"A woman should not be the boss when a women is present"

Click here to download:
3779-a-woman-should-not-be-the-boss-when-a-man-is.pdf (3.19 MB)
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“A woman should not be the boss when a man is present”

Gender and Poverty in Southern Mozambique

Inge Tvedten

Margarida Paulo

Minna Tuominen

Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) is an independent, non-profit research institution and a major international centre in

policy-oriented and applied development research. Focus is on development and human rights issues and on international conditions that affect such issues. The geographical focus is Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern and

Central Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

CMI combines applied and theoretical research. CMI research intends to assist policy formulation, improve the basis for decision-making and promote public debate on international development issues.

Check out "UN TRUST FUND TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ISSUES ANNUAL CALL FOR PROPOSALS" on Peace and Collaborative Development Network

From: Craig Zelizer [mailto:share@internationalpeaceandconflict.org]
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 2:55 PM
To: Drusilla Menaker
Subject: Check out "UN TRUST FUND TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ISSUES ANNUAL CALL FOR PROPOSALS" on Peace and Collaborative Development Network

Building Bridges, Networks and Expertise Across Sectors

Craig Zelizer

Craig Zelizer

Check out the discussion 'UN TRUST FUND TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ISSUES ANNUAL CALL FOR PROPOSALS'

Discussion posted by Craig Zelizer:


UN TRUST FUND TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ISSUES ANNUAL CALL FOR PROPOSALSUnited Nations, New York — The United Nations Trust Fund to End...

Discussion link:

UN TRUST FUND TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ISSUES ANNUAL CALL FOR PROPOSALS

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Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls

While still under development, this site seems to have some great initial resources. –Randal

The Global Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls

is an online resource in English, French and Spanish, designed to serve the needs of policymakers, programme implementers and other practitioners dedicated to addressing violence against women and girls. The Centre is an initiative of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), bringing together the valuable contributions of expert organizations and individuals, governments, United Nations sister agencies, and a wide range of relevant actors. Part of the overall effort is encouraging shared ownership of the site and ongoing partnership-building for its continuous development and sustainability.

 

The primary purpose of the Global Virtual Knowledge Centre is to encourage and support evidence-based programming to more efficiently and effectively design, implement, monitor and evaluate initiatives to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls.  To achieve this, the Global Virtual Knowledge Centre offers a ‘one stop’ service to users by making available the leading tools and evidence on what works to address violence against women and girls. It draws on expert recommendations, policy and programme evaluations and assessments, and fundamentally, on practitioners’ experiences from around the world.

 

The site offers users:

·         step-by-step guidance on ‘how to’ work with specific sectors, groups or areas of intervention

·         proven and promising approaches

·         recommended training and other practical tools for implementation

·         a roster of specialized organizations, by country and languages

·         summaries of evaluations and key findings

·         links to key sources of data and other on-line resources

·         an emerging observatory of leading initiatives; and

·         a calendar of major events and training opportunities.

 

The more than 600 products and features available in some 40 languages will be expanded and updated on an ongoing basis to ensure that practitioners have timely access to current information, knowledge and resources. Every few months, an expanding number of programming guidance modules will continue to be developed and added for specific issues and population groups.

 

In addition to functioning as a user-friendly central repository, the Global Virtual Knowledge Centre will offer practitioners enriched opportunities for knowledge sharing and communication through forthcoming interactive spaces.

 

We look forward to your feedback and to hearing from you, as well as your own expert contributions.

 

Your voice counts in helping us to mobilize continued support and expansion of this shared global resource.

http://www.endvawnow.org/

12/14 - Gender Community of Practice Kick-off

Come one, come all to the kick off meeting for IREX’s Gender Community of Practice!

 

   Tuesday, December 14th

   2:00-4:00 PM

   Conference Rooms A & B

We’ll create a comprehensive list of what IREX needs to do in order to be a thought leader in gender and establish some initial priorities for 2011.

You don’t have to be a gender “expert” to join us. But we do encourage those with a programmatic, academic, or other relevant background in gender to attend.

Please RSVP so I have an idea of how many people are coming.

Thanks,
Randal

A Sobering Assessment of Microfinance's Impact

Often touted as a prime means of empowering women, note especially the third paragraph.

A Sobering Assessment of Microfinance’s Impact

Image001

At a conference last week of leaders in microfinance, attendees focused on the nitty-gritty of the social impact of microlending, and the results of the discussions were both sobering and startling.

