bid to give impetus to measures towards meeting the needs of females—women and girls—all over the world.
The new setup, headed by the high powered position of a new Under Secretary-General to be appointed by the UN Secretary-General, will be operational in January next year. It is the latest in a list of United Nations initiatives aimed at fostering gender equality and the pursuit of achieving the ideal of equal opportunities for women. Among these are the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Though much effort and funding has gone into building these initiatives over the past several years, little progress has been made in terms of changing deeply entrenched attitudes towards women, especially in traditional societies. Women, in many parts of the world, still remain subservient to the male of the human species in every aspect of human endeavour and achievement.
They continue to suffer from discrimination, low exposure to education, nutrition and health care—making them continually dependent on men for almost all of their basic human needs.
So far, the United Nations’ efforts under various programmes have been scattered and under-funded with no clearly defined single driver to coordinate these efforts. The newly envisioned UN Women is being formed exactly with that goal in mind.
One of its two main roles will be to support inter-governmental bodies such as the Commission on the Status of Women in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms, and it will help member states to implement these standards while standing ready to provide suitable technical and financial support to those countries that request it. It will also help forge effective partnerships with civil society.
Secondly and more importantly, it will help the UN system to be accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress—ensuring that all programmes work in tandem towards achieving their stated goals.
Clearly the UN sees the UN Women as the mother of all women’s organisations and with member nations has envisaged funding of US$500 million, which is more than the existing budgets of all other UN organisations dedicated to women’s affairs combined.
The results of sustained, decades-long efforts to change societal attitudes towards women and stressing their inclusion in the economic development equation have been mixed across the world. While some national governments have moved to enshrine women’s equal rights in their constitutions, others have introduced a slew of measures to encourage their participation in the development and political process.
Successive annual UN development indices show little improvement in the status of women’s health, education and their participation in the political process in developing countries. And among these are several Pacific Islands nations.
Though Pacific leaders have repeatedly professed the important status Pacific culture accords women with platitudes like “Pacific culture puts women on a pedestal” or “The status of women is traditionally important in Pacific culture”, statistics show these are just platitudes and little else when international trends are applied to compare progress in the Pacific.
It goes without saying that it is exclusively by male leaders who mouth these hypocritical statements with their near total monopoly over power structures throughout the region.
For, according to the latest Millennium Development report, only 2.5 percent of women in the Pacific region hold seats in national parliaments. This is a shameful figure being less than a tenth of the world average, making the Pacific Islands region worse than any other region in the world. 
In comparison, the developed regions of the world have an average of 24 percent seats held by women, and even a developing region such as Sub-Saharan Africa—often compared in developmental terms with the Pacific because of the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) grouping—has an average of 18 percent seats held by women. This state of affairs gives a complete lie to Pacific leaders’ exceedingly deluding contention that women are put on a pedestal. The figures certainly do not bear that belief—at least in terms of the manner in which the rest of the modern world sees women’s position in decision making processes that matter to countries today.
The figures show that even if Pacific traditions accord respect and a special position for women, as we know they do, the male dominated administrations of Pacific Islands countries have systematically undermined their potential to participate in leadership by keeping them out under one pretext or another. We have seen this happen in several countries including refusal to accept reservations to ensure numbers and even allowing them to demonstrate inside parliaments.
Women’s organisations in the Pacific Islands under the able watch of a number of educated, highly motivated Pacific Islands women have been working hard to change the status quo for years, helped by global organisations like those of the UN. The newly formed UN Women will hopefully be another avenue from which they can obtain logistic and financial support at national and regional levels.
Yet, it is a tribute to Pacific women’s indomitable spirit that despite deprivation and faring badly in comparable world statistics in several vital indices, they have been putting up a brave fight to make a difference in every sphere including governance.
It is indeed heartening to see that at this month’s election in the Solomon Islands, as many as 25 women are contesting the elections—one less than the 2006 election. Unfortunately though, the country so far has sent only one woman to parliament. Not surprising in a society with 64 percent of women aged between 15 and 49 reporting having experienced physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner.
Women candidates have also reported a number of threats from male poll contestants to pull out their candidature, which indeed is a sad reflection on the chauvinistic mindset of these male politicians. The important thing is that women are soldiering on undeterred and the UN member nations have realised the vital importance of women’s contribution to development while ensuring that a mega-effort like the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women sees the light of day at the start of next year.