Their leadership now extends to national decision-making spaces, where they proudly represent the voices of women farmers on the Fiji National Tilapia Steering Committee. Known affectionately as the Tinani Maleya (the Mothers of Tilapia) these women are living proof that when rural women are trusted with knowledge and opportunity, they do more than sustain livelihoods; they shape the nation’s food future.

In Yavusania Village in Nadi, women have turned environmental restoration into a strategy for food security. After landslides and riverbank erosion destroyed farmland and homes, they mobilised their community to plant trees and stabilise soils, safeguarding cropland and protecting the river that sustains their food supply. Working hand in hand with village men, they transformed crisis into collaboration, ensuring that the land their children will farm tomorrow remains fertile and secure.

These stories, told and owned by women, show how food, nature, and empowerment are inseparable in rural Fiji. They are not isolated acts of resilience but are evidence of a quiet revolution led by women who understand that cultivating good food begins with caring for the land, the sea, and each other.

The Niusalelevata Communiqué, emerging from the Symposium, calls for action to make this transformation lasting and systemic. It urges policymakers to create direct financing pathways for Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women, and youth, with simplified, timely access to funding for biodiversity and climate initiatives.

It calls for inclusive decision-making, where rural women and community leaders co-design and co-implement the projects that affect their lives. It advocates for formal recognition of women’s cooperatives, expanded vocational training in sustainable food production, and the integration of traditional knowledge systems into national policy frameworks.

For Fiji, where nearly half the population lives in rural areas and depends on agriculture, fishing, and forestry for sustenance, these calls are urgent. Rural women sit at the heart of food systems and climate resilience. When they thrive, families eat better, communities grow stronger, and ecosystems recover. But when they are excluded, the risks of hunger, poverty, and degradation deepen.

As the Communiqué reminds us, “Our potential is immense, and the time to act is now.” To realise that potential, investments must flow directly to those cultivating solutions on the ground. Empowering rural women is not a matter of charity; it is a matter of strategy for building food security, economic resilience, and climate justice across the Pacific.

On this year's International Day of Rural Women, the UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji celebrates the women who continue to plant possibility; through cattle farming in Macuata, tilapia ponds in Cakaudrove, and reforested riverbanks in Nadi.

Their courage, creativity, and cooperation embody what it truly means to cultivate good food for all.

By investing in rural women, we invest not only in food, but in the future; rooted in equity, sustainability, and shared prosperity for all Pacific people.

For more information please contact:

Akisi Bolabola, Small Grants Programme National Coordinator Fiji, UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji, akisi.bolabola@undp.org or Risiate Biudole, Communications Analyst, UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji, risiate.biudole@undp.org