Basically, none of the 250-plus academic researchers, practitioners, and investors at the Microfinance Impact & Innovation Conference in New York City seemed to know whether microfinance generally works—whether the 30-year experiment in giving small loans to the poor has a positive impact on their livelihood. In fact, there is increasing evidence that microloans—often given at high interest rates and with strict repayment terms—can further impoverish and indebt poor people. This is frightening, given the growing size of the microfinance sector. MicroBanking Bulletin reported that at the end of 2009 there were 1,084 MFIs serving 74 million borrowers receiving $38 billion in loans.

Abhijit Banerjee, the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT, presented largely depressing findings from his study of Spandana Microfinance. Banerjee looked at 7,200 households in 104 neighborhoods in Hyderabad, India over the past year and a half, where loans of $250 were given to groups of women at an annual interest rate of 28 percent. What Banerjee found is that only 5 percent of Spandana’s loan recipients started new businesses and, in general, there was no impact on spending. “We saw no effect on family expenditures or education, no long-term effects,” said Banerjee. “We found no evidence of women’s empowerment either,” possibly because the money goes directly to women who are often too overburdened with domestic and childcare duties to become successful small-time entrepreneurs. However, Banerjee said his research team did see evidence that the loans were being used to alleviate health crises.

Esther Dufflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT, had similarly bad news about microfinance’s social impact. She presented findings from the first-ever impact evaluation of a rural area that previously had no access to microcredit. Analyzing about 5,000 households in rural Morocco who received loans of $125 to $1,850 from Al Amana Microfinance over a two-year period, Dufflo said the first thing to note was that demand for microfinance loans was low. But, more importantly, “the effect on consumption for the entire sample was negative and insignificant,” she said. “There was no huge improvement in welfare, no effect on [loan recipients’] starting new activities. … No impact on education, no impact on women empowerment.” What did change as a result of the loans, said Dufflo, was diversification of livestock. Forty three percent of loan recipients bought and raised a new type of animal; those who raised sheep, bought chickens; those who raise chicken, bought goats. Also, those with paid jobs often quit them to focus on family farming.

Carlos Danel, co-founder of the highly controversial and much lambasted Compartamos Banco, also spoke at the conference. Over the past 20 years, Compartamos in Mexico has become the largest for-profit microfinance institution in Latin America, serving more than 1.3 million clients. The company went public in 2007 in a transaction worth $467 million, and as of 2009 has a total loan portfolio of $591 million. Compartamos is now opening its troves of data to an academic research team led by Yale University Economics Professor Dean Karlan, a move Danel said has led “people to assume we’re investing in research to defend our work.” But Danel is adamant that is not the case. The reason? “There are more assumptions than evidence in the MFI industry,” Danel said, continuing, “This was an industry born out of supply, not demand. [The loans] reflect what we can do, rather than what the client wants.” Karlan’s impact study of Compartamos started in 2008 and will end in 2012 with a baseline of 19,000 people, likely making it the most comprehensive microfinance impact study ever conducted.

But will academic studies affect microfinance banks’ practices? Danel indicated yes, pointing out that due to the lack of comprehensive MFI studies, “We don’t know how we can improve things for the client.”

Already, there are examples of research affecting and improving practice. Erica Field, an associate professor of economics at Harvard University, presented research about what happens when flexibility is introduced in microloans, specifically a two-month grace period for repayment. Working with Jolly Zachariah, a Citibank executive turned microfinancier at Ujjivan, an urban MFI in India, Field studied 169 groups of 845 female borrowers in Kolkata, who were given loans of between $100 and $250 at an annual interest rate of 22 percent. What Field found was that the women who were offered grace periods had higher profits and more inventory. In other words, there was clear business expansion, although the grace periods brought up the default rate by 12 percent. Field concluded that “microfinance products need to be designed to optimize risk and better outcomes”—an argument Ujjivan has heeded by instituting grace periods for some loan takers. “We are implementing ideas that work for clients,” said Zachariah. Yet Zachariah admitted he is “a totally confused [microcredit] practitioner.” The industry’s greatest problem, he said, is the low skill set and education of microfinance clients, something that was not the case when he helped open up India to retail banking for Citibank in 1986.

