Feminist Funding Driving Change for Pacific Women

SUVA, FIJI — Women’s Fund Fiji has highlighted the tangible impact of investing directly in women and locally led organisations as partners gather in Suva this week to reflect on five years of Pacific Women Lead and help shape the programme’s next phase.

The Pacific Women Lead 2026 Reflection, Learning and Planning Workshop, held from 28–30 September at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, brings partners together to examine the evidence and experiences from Phase I, identify what should be protected, strengthened or deepened, and consider how Pacific Women Lead should work in Phase II.

Women’s Fund Fiji Executive Director Victoria Yee, delivering welcome remarks on behalf of the women’s funds, said the experience of five women from Koroipita demonstrates what locally led and flexible funding can make possible.

The women participated in the Confident Woman Programme delivered by Lifebread Stay Connected Foundation with support from Women’s Fund Fiji. Through the programme, they strengthened their confidence, developed practical skills and prepared for employment. All five subsequently secured jobs with McDonald’s.

“Behind this result are women who were given an opportunity to recognise their strengths and take an important step towards greater economic independence,” Ms Yee said.

“It also shows what can happen when funding reaches organisations that understand their communities, have earned their trust and know how to provide the right support.”

Women’s Fund Fiji’s work under Pacific Women Lead is supported through the Amplify, Invest and Reach (AIR) Partnership, together with the Pacific Feminist Fund, Urgent Action Fund Asia and Pacific, and Women’s Fund Asia.

The partnership provides flexible and responsive funding to women’s rights organisations and feminist movements, including those working with women in rural and remote communities and women experiencing multiple forms of exclusion.

During Phase I, AIR supported almost 600 grants, invested more than AUD 10 million, and reached organisations across 28 countries.

Ms Yee said that while these figures demonstrate the scale of the partnership, its impact extends well beyond the numbers. Flexible funding has enabled organisations to sustain their work and teams, respond to violence and emergencies, reach remote communities and continue the longer-term work of changing attitudes, systems and power.

“Phase I has shown us that feminist funding is about much more than moving money. It is about trust, relationships and shifting decision-making closer to the women and movements leading change,” Ms Yee said.

The workshop provides an opportunity for Pacific Women Lead partners to reflect collectively on these experiences while also confronting the changing realities affecting gender equality across the region, including climate disasters, economic pressures, resistance to gender equality and shrinking civic space.

For Women’s Fund Fiji, the transition to Phase II is an opportunity to build on the lessons of Phase I and strengthen approaches that place Pacific women’s organisations and movements at the centre of decisions about the resources and support they need.

The approval of AIR Phase II provides an opportunity to deepen this work through longer-term and flexible funding, locally led decision-making, movement building and learning approaches that are useful to organisations working directly with women and communities.

“Phase II should not simply continue what we have already done. It should reflect what Pacific women’s organisations and movements are telling us they need,” Ms Yee said.

“May the next chapter of Pacific Women Lead remain grounded in the knowledge, leadership and lived realities of Pacific women in all their diversity.”

ENDS