Raising the visibility of Dialogue: British High Commissioner

The remarks were made by Dr Brian Jones, the British High Commissioner, and Chief-Guest during the Dialogue on Electoral Issues at the Warwick Resort in Sigatoka today.

“As a diplomat, my role is to connect as many Fijian leaders as possible and importantly, enable platforms for women leaders to ensure increasing their political participation in the country,” said the High Commissioner.

The Keynote Speaker at the Dialogue, Mr. Agus Wandi, the Peace and Development Advisor at the United Nations, said we need the active and broader participation of civil society organizations’, youths and political actors in order to create a conducive environment for elections.

“Fiji’s record in terms of women’s political participation is impressive in the region. However, more could be done to improve their status considering that there are ‘very limited’ young women in many Pacific parliaments. Youths are also crucial actors in terms of their aspirations and increasing voter bloc,” said Mr. Wandi.

Mr. Wandi also said that CSOs’ can play an important role in advocating for electoral reforms which is a long-term process.

The Executive Director of Dialogue Fiji, Mr. Nilesh Lal, emphasized that this dialogue has been organized to enable different stakeholders and citizen groups to deliberate on key electoral issues.

Our intent is to achieve some useful, tangible outcomes that will contribute significantly towards strengthening some aspects of political participation and electoral processes in Fiji, according to Mr. Lal.

The dialogue is being convened as part of the “Building Public Confidence in Elections in Fiji through Civil Society Action”, which is being funded by UKAid and is jointly implemented by Dialogue Fiji and International IDEA.

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