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2020-04-30
CARE International;
The majority of women around the world work in low-paid positions, the informal economy, or in agriculture jobs with few protections. These are the sectors that are being worst hit by the economic impacts of COVID-19, and as the crisis drags on and worsens across the Global South, millions will be left without work, and in poverty.
740 million women work in the informal sector, which has been worst hit by the economic fall out of the coronavirus.[1] Furthermore women are less likely to benefit from recovery and stabilisation measures, as gender and social norms prohibit access to economic opportunities and financial resources.
This study reveals how the global pandemic is having a real and immediate economic impact on women in the developing world. Here, 45 million women work in the garment industry, and face the loss of their sole income; while nearly 44 million female domestic workers across the world, and the tens of millions of poor rural women reliant on farming, can no longer access fields and livelihoods.
2020-04-20
Tiny Beam Fund;
HIGHLIGHTS: *Using information gathered from visits to field sites and interviews with farmers in 2019, the authors of this report or Guidance Memo document the challenges faced by socially and economically-marginalized women in the Northern Mountainous Region (NMR) of Vietnam who raise local or heritage pigs on small-scales to supplement their family income. *These women have been greatly affected by recent growth in industrial-scale pork production in Vietnam. *Moreover, the African Swine Fever crisis in northern Vietnam in mid/late 2019 threatens to put an end to raising local/heritage breeds on small scales in NMR. *But there is clear evidence that smaller-scale pork production in NMR is viable and is good socially, economically, environmentally, and for animal welfare. *A number of concrete, practical ways to support small-scale producers are suggested, from providing training in pig breeding to simple steps like teaching the small producers to use Facebook to attract customers.
2020-04-13
FSG;
Approximately one-quarter of the global population are women of reproductive age, most of whom menstruate every month.
A core function of a woman's reproductive system, menstruation is a healthy and normal occurrence in the female body. However, it can—and often does—become a challenge when individuals lack access to the resources, infrastructure, and social support they need to appropriately manage it.
This report captures key changes in the menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) space that have happened since the publication of An Opportunity to Address Menstrual Health and Gender Equity in 2016. We pay particular attention to the remaining gaps and highlight opportunities for further action and investment.
2020-02-01
Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.;
Throughout its engagements in India, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has focusedon building in-country capacity that supports long-lasting change and betters the health and well-beingof those in the country. As the Foundation's Population and Reproductive Health (PRH) engagementscame to a close in 2019, it considered how to leave the field and stakeholders in India poised to take onthe ongoing task of improving maternal health—a key to achieving social, financial, and physical wellbeing. Recognizing quality as the linchpin for making more progress on maternal health, the MacArthurFoundation focused its final PRH grants on improving maternal health quality of care (MHQoC) in India.This final round of funding in India supported long-standing work designed to transition the country tothe next phase and launch promising innovations. Using information collected from the final phase ofthe MHQoC strategy (April 2018 through July 2019), this report represents the culminating review of thestrategy, assesses its contributions to the quality of maternal health care, and considers the implicationsfor the future of the field. Results are presented by each of MHQoC strategy's three core substrategies:supply, demand, and advocacy.
2020-01-22
Open Society Foundations;
This is a special edition of Amplifying Voices that includes highlights of the Open Society Initiative for East Africa's work from 2005 to 2015. Amplifying Voices documents different journeys the foundation has traveled with its partners since its launch in 2005 and the collective efforts to realize human rights and freedoms for all.
Amplifying Voices pays particular attention to those on the margins of society, including stories of working on the forced sterilization of HIV-positive women or those with mental health illnesses, promoting the rights of sex workers, or addressing the question of human rights and counterterrorism.
The Open Society Initiative for East Africa started as a one-program initiative in 2005 in Kenya and today has grown to include eight programs in the region. Geographically, the foundation now works in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, and Sudan. It addresses issues including health and rights, disability rights, and food security.
2019-11-19
Rockefeller Archive Center;
The initiation of public health nursing in China in 1920s was a result of the transnational flow of people, knowledge and culture. Transnational educational institutions and non-governmental organizations, represented by Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) and the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as by individuals, played a dominant role in shaping the initiation and development of public health in China in the 1920s to 1930s. PUMC was the hub to disseminate its founder's vision and model in public health in China through integration of education with empirical initiatives in public health. Nursing education programs of the School of Nursing at PUMC provided expertise, human resources, and leadership in public health in China from the 1920s until the beginning of the 1950s. Throughout this time, as a profession predominated by women, public health nursing served as a good example to demonstrate women's role in the transnational flow of people, knowledge, and culture.
2019-11-06
Rockefeller Archive Center;
The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW), organized by the United Nations in Beijing in 1995, launched a new era of internationalization for the Chinese feminist movement. The conference facilitated the legitimation of non-state-led organizations and activism that advocated for women's rights, as well as gender and sexual equality. During this time, interactions between domestic feminists and international foundations increased dramatically. After the conference, Chinese feminist advocacy and mobilization expanded beyond the party-state system and gained momentum in the decade following 1995. My research at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) investigated the engagements of the Ford Foundation (FF) in safeguarding women's rights and advocating for gender equality in China, and the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) during the FWCW. This essay draws upon the preliminary findings from my archival research, focusing on the FF's activities in China relating to women and gender issues from the late 1970s to late 2000s, for which the FF archival collection at the RAC is available. The RF's sponsorship during the 1995 Conference is also included. I start with a brief introduction of my research project and materials I found helpful, then elaborate on the two foundations' activities in three sections in a diachronic order, highlighting files available at the RAC and their contribution to my dissertation research. This essay provides only a sketch of the FF and RF's engagements in China, as further investigation of the files I collected at the RAC has not yet finished.
