12 November 2013: The 12th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women and the Fifth Pacific Ministers for Women Meeting concluded with the adoption of a ministerial communiqué endorsing the review of the 2005 Revised Pacific Platform for Action on the Advancement of Women and Gender Equality 2005-2015.

The communiqué also: requests a results-oriented and outcomes-focused framework to accurately identify progress and challenges in meeting the gender goals; and calls for the post-2015 development agenda to adopt a transformative stand-alone goal to achieve gender equality, as well as for gender to be mainstreamed across all areas of the post-2015 development agenda.

According to the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), the ministers also agreed that current reviews of regional and global instruments for development effectiveness must systematically take into account and improve their measurement of progress on commitments made by governments towards gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Pacific region. Ministers reiterated that climate change poses one of the most serious threats to the lives of Pacific people, and called for a climate change policy approach that incorporates a gender perspective.

The 12th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women and the Fifth Pacific Ministers for Women Meeting convened in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, from 20-24 October and 24-25 October 2013, respectively. The two meetings were attended by over 200 delegates from American Samoa, Australia, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna. [SPC Press Release] [IISD RS Sources]