I was seconded to the Fiji Parliament in 2016 to establish a parliamentary research service and provide training on committee oversight and legislative scrutiny. I worked with various UN agencies, MPs, parliament staff and diplomats to negotiate the necessary political cover to create such a service in a challenging political environment. I returned to provide assistance with budget scrutiny and deliver training to Committee chairs on embedding gender perspectives in their scrutiny in 2017.

 Achievements included:

• establishing, training and managing a new team of parliamentary researchers. This involved working with the Speaker, Secretary-General, senior staff, MPs and external partners to ensure political impartiality and the sustainability of the service;

• writing a toolkit for MPs on scrutinising legislation from a gender perspective, which was published by the UNDP in March 2017. As a result of this work, the vast majority of committee reports now include a gender analysis. I delivered a workshop on the toolkit to committee chairs and whips in 2017;

• designing and establishing a new ‘Bill summary’ publication series to help MPs scrutinise legislation;

• providing workshops and training to MPs and parliament staff on the importance of expert and impartial parliamentary research, research techniques and how to enhance the scrutiny process with the use of evidence, and

• working as part of an international team in June/July 2017 that produced a series of briefings on the government’s 2017-18 Budget, including producing the country’s first Budget gender analysis.