The researchers, practitioners, and investors of microfinance did agree on one thing. There is much that we don’t understand about microfinance and much research and work to do. Among the items high on the agenda are studying: the psychology of decision-making by microfinance clients; the quality and flexibility of the loans; the need to provide financial assistance and coaching to loan recipients; and the degree to which easy access to loans are creating over-indebtedness—a phenomenon that needs no explanation to Americans. “Basically, we’re flying blind,” said Richard Rosenberg, a senior advisor at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor. “Research help with over-indebtedness is urgently needed.”


Tamara Straus is senior editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Source URL: http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/2180/

Guidelines for Cash Interventions in Somalia

(download)

Not exactly something we’ve done in the past, as far as I’m aware, but there are some interesting notes in the attachment on both gender and conflict considerations.

From: NGO Consortium [mailto:info@somaliangoconsortium.org]
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 3:59 AM
Subject: FW: Guidelines for Cash Interventions in Somalia

Dear colleagues,

Please note the forwarded message from Horn Relief.

Kind regards.

_________________________________________________

Winnie Kamau

Somalia NGO Consortium/NSP

P. O. Box 14762, 00800

Nairobi, Kenya.

Telephone: +254 020 2607110/2,  +254 700 419246; +254 734 211098

Cell Phone: +254 723 770842

Physical Address: Peponi Rise off Peponi Road

Email: info@somaliangoconsortium.org, winnie@nspsomalia.org

Website: www.somaliangoconsortium.org

Vacancy Announcements: http://www.somaliangoconsortium.org/careers.php

Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

From: Degan Ali [mailto:dali@hornrelief.org]
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 11:32 AM
To: NGO Consortium
Cc: Focal Point
Subject: RE: Guidelines for Cash Interventions in Somalia

Dear Colleagues,

Please find attached the Guidelines for Cash Interventions in Somalia developed by Horn Relief with the support of the European Commission.  Horn Relief developed these guidelines as the Chair of the Cash Based Response Working Group, of the Food Security and Economic Development Sectoral Committee, as well upon the request by the IASC Agriculture and Livelihoods Cluster.  These guidelines are the first step in ensuring a minimum standard that will enhance quality in the design and delivery of cash programs in Somalia.  We strongly encourage agencies doing cash based programs to refer to these guidelines and we hope that the donors will also review proposals with these guidelines in hand.  The next steps after these guidelines is to translate these guidelines into Somali and undertake training of partners.  Horn Relief will be conducting two training sessions early next year in Nairobi and Somalia and agencies will be informed in due time. 

We appreciate the support we have received from the European Commission on this project and in developing the capacity of partners in cash programming.

Kind Regards,

Degan Ali Executive Director

 

Horn Relief Nairobi

P.O.Box 70331-00400 Nairobi, Kenya

Tel: 254 -20 - 800-0881 or 800-9268

Fax:  254 -20 - 800-0881

Mobile : (254) 722-216-398

Email: dali@hornrelief.org                               

Web: www.hornrelief.org

DISCLAIMER:  All the information contained in this email message is strictly confidential and may be legally privileged. Any disclosure, copying or distribution of all or part of the information contained herein or other use of or the taking of any action in reliance upon this information by third parties is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient of this mail message please forward back to sender and delete it immediately and notify Horn Relief at hrnairobi@hornrelief.org or by telephone on:  +254-20-800-9268 or 800-0881, +254-710-607-378, +254-737-903-952,

Posted by email

Manal Omar discusses Iraq, Women and Identity on Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 12pm at the World Bank

------------------------
Mark Whitehouse

Begin forwarded message:

From: "infoshopevents@worldbank.org" <infoshopevents@worldbank.org>
Subject: Manal Omar discusses Iraq, Women and Identity on Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 12pm at the World Bank

[cid:0__=0ABBFD5CDFFC60C78f9e8a93df@worldbank.org]

Manal Omar discusses Iraq, Women and Identity on
Tuesday, November 9 at 12pm in J1-050 Auditorium

For more information, see attached invitation.
(See attached file: barefoot.pdf)
RSVP to infoshopevents@worldbank.org or click here<https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dE4wOENBTG9pa2JFUVprQmpWQklaQWc6MQ>.

