When Arati Chaudhary’s husband left for India to find work as a migrant labourer, the job of managing farm and family fell on her slender shoulders.
Human rights should be explicitly recognised as an indispensable ingredient of sustainable development at the Rio+20 summit in Brazil, says Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Unlocking women's energies and allowing them to become drivers of change could fuel the motor of sustainable development.
Year after year, women in rural areas of the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco have to get ready for floods that threaten their homes, crops and livestock.
When the heavily hyped three-day U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) comes to a close in Rio de Janeiro Jun. 22, what would be the yardstick to measure its successes and failures?
Amanda Menjívar is moved by the sight of the 16 sewing machines donated to help a group of local women set up a sewing centre to get over the devastating effects of the disaster caused by Hurricane Ida in the Salvadoran town of Verapaz.
The reproductive rights agenda, from improving women’s access to education to systematic family planning to reducing birth rates and combating poverty, has become a cornerstone of most industrialised nations’ development policies toward the least developed countries (LDCs), comprised primarily of sub-Saharan African states.
For ages, rural women in the Peruvian highlands have been selecting and storing seeds, ensuring their preservation. But the authorities have failed to tap into this storehouse of knowledge and experience, despite the contributions it could make to the design of effective policies for adaptation to climate change, which poses a growing threat to the women’s livelihoods.
Gertrude Mkoloi earns a living harvesting maize on a small piece of land in rural Zimbabwe. Or at least she used to.
Climate change may have led to declining water levels in Genda Village in Zambia’s Eastern Province, but Mercy Mwanza and the women here discovered there was a positive side to it and found a new way to earn a living.
The vital role of women in creating a green economy will be highlighted at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, to be held in Brazil in June.
María Elena Muñoz industriously weeds a clearing in the forest and then digs several holes, where she and another four dozen women are planting plantain seedlings, to help feed their families in this poor farming area in El Salvador.
In the green belt of market gardens that feeds the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, women farmers are learning environmentally friendly techniques in response to extreme weather events and their effects on the land.
Despite the key role they play in caring for natural resources in the face of climate change, rural women in Mexico do not benefit from payments for environmental services, say activists and experts.
As the world commemorates International Women’s Day today, women around the globe are speaking out on various issues that affect them. In light of recent natural disasters and calamities in the Philippines, women are increasingly citing climate change as one of their most pressing concerns.