Issue
Lack of community engagement and acceptance of the public health emergency measures implemented by The Government of Fiji to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and address its socio-economic impacts has hampered Fiji’s response to the pandemic.
How we are helping
This project will support engagement between civil society and government to improve community understanding and strengthen the implementation and community ownership of Covid-19 policies.
About the project
The Government of Fiji responded to the Covid-19 pandemic with measures including lockdowns, curfews, physical distancing, travel restrictions and border closures. Many of these restrictions had a severe impact on tourism revenues, leading to job losses in the sector and across the heavily tourism-dependent informal economy.
The pandemic has disproportionately affected the most vulnerable and marginalised groups in Fiji: youth, women and persons with disabilities.
Limited access to information and a lack of understanding of the rationale surrounding the policy response to the pandemic has weakened community buy-in and implementation and success of measures.
This project aims to enhance national efforts in response to the Covid-19 pandemic by improving dialogue between civil society and government.
The project will achieve this by:
- conducting a review of Covid-19 policies and approaches
- convening three multi-stakeholder forums involving senior officials from the Ministry of Health, Civil Society Organisations, community, women’s groups and youth leaders to discuss current approaches to managing the impact of the pandemic
- reviewing the efficacy of existing approaches, and providing suggestions and recommendations for improvement to policymakers
- training civil society organisations and community leaders on engaging effectively with government
- organising and facilitating an online forum with the Minister for Health to provide citizens an opportunity to engage in dialogue directly with the Minister
- producing and disseminating a video documentary on the problems facing vulnerable groups impacted by the pandemic
Project Partners
Dialogue Fiji (DF), is a civil society organization based in Suva, Fiji. DF has been operating since 2009 and has worked to create inclusive and participatory spaces for dialogue on critical issues affecting Fijians. DF promotes the use of dialogue and other deliberative processes to encourage and facilitate civic engagement in Fiji to strengthen a democratic culture, build social cohesion and advocate for the use of peaceful ways of dealing with conflict. DF’s current projects are in areas such as inclusive and sustainable democracy, electoral processes, democratic participation, democratic institution building, human rights, conflict transformation and climate change, which constitute key areas for peacebuilding work in the Fijian context
We support people's participation in democracy and development by providing grants, platforms, and expertise.
