ABSTRACT
This chapter will analyse how most “development partner” assistance has been driven by commitments to a global rights-based agenda and a bilateral donor focus on aid for women’s empowerment driven by neoliberal assumptions rather than by requests from aid recipient governments. Although in most of the Pacific Island States these values are enshrined in law and by the signing of international conventions such as CEDAW, such implementation that occurs tends to be donor driven, donor designed and more often not based on erroneous neoliberal assumptions that it is possible and desirable for women to “empower” themselves to address their political and economic exclusion. However, since the causes of that exclusion are mainly structural, as illustrated in a case study of Samoa, this creates superficial or ineffective changes and may even worsen violence against women. I argue that to address these issues, aid should be given with recognition that women are carrying the extra burdens of social and economic change with associated risks to their security.
