As the world commemorates the International Women’s Day as an annual event in the United Nations Calendar of Events starting on the 8th of March, the MWCSD leads the national acknowledgement and recognition of women’s contribution to all areas of developments. It is also a time for the country to reflect on the hardships and challenges faced by women over the years and at present. For most countries, activities are conducted throughout the month of March in commemoration of this cause, and Samoa is not an exception.

For this year, the Ministry of Women, Community & Social Development once again leads the celebration of its women, through community programs scheduled for this month of March, on the global theme “Innovation & Technology for Gender Equality”

For this year’s theme “Innovation & Technology for Gender Equality” the MWCSD and the CEDAW Partnership in commemorating this year’s International Women’s Day 2023, look into the strengths of technology to innovate the political, social, economic and community challenges that are hindering the full potential of Samoan women to contribute to the development of families, villages, churches and the country at large. We look to capitalise on the strengths of technology to reiterate and make known the great contribution of our women as articulated in the Samoan poem cited above to our leaders at all levels to the development of our families, villages, districts and the country.

As the government of Samoa’s development focuses on empowering communities, building resilience and inspiring growth, the MWCSD with the help of the CEDAW Partnership (Government Ministries, NGOs and Development Partners) are collaborating to create technological pathways to innovate the many gender inequalities that exist from the family level to the country.

The celebration this year will include panel discussions on the topics “How technology has provided gender equality opportunities” and “Cyber Security – Women’s cyber safety”. Government Ministries, Organizations, selected Community Representatives as well as students from selected schools, will have the opportunity to listen and share with the panel members on the discussed topics. The panel members will include prominent women in the Information Technology space as well as inspirational women who will speak on the selected topics based on their areas of expertise and life journeys as women.

This will be followed by the Microsoft Basic Skills training which will be conducted for women village representatives and Women Advisory Committee members on the 17th of March, 2023.

In addition to this training, the Ministry will also make use of this opportunity to raise awareness and conduct basic skills building on Gender Equality, Gender Responsive Budgeting and the Inter-Agency Essential Services Guide in response to cases of GBV and Child protection; as well as on the E-Youth Hub platform for youth employment opportunities. The celebration of the International Women’s Day this year has been taken by the Ministry as an avenue to pilot these activities which are hoped to cover all the districts in the end, as part of the DDP program.

From the Hon. Minister Leota Laki Lamositele Sio, CEO, Management and staff of the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development, we wish all the women and girls of Samoa a Happy International Women’s Day, 2023.