The Department of Women's Affairs is the national Women's Machinery with the objective"To promote an enabling environment for equal political participation and leadership".

Recognizing the principle to support women leadership, the commitment from government also saw the Council of Minister's Decision 156/2014 provided to support appointment of  suitable women into all government appointed task forces,working groups and committees. The decision gave approval for the department of Women's Affairs to establish a data base of female public servants and women from other sectors. This mandates heads of Government agencies and the private sector to nominate and appoint women into established committees.

The Vanuatu government has taken on the extra mile to support increased representation of women as elected members of the council of the two municipalities of Port Vila(Efate) and Luganville (Santo).

Number of women elected Councilors in the Municipalities

The policy statement for the National Gender Equality Policy is the Government of Vanuatu will exercise leadership to achieve gender equality and take proactive steps to embed gender equality into its legislation, policies, programs, organisational structures and operational procedures.

The purpose of the policy is to provide strategic national framework for enhancing gender equality and women's empowerment in Vanuatu. The policy aims to provide a coordinated structure to enhance the effectiveness, the efficiency and the impact of various efforts and activities undertaken by all actors and stakeholders.

Download the Vanuatu Council of Ministers Decision 81/2015 [PDF]

Download the Vanuatu National Gender Equality Policy document [PDF]