NAME OF ORGANIZATION:

Department of Women’s Affairs

ADDRESS:

P.O. Box 091
Port Vila
Republic of Vanuatu

Fax: (678) 2635
URL: Nil

HEAD OF ORGANIZATION:

Director-General
Office of the Prime Minister

YEAR OF ESTABLISHMENT:

1980

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE:

(a) Director
(b) Gender Planner
(c) Women’s Policy Advisor and Communications Officer
(d) Administration and Finance Officer
(e) Two Expatriate advisors (in this order)

OBJECTIVES AND FUNCTIONS:

(a) Develop policies that would facilitate positive economic and social development of women,
(b) Use temporary measures to enable women to enjoy fundamental human rights and participate in all spheres on equal basis with men,
(c) Gender sensitivity awareness that encourage active participation of men and women as a way to change degrading social attitudes towards women,
(d) Mainstream gender perspectives in all government policy planning and implementation, and ensure gender dimension in planning by collecting gender sex disaggregated data by sector,
(e) Building and strengthening partnerships with different organizations, i.e. women’s groups, chiefs and churches to Work in partnership for Equality,
(f) Promote equal access to participation and decision-making of women in social, political and economic life of the nation,
(g) Elimination of all forms of violence against women and children;
(h) Strengthen the economic empowerment of women through capacity building;
(i) Equal access of women and the girl child to quality health care and education,
(j) Support sustainable environmental management and subsistence production,
(k) Develop policies and programs and activities to support DWA policies.
But important to note that limited financial and human resources is a common issues, makes progress for achieving these goals slow.

MAIN INITIATIVES, ACTIVITIES, PROJECTS, PROGRAMMES:

All Projects are Directed by the Statement of Intent
(a) Gender Sensitization Programs-Raise awareness on gender relations and issues so that planners and community workers are encouraged to give special consideration of women in their planning processes-Project Phase One and Follow-up Completed 2004,
(b) Women in Decision-Making,
(c) Women in Politics,
(d) Women and Economic Empowerment,
(e) Micro Credit Scheme for Disadvantaged Women,
(f) Women in the Media/Communications,
(g) Policies-Women in Employment, Women and Health, Women in Government, Women and Violence, Gender Analysis of the Education Sector, Feasibility Study on Online Tertiary Studies for Women,
(h) Added activities in government and communities and attendance of International Meetings.