Yap Summit Community Sector - Yap State Government

YAP STATE GOVERNMENT
FSM: Comments from the Federated States of Micronesia on the Five Year Review of the Amended Compact of
Free Association (2011)
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Yap: work in progress towards a local perspective
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YWA/WIO additional info to consider
YWA as NGO was established in 1953 to target Yap women. In 1974 the first renegotiation took place extending
YWA mandate to both Yap proper and Outer Islands women, as well as women of any other ethnicity living in Yap.
When the FSM joined the UN in 1991, a Women Interest Office (WIO) was created in each of the FSM States as a
Public Office to be financed with local revenues resources. Today YWA and WIO operate as one entity also from an
administrative point of view. Within the end on 2012 the two entities should be split to regain their different roles
although they share complementary mission statements. More specifically WIO is concerned with how policies
introduced at a State level affect women interests. WIO also actively contributes to bills proposals that support
women’s interests by the Government. In this respect WIO acts as a support entity for women association. YWA on
the other hand is an NGO supported by Japanese, Chinese, U.S., Australian and New Zealand funds in addition to
other local fund raising campaigns that include Day Care and other events. YWA has as mission promoting the
empowerment of women in the State, and covering this role participated into the First Economic and Social
Summit, although Gender wasn’t framed as a topic/sector per se at that time. The reason behind the “no-need” of
explicitly addressing gender issues during the First Economic and Social Summit was attributed to the fact that the
division of gender roles in Yap did not exclude women, but regulated their influence in the public sphere through
non public fora of discussion. Additionally, in more than one occasion Yapese women opposed positive
discrimination policies aiming at “insuring” a given number of women positions under the belief that meritocracy,
and not positive discrimination throughout horizontal societal categories, should be the mean for any given role.
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