23 Oct 2013

Women to benefit from new approach in Solomon Islands

5:24 am on 23 October 2013

There are high hopes a new way of measuring the performance of top civil servants in the Solomon Islands will bring improvements for women in the country.

The Public Service Commission is employing the 24 permanent secretaries of government departments on new style performance contracts which means they must measure up to obligations around so-called gender-mainstreaming.

The Commission chairman, Eliam Tangirongo, says the department chiefs will have no choice but to strive for equal treatment of the genders across the board from the provision of statistics to zero tolerance of harassment in the workplace.

"For example if we talk about getting budgets down to the local women in the rural areas for whichever sector, I think it is going to work out very positively overall, not just getting women promoted within the public service."

Mr Tangirongo says the department heads have to report regularly on progress and he says eventually this approach will cascade right down the ranks of the civil service.