AUTHOR:
Manal Omar
Director of Iraq Programs, United States Institute of Peace
Ms. Omar has worked with Women for Women International, a nonprofit NGO, as Regional Coordinator for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. Formerly a journalist, she began work in Iraq in 1997 and 1998 for UNESCO, and worked for OxFam in the Middle East. Currently, she is the Director of Iraq Programs at United States Institute of Peace, based in Washington, D.C. Over the last two years she has been working to respond to the emergency humanitarian crisis in Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon.

MODERATOR:
Tara Vishwanath
Regional Coordinator for Poverty and Gender, Middle East and North Africa Region, World Bank
Ms. Vishwanath is a lead economist and regional coordinator for poverty and gender in the Middle East and North Africa Region (MENA) region at the World Bank. Prior to this, she served as lead economist and poverty coordinator for the South Asia Poverty Reduction and Economic Management group. Before joining the World Bank, she was a professor at Northwestern University in the economics department and has published widely in international economics journals. Some ongoing work in the MENA region that she is leading, that are noteworthy include a pilot experiment in Jordan for improving employment prospects for young women graduates; a poverty and inclusion assessment for Palestine, and a rigorous impact evaluation for a micro and small enterprise project in Egypt.

DISCUSSANT:
Patricia L. Wildermuth
Iraq Legislative Coordinator and Grants Officer, Department of State
Ms. Wildermuth is an international law attorney with extensive experience in constitutional and comparative law, international crimes, law of war, human rights, and detainee affairs. She lived and worked in Baghdad from 2006 to 2010. She is currently the Iraq Constitutional and Legislative Coordinator and Grants Officer at the US Department of State. While in Baghdad, she initially served as the international law advisor at the Regime Crimes Liaison’s Office (RCLO) and assisted the Iraqi High Tribunal Judges in the trials of high-ranking Iraqi officials of the former regime, including Saddam Hussein and Chemical Ali trials. After the RCLO drawdown, Ms. Wildermuth joined the Baghdad Provincial Reconstruction team (PRT) as the Deputy Chief of the Rule of Law Section. She later accepted the position of Deputy of the Judicial Education and Development Institute (JEDI) project, where she led the team in the development of curriculum for the training of Iraqi judges.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About The InfoShop
The InfoShop is the public information center of the World Bank and serves as a forum for substantial debate on international development. Our extensive events program consists of more than 250 events over the past two years and has hosted many internationally recognized speakers, including Muhammad Yunus, Richard Posner, Queen Noor, Francis Fukuyama, Jeffrey Sachs, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Friedman, Former US Senator Chuck Hagel, and Carly Fiorina. The InfoShop functions as the only publicly accessible space at headquarters and provides internal and external audiences with over 10,000 titles published by the World Bank, international organizations, and other publishers on development issues.
For more information, visit www.worldbank.org/infoshop<http://www.worldbank.org/infoshop>
For comments about the events program, visit InfoShop<http://go.worldbank.org/TDG9T8O9K0>.

1e702135

Click here to download:
barefoot.pdf (181 KB)
(download)

Report: Gender Bias in Media

Women see modest gains in world news media portrayal, Coverage still betrays significant gender bias

 

Women are still significantly underrepresented and misrepresented in news media coverage, according to Global Media Monitoring Project research in 108 countries coordinated by the World Association for Christian Communication, despite significant change since the project began 15 years ago.

76% of the people heard or read about in the world’s news are male. The world seen in news media remains largely a male one.

The GMMP monitored 1,365 newspapers, television and radio stations and Internet news sites, 17,795 news stories and 38,253 persons in the news in 108 countries with 82% of the world’s people.

The report Who Makes the News? The Global Media Monitoring Project 2010 was released today in Arabic , English, French and Spanish, along with numerous regional and national reports.

24% of people in the news are female, compared to 17% in 1995. 44% of persons providing popular opinion in news stories are female compared to 34% in 2005.

• News media show significant gender bias with 46% of news stories reinforcing gender stereotypes.
• 13% of news stories focus centrally on women.
• Expert commentary is overwhelmingly male with only one female in every five experts.
• The age of women in the news is mentioned twice as often and family status almost four times as often as for men.

Today female reporters are responsible for 37% of stories compared to 28% fifteen years ago, and their stories challenge gender stereotypes twice as often as stories by male reporters.

Gender bias in Internet news is similar and in some respects even more intense than that found in the traditional news media.


The 2010 report contains a plan of action for media professionals and others committed to gender-ethical news media.

