Dominica's National Policy on Gender Equality

In 2007 the Cabinet of Dominica approved a National Policy and Action Plan for Gender Equity and Equality, drafted the previous year, making Dominica the first country in the English-speaking Caribbean to adopt a national gender equality policy, according to the World Bank's Gender-Based Violence Country Profile for Dominica. The policy set out to address discrimination against women across health, economic development, violence, education and decision-making.
Implementation sits with the Bureau of Gender Affairs, under the Ministry of Social Services, Community Development and Gender Affairs, whose institutional lineage runs from a Women's Desk (1980) to a Women's Bureau (1982) to today's Bureau of Gender Affairs (renamed 2009), headquartered in Roseau. Dominica's early leadership on gender is also reflected in its having elected the Americas' first female head of government, Prime Minister Dame Eugenia Charles, who served over 14 consecutive years from 1980.
The policy and Bureau have persisted for nearly two decades, but no independently verified, quantified outcome data - for example on rates of gender-based violence or women's share of senior public office - could be confirmed to track the policy's impact; the practice's strongest evidence is institutional continuity and historical precedent rather than measured results, a gap future evaluation should address.

Read the full analysis: https://genderaffairs.gov.dm/