The progress of the world 's governments towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be reviewed in 2005. This timely collection of articles provides feminist perspectives on the MDGs and critically evaluates their potential impact on gender equality and women 's empowerment. Authors differ in the degree of engagement with the MDGs they advocate, but many point to the urgent need to explore the linkages between the Goals and other international women 's rights instruments like the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action.Contributors include: UN Development Fund for Women Director Noeleen Heyzer, Naila Kabeer, Carol Barton, and Peggy Antrobus

This collection of articles critically assesses the degree to which gender inequality has been addressed in the work of development organizations. Contributors scrutinize the efforts of governments and NGOs, at the national and international levels, in order to assess the difference that gender mainstreaming has made to advancing women 's interests in development. In addition, they consider the progress that development organizations have made in ensuring women 's fullest participation at all levels of their own organizations. Contributions to this volume include case studies from Bolivia, South Africa, India, and Thailand. Among the authors are Caroline Moser, Annalise Moser, Aruna Rao, David Kelleher, and Shamim Meer.

Women all over the world are increasingly joining the bottom rungs of the global supply chain. Whether by picking fruit in Chile, processing cashews in Mozambique, sewing in China's export Processing Zones, or providing biotech companies with indigenous knowledge in India, women's labor and skill is a crucial element of the scaling-up of globalized production processes. It can be argued that increased opportunities to join the cash economy are a positive development for women, whose additional income has the potential to increase both their status and the well-being of the family. But what are the hidden costs of new trade regimes, and do they outweigh the benefits? What do women stand to lose and how do trade agreements on intellectual property, movement of migrant labor, and agriculture potentially entrench overall poverty and women's over-burdened gender role further? Women are finding ways to influence national and international trade policy agendas in developed countries such as the United States and Australia, and are linking globally at global forums such as Cancun. Contributors to this volume cover issues in countries including China, Botswana, Mozambique, and Mexico and explore some of the many dimensions of gender, gender relations and trade in local and cross-border enterprise, regional agreements, and the WTO. Mariama Williams gives us an overview of the key issues from Cancun as they affect women and gender reforms. Authors such as Marceline White, Alison Symington, and Suman Sumai look at particular ways in which trade agreements can lead countries into contradictory positions regarding their commitments to other social and legal treaties and national policies. Eleonore Kaufman writes about how trade incentives to encourage freedom of movement for workers and migration policies co-exist. Kate Raworth and Thalia Kidder and Annie Delaney and Pun Ngai explore the hidden costs of casualized and informal labor regimes to women. Peggy Ntseane discusses the different trade strategies used by women and men at the level of small and medium enterprise.

Women are active players in reconciliation and post-conflict reconstruction processes. Moreover, sustainable peace depends on equal representation of all citizens in peacetime decision-making.This collection of articles explores conflict prevention through development projects in places where resources are scarce, and age-old agreements between groups come under strain. Other activities take place to arrest existing conflicts, by forming alliances across warring forces - the authors argue that women play a significant but underestimated role in this type of work. Most of their activities take place through grassroots organisations, due to their lack of access to formal decision-making. Traditional stereotypes of mothers and wives are invoked by many women to legitimise innovative conflict prevention strategies which men might otherwise question.Other articles here focus on women's efforts to build lasting peace through transforming old inequitable government structures into democratic institutions. International organisations and NGOs tend to limit their focus to women's welfare and protection in conflict and post-conflict situations, but they should focus as well on supporting women's attempts to gain access to leadership.