The GMMP is the largest and longest running research and advocacy initiative on fair and balanced gender representation in the news media. It is coordinated by WACC, a global network of communicators promoting communication for social change, in collaboration with data analyst Media Monitoring Africa, and with support from the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

More information: www.whomakesthenews.org

Contact:

WACC, Toronto, Canada
Email: gmmp@waccglobal.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Tel. +1 416 691 1999 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +1 416 691 1999      end_of_the_skype_highlighting (press 1)
--------------------
or

GMMP National Coordinators

------------------------

Drusilla Menaker

Director, Communities of Practice/IREX

Senior Media Advisor/IREX

Associate Director/IREX Europe

E: dmenaker@irex.org

T: +1 845 664 4729

Skype: drusillamenaker

Twitter: @irexmedia @drumenaker

www.irex.org

www.europe.irex.org

(download)

Click here to download:
Gender Media Bias Report - 2010.pdf (4.47 MB)
(download)

The World's Women 2010: Trends and Statistics - UN 2010

Click here to download:
UN Status of Women Report - 2010.pdf (7.61 MB)
(download)

------------------------

Drusilla Menaker

Director, Communities of Practice/IREX

Senior Media Advisor/IREX

Associate Director/IREX Europe

E: dmenaker@irex.org

T: +1 845 664 4729

Skype: drusillamenaker

Twitter: @irexmedia @drumenaker

www.irex.org

www.europe.irex.org

IREX Liberia's Cerue Garlo presents on women, peace-building and UNResolution 1325 at US Mission to the UN

Cerue_garlo_-_unscr_1325_panel

IREX Liberia’s Cerue Garlo contributed to a panel on women, peace-building and the on-the-ground implementation of UN Resolution 1325 today at the US Mission to the UN. The event launched an assessment timed for the 10th anniversary of UNSCR 1325, which calls on all actors to support and increase women’s participation in decisions on conflict mitigation and resolution as well as reconstruction and also outlines protections for women and girls amid conflict. Cerue’s contribution from Liberia joined those by counterparts from Sri Lanka, Palestine/Israel, Colombia, Aceh and Uganda in the assessment, which was organized by the International Civil Society Action Network and the MIT Center for International Studies.

Cerue talked about how although – or perhaps because -- Liberian women were so engaged in the pushing for peace and the country has a woman president, there now is a certain complacency about gender issues. She said that grassroots organizations focused on gender don’t have resources, and civil society doesn’t have the means to monitor government implementation of 1325, the national action plan on women and related mandates. She also said that land disputes are now critical in Liberia, and women need to gain the skills to address these issues and negotiate so that their communities benefit from natural resources. She said there is no way that a strong government can be built when there is only a weak civil society.

Among the points from other the presenters:

·         Participation is the missing piece in the implementation of UNSCR 1325; the focus is on the protection or – as the study’s principal author, Sanam Anderlini of ICAN said -- “making war safer for women.”  Women still are excluded from the negotiating table, meaning their concerns and potential contributions are sidelined. Instead of being actors and stakeholders, women are seen mainly as victims. The AP reported on this aspect of the study.

·         While there is lack of awareness about 1325 in local areas in some countries, at the national level in others, and even among UN personnel, it has been used effectively. Lina Zedriga of Uganda described how women in northern Uganda had used it as a “door opening tool’’ during peace talks. A magistrate whose husband had disappeared in 2001, she said did not know until 2007 that 1325 was “at my disposal to hold my government accountable.” (She also mentioned a telling case of unintended consequences: a program that gave women bicycles so they would not have to be unsafe walking turned out to turn them into victims when their husbands took them, sold them, and used the money to buy new cows and take a younger wife.)

·         It is hard for women struggling in the aftermath of violence to see (male) ex-combatants “rewarded” with land and payments through demobilization programs.

The report also comes as the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women — to be known as UN Women — gets started after its creation by the General Assembly last July. Cerue asked if the new UN body is “old wine in a new bottle,” and the panel generally agreed that it is not yet clear whether this UN body will prove more effective in making the participation of women – especially in peace-building and development processes – the norm.

------------------------

Drusilla Menaker

Director, Communities of Practice/IREX

Senior Media Advisor/IREX

Associate Director/IREX Europe

E: dmenaker@irex.org

T: +1 845 664 4729

Skype: drusillamenaker

Twitter: @irexmedia @drumenaker

www.irex.org

www.europe.irex.org