A member of ARROW’s Programme Advisory Committee from 1993 – 2001, Vanessa was Coordinator of the Gender and Development Program of the Asian and Pacific Development Centre (APDC), a regional intergovernmental organization based in Malaysia, from 1995-2002, where she coordinated, edited and published regional applied research on refugee women and women in armed conflict and forestry resource use and livelihoods.

She produced the Asia Pacific Post-Beijing Monitor, post-Beijing newsletter, and organized the Beijing + 5 NGO regional planning meeting for the Asia Pacific NGO Forum 2000. She has done regional reviews of gender mainstreaming in Asia and of partnerships for the UNESCAP (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) Beijing + 5 consultation. She has also served on the Board of the Association for Women's Rights in Development, and has held similar positions in the Sisterhood is Global Institute, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) on the International Editorial Advisory Committee of UNIFEM.

Her work in Fiji includes facilitating a regional meeting on eliminating violence against women for the Commonwealth Secretariat, project analysis for the Fiji Women's Rights Movement, and a regional assessment on Violence against Women strategies and design of a regional EVAW (End Violence Against Women) program for UNIFEM. She also organized two national workshops on gender and aging, including health policies for the elderly and health security/insurance for aging populations.

She is an activist organizer in regional women's, peace, anti-nuclear and anti-colonial movements; researching, editing and writing handbooks for Pacific women on rural technology and health and teaching history and politics at the University of the South Pacific. Her short stories have been used in schools in Fiji for many years.

She currently resides in Suva, Fiji and can be contacted at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it