FWRM PR: Govt Owned Boards Remain All-Boys Club 28/04/2026
28/04/2026
Not Much Change: Boards Remain An All-Boys’ Club
Despite signs of progress, the status quo persists - Fiji’s boards remain firmly under male dominated control.
This is based on findings published in the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement updated research on Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Leadership in Fiji across 38 State Owned Enterprises (SOE).
The research found that despite a 9 % improvement of women’s participation in SOE boards and commissions between 2023 and 2026, men still make up the majority of board members at 70.8%, compared to women at 29.2%.
“Women continue to hold a minority of positions, exposing persistent gender disparities in leadership and decision making and despite recent gains, the overall balance remains heavily skewed,” said FWRM Research Officer, Crystal Chute.
Over the years, the FWRM research has found persistent underrepresentation of women on SOE boards with the years 2022 and 2023 recording only 20 percent of women on boards compared to men at 80%, a slight decrease from women making up 21 percent in 2020.
Figure 1: Percentage of Men and Women on SOE boards in the years 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2026.
Figure 2: Women on Boards for Years 2020,2022,2023 and 2026.
While there has been notable progress in reducing the number of boards with no women at all, declining significantly from 32% in 2023 to 10.5% in 2026, the proportion of boards with less than 30% women has in fact worsened, increasing from 39% to 55.3% for both years. This indicates that while more boards now include at least one woman, many still fall short of meaningful gender balance.
However, women’s representation in Board Chair positions increased significantly from 5% (2 of 38) in 2023 to 21% (8 of 38) in 2026.
‘Meaningful participation goes beyond overall numbers, women must also be represented across a diverse range of roles, boards and sectors, particularly those responsible for key decisions and key areas of national development,” FWRM Executive Director Nalini Singh said.
Ethnic Composition and Diversity:
Figure 3: Ethnic Composition on SOE boards.
Of the 219 members in the 38 enterprises, Itaukei comprise 64.8% in 2026, which is an increase from 45% in 2023. Indo- Fijians have dropped from 38% in 2023 to 35.7% in 2026, while other ethnic groups have decreased significantly from 17% in 2023 to 11.2% in 2026.
Figure 4: Data on major ethnic groups on SOE boards
According to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics’ 2017 census update, iTaukei make up 56.8% of the population, Indo-Fijians account for 37.5%, and other ethnic groups comprise 5.7%. Given this demographic distribution, it is expected that iTaukei hold the largest share of board positions. Only 13.2% of boards have less than 30% iTaukei representation. By comparison, 44.7% of boards have less than 30% Indo-Fijian representation, while this figure rises sharply to 94.7% for other ethnic groups. Although both iTaukei and Indo-Fijians occupy a significant proportion of roles, iTaukei representation remains consistently higher.
Ultimately, there has been progress in the representation of women on state owned boards, going from 20% to 29.2% over the years, however, according to Article 8 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), states have responsibilities at both the national and international levels to remove barriers and actively support women’s participation, especially where they are underrepresented.
“This means going beyond equal rights in theory by putting in place fair, transparent, and inclusive processes that allow women to genuinely compete for these roles. Despite the critical role women play in Pacific economies, barriers to full participation in formal decision-making roles continue. FWRM believes greater inclusion of women on boards will only help strengthen governance structures and support more inclusive decision making across Fiji’s public institutions,” Ms Singh said.
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For media queries please contact FWRM Communications Officer Serelisoni Moceica on 8677 330 or e-mail