Investment Fiji has strengthened its commitment to achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) – in particular SDG 5 on ‘Achieving Gender Equality’ through its core operations in investment and trade.

The agency is being supported by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) as a part of the Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship program funded by Global Affairs Canada. This special component of the project on gender and foreign direct investment (FDI) is also being implemented in collaboration with the FDI Centre. 

UNESCAP Economic Affairs Officer, Heather Taylor-Strauss stated Investment Fiji’s participation in the program, led the organization to become the first Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) in the Pacific region to enhance its efforts towards gender-equality in its line of work.

The project aims to assist countries such as Fiji to develop tailored strategies to mainstream gender equality and women’s empowerment into their FDI attraction, promotion and facilitation activities.

Taylor-Strauss highlighted that the program has three different pillars which are on Policy and Governance, Innovative Financing, and Building ICT and Business Skills for Women.

“The FDI and Gender Project that we are here for is part of the Innovative Financing Pillar of the Project.  Under this pillar of the project, we have created a Women Livelihood bond, Investment Fund, Innovation Challenge Fund and a Guarantee Fund,” she added.

“In Fiji, we have integrated gender perspective and digital initiatives to the National Financial Inclusion Strategy.”

Investment Fiji Chief Executive Officer, Kamal Chetty said COVID-19 had disproportionately impacted women, creating a wide range of socio-economic challenges for them.

“As our country is also bouncing back from the pandemic it presents us with an opportunity to centralize gender initiatives with the recovery process.  The consultation over the past five days further provides the organization with an insight to integrate gender perspective within our work and move forward in achieving our Sustainable Development Goals,” said Chetty.

“Investment Fiji continues to create awareness on its roles and functions through forums and meetings especially with MSME’s which are often predominantly run or managed by a lot of women.”

“Our team has assisted women entrepreneurs and supported them to upscale and access resources to reach new international markets.”

“Our teams also work on expert capability programs which provide the necessary support to improve our client’s business operations or products,” said Chetty.

The consultation with Investment Fiji and other major stakeholders in the country will end today.

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