News

Fiji’s stock exchange has adopted PSDI recommendations to help increase the number of women company directors.

Recently updated South Pacific Stock Exchange (SPSE) Listing Rules now recommend firms adopt policies to promote gender diversity on corporate boards, and require firms to report on those policies and their outcomes.

PSDI first suggested this ‘comply or explain’ approach in an issues paper drafted for SPSE in 2016 on the exchange’s potential to advance gender equality on listed companies’ boards (see http://bit.ly/2Gk3fxp).

The suggestion was reiterated in 2017 submissions on the draft listing rules—which did not address gender—from PSDI (see http://bit.ly/2IqmMj6) and from the participants of PSDI’s Women in Leadership pilot project in Fiji, pictured here (see http://bit.ly/2Gjc7Ds).

These additions to SPSE’s Listing Rules represent welcome progress towards increasing gender diversity on boards in Fiji, where, in 2017, only 12% of company directors were women and 63% of listed companies have no women directors at all.

The updated Listing Rules, with new gender-related entries on pages 39 and 84, can be downloaded here: https://bit.ly/2Pct0nu