2019-10-01
Fiji Women's Fund;
This paper is jointly authored by eight women who work with the Fiji Women's Fund and three of the Fund's partner organisations - Talanoa Treks, Ra Naari Parishad, and, Rise Beyond the Reef. The paper aims to contribute to improved women's economic empowerment programs by sharing the experiences of these three partners. The authors document the learnings of practitioners in Fiji and compare these with the existing literature for the audience of practitioners in the Pacific and abroad. The Fiji Women's Fund supports the documentation of research from practice, so that the expertise of practitioners is recognised, and, to increase the body of knowledge generated from the Global South.
The paper examines the experiences and learnings of the three partners using the Gender at Work framework, developed by Rao and Kelleher, which highlights the inter-linked dimensions of change required to achieve sustainable progress on gender equality and women's empowerment. The paper documents the similar journey taken by all three partner organisations, through each of the four quadrants of this framework. All three entities supported the establishment of a formal, collective structure being established, to provide women access to training and income-generating opportunities. Women accessed these opportunities to improve their skills, capabilities, income and assets. These changes, in turn, had an influence on the way the women themselves, and the men in their lives, think about what it means to be a woman or a man and the possibilities available. For example, there is evidence of positive changes to what women and men are doing in their households. Husbands, sons and partners are helping women beneficiaries by taking on some of the care tasks that were previously left to the women. The greatest evidence of change is within households, as changes to exclusionary practices at the village level are less evident.
2019-09-12
Rockefeller Archive Center;
In the early 20th century, Hawai'i became a dynamic site of encounters between American settlers and Japanese immigrants. With the rise of the plantation economy, the white plantation oligarchs deployed various means of discipline vis-à-vis Japanese immigrants to ensure the availability of a reliable labor force. The new regime of bodily discipline mobilized a variety of institutions, including the University of Hawai'i and the Rockefeller Foundation. At the center of this emerging dynamic was a group of white home economists who, under the leadership of Carey D. Miller, investigated the immigrants' bodily features, analyzed their dietary practices, and collected data essential to understanding and managing race. My project examines how Japanese immigration provided an impetus for the rise of racial science in Hawai'i, where women and domesticity played a crucial though hitherto unacknowledged role. Historical documents at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) are essential for this investigation, as they illuminate the historical and institutional contexts within which these women operated. The letters, reports, and memoranda preserved at the RAC unveil the origin and development of a "racial laboratory" in Hawai'i, whose formation had much to do with gender, sexual, national, and imperial dynamics proliferating in the Pacific.
2019-07-03
CLTS Knowledge Hub;
Achievement of adequate and equitable access to sanitation for all, and an end to open defecation, requires that special attention is given toward disadvantaged groups. It has become apparent that the benefits of conventional rural sanitation programming and service delivery are often not spread equally, and risk leaving disadvantaged groups behind. This issue of Frontiers of CLTS (the second in a two-part series) examines the potential of support mechanisms designed to help disadvantaged groups access and use hygienic toilets in driving more equitable rural sanitation outcomes. It covers the latest thinking on the opportunities and challenges of support mechanisms, and explores what works remains to be done.
In this issue, we use a broad definition of 'support' for creating equitable outcomes. Although financial and physical subsidies often quickly come to mind, a broader practical understanding of support needs to encompass both 'hardware' mechanisms and 'software' approaches, as well as various combinations of the two (Myers et al. 2017; ISF-UTS and SNV 2018).
2019-07-01
IUPUI Women's Philanthropy Institute;
This study examines, in a comprehensive and quantitative manner, the impact of women's fund and foundation donors on women's and girls' causes.
This research can beneft donors—especially those who give to women and girls, or who are interested in doing so—as well as fundraisers and other nonprofit leaders who seek to propel social change and work with gender-based issues.
2019-06-01
Scelles Foundation;
Based on the analytical work of Observatoire international de l'exploitation sexuelle (International Observatory on Sexual Exploitation), Fondation Scelles' 5th Global report on sexual exploitation around the world aims to provide a clear vision of the current situation, suitable for furthering the awareness-raising on the issues around sexual exploitation and the reflection on the urgent answers needed.
It includes reports on 35 countries and 11 main topics from 2016-2018.The work produced comes from a wide range of sources, all of which reflect not only events related to studied issues and that happened over the last three years, but debates and controversies that have left their mark in the news.
This study was carried out by an international writing team (USA, France, Argentina, Ukraine, Zambia…) from various backgrounds (sociology, political science, international relations, human rights, international law…), and by expert practitioners (lawyers, judges, and procurers in particular).
Original report is available in French.