Over the past 50 years, billions of dollars and working days have been expended on the "development" of countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific. The alleviation of poverty is the primary concern of many -- though not all -- organizations working in the development sector. Some, notably the international financial institutions, have focused primarily on promoting economic growth at the macro-level, in the belief that increases in wealth at the national level will eventually "trickle down" to alleviate poverty throughout entire populations. In this view, grassroots poverty alleviation strategies are seen as short-to-medium-term activities, to complement macro-economic policies. In contrast, some development organizations -- often NGOs -- do not believe that wealth will ever trickle down to women or men in poverty; they see community development initiatives to address poverty as part of an alternative development approach. A commitment to equality between women and men may or may not figure as a part of their work.This book examines the complex links between poverty and inequality between women and men. It shows how gender inequalities impact on men s, women s and children s experiences of poverty, and demonstrates the importance of integrating gender analysis into every aspect of development initiatives. Covering a range of issues including macro-level neoliberal restructuring, poverty reduction strategies, gender budgets, education, HIV/AIDS, globalization and poverty in the North, the contributors bring new insights into the impacts of gender-blind development policies at all levels. Illustrating their analysis with examples from Peru, Sudan, Tanzania, Ghana, Togo, and the UK, they show how gender equality forms an integral part of "development," which must be mainstreamed into all poverty alleviation programs and development initiatives."

This book links gender issues to the life-courses of women and men. Gender-based discrimination is experienced differently according to age, generation, and status in the family. In particular, female children and elderly women perform an enormous amount of the world's work. endure appalling abuse of the human rights, and receive disproportionately few benefits from development. Writers here call for development policy and practice to recognise this vast contribution, and enforce the rights of women of all ages to an equal share of development outcomes. Other topics included here are the use of life-histories in understanding social and economic change; the economic survival of older people and children in an era of AIDS; the vulnerability of older men to gender-based abuse; girl-trafficking and AIDS; educating adolescent girls and boys to eradicate gender inequality; and the role of employment in changing young women's status in society. Countries featured include Bangladesh, Mexico, Jordan, Tanzania, and Nepal. Authors include Maribel Blasco and Ann Varley, Sabina Rashid, and Sylvia Beales.

The articles in this collection explore the wide range of reasons why women and men decide to move within and outside their native countries, whether it be for employment, upon marriage or in response to conflict. The authors stress the importance of seeing an individual migrant in her or his context as a member of a social network, spanning different locations. Understanding these links helps us to understand migration as part of a wider strategy for making a living. The articles also explore how migration may offer women a chance to challenge oppressive gender relations: migrants are exposed to different ways of being and doing, which show that culture is neither universal or fixed. Conversely, migration may be a route into continuing gender-based discrimination, because women become isolated from their support systems.

This collection of articles from development practitioners and feminist activists places violence against women, both direct and indirect, in the context of development. Violence is both a human rights issue and an obstacle to women's participation in development. Writers here focus on campaigning and advocacy work as well as work with women who have experienced violence, in countries including Russia, Guinea-Bissau, and India. The collection includes accounts of work with women who have been sexually assaulted and those who have undergone cultural practices such as female genital mutilation and early marriage.

Religion and spirituality are central to the lives of women and men across the world yet mainstream development policy and practice rarley take account of this fact. This collection of articles explores the complex links between social and economic development and religious and spiritual belief and assesses the cost to development of ignoring these links. Writers of many faiths, and those with none, explore the scope for promoting women's rights and needs offered by religious belief and practice and analyse feminist responses to fundamentalist regimes which use religious doctrine to justify women's oppression.

Over the past decade, organizations working on development issues have taken an increasing interest in women's needs and rights. But working on promoting awareness of women's marginalization demands more than an equal opportunities policy. This book draws together the experience of organizations working to promote women's full participation in the development process, looking at the obstacles that stand in the way.

The current global economic crisis is expected to lead to millions more people being pushed into extreme poverty. The effects are profoundly different for women and men, and the existing gender inequalities and power imbalances mean that additional problems are falling disproportionately on those who are already structurally disempowered and marginalized.The economic crisis is the latest element in a complex web of shocks and longer-term traumas affecting women, men and their families in developing countries. These include food and fuel shocks, changing climatic conditions, and the HIV pandemic. For many people living in poverty, these crises are experienced as one multifaceted crisis, which has accentuated already existing underlying chronic concerns in both the productive and the reproductive (care) economies of the world. While these issues remain largely invisible to mainstream economists and policymakers, they are critical to the development of effective and sustainable responses to the crisis.Contributors to this book map the emerging impact of the economic crisis on women, men and their families in different contexts, and suggest policy and practice changes. Authors include key figures in the research field as well as policymakers and development practitioners, who analyze, with first-hand experience, the initial impacts of the economic crisis in South and East Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.