Hilda Kari

Who is Hilda Kari?

Hilda Thugea Kari is a Solomon Islands politician.

Educated in Australia, she is a senior health administrator, and President of the National Council of Women, an organisation dedicated to encouraging and facilitating women's participation in politics.

She is the first woman to have been elected Member of the National Parliament of Solomon Islands. She successfully contested the 1989 bye-election for the North East Guadalcanal seat caused by MP Waita Ben Tabusasi vacating his seat to become Speaker. She was re-elected, as MP for East Central Guadalcanal, in the 1994 general election, and again in 1997, thus serving until 2001.

She was Minister for Forestry, the Environment and Conservation from 1997 to 2000, under Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu; she was the first woman in Cabinet in the country's history. Ulufa'alu resigned in June 2000 after being kidnapped by the Malaita Eagle Force in a context of rising ethnic tensions. Kari then served as Minister for Youth, Women and Sport under his successor Manasseh Sogavare, from 2000 to 2001. She is also recorded as having been briefly Minister for Lands and Housing in 2000, although it is not known whether this was under Ulufa'alu or Sogavare.