Climate Change Impact and Structural Reforms in Kiribati
KIRIBATI
results indicate a positive contribution of gender
equality to growth in Kiribati compared to peers,
there are areas that still have room for
improvement.
9.
A counter-factual growth
decomposition exercise is conducted to
Gender Inequality Index by Sub-components
500
400
300
200
100
Average of countries in the bottom 30 percent of income
Kiribati
0
Maternal mortality Adolescent birth
ratio (deaths per rate (births per
100,000 live births) 1,000 women ages
15-19)
Share of seats in
parliament (% held
by women)
Female labor force
participation rate
(%)
Sources: UNDP; 2020 Kiribati Census; and IMF staff calculations.
Note: Data are for 2019 or the latest available year.
capture the potential impact of these more
recent legal reforms. Since the end of the
sample period, Kiribati has introduced legal
reforms to enhance women's economic
participation. For example, the World Bank
Women, Business, and the Law (WBL) report (WB, 2022) highlights how, in 2018, Kiribati eliminated
all restrictions on women's employment, including previous restrictions on women working at night
and in the mining sector. The growth decomposition exercise described in the preceding paragraphs
would not fully capture the impact of these legal reforms for two reasons. First, the reforms took
place towards the end of our sample period (2018).9 Second, it usually takes time for legal reforms to
have an impact on gender-related outcomes. However, as Christopherson et al. (2022) note, laws can
influence and change moral and cultural beliefs and produce positive outcomes in gender equality.
Therefore, the analysis applies a counter-factual growth decomposition exercise by taking the
average of the legal rights index for the six benchmark group countries closest in ranking to Kiribati
in 2021 (three countries higher than Kiribati and three countries lower). This allows us to illustrate
what impact legal reforms could have had on growth in Kiribati had they been completed during the
last time period of our regression (yellow bar in Figure 2).10
C. Policies: Progress in the Past and Options for the Future
10.
Kiribati has introduced several reforms to promote gender equality. In its National
Policy for Gender Equality and Women's Development (GEWD) 2019-2022, the government aimed to
build a country where "all Kiribati men and women reach their full potential." Five areas of policy
were prioritized: (i) implementing gender mainstreaming, 11 (ii) improving economic empowerment of
women, (iii) supporting stronger and informed families, (iv) improving women's leadership, and (v)
eliminating gender-based violence. In 2015, the Employment and Industrial Relations Code was
amended to address gender harassment at workplace, promote equal pay for equal work, and
introduce maternity leave which was one of the major advances on gender equality. Additionally, the
Family Peace Act and its Implementation Plan (2014) and the Eliminating Sexual and Gender Based
Violence (ESGBV) Policy 2011-2021 were also adopted to tackle the prevalent domestic violence in
the country. These efforts have resulted in steady improvement of Kiribati's performance of gender
9 Prior to the reforms, Kiribati ranked in the bottom half of the middle of low- to lower-middle income countries on
the WBL index in 2010. By 2021 though, the country had moved up to the top third of this group.
10 This counterfactual example assumes that no other countries in the benchmark group have introduced legal
reforms that could have a positive impact of gender equality.
11 Gender mainstreaming is the process of integrating a gender perspective into all government policies, programs
and activities.
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