Women & Economy

Bringing #MeToo to the Fashion Industry

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
The global #MeToo movement has put a spotlight on sexual harassment and violence in various industries including the film and music industries. Is it now time for the fashion industry to address these issues within their supply chains, one organisation says.

Deported Salvadoran Women Pin Their Hopes on Poultry Production

By Edgardo Ayala
Salvadoran farmer Lorena Mejía opens an incubator and monitors the temperature of the eggs, which will soon provide her with more birds and eggs as the chickens hatch and grow up.

A better life for women

By Amitava Kar
(The Daily Star, Bangladesh) - The book “Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism” (2018)—as provocative as it sounds— has nothing to do with women's carnal pleasures. In it, Professor Kristen Ghodsee of the University of Pennsylvania argues that implementing socialist concepts would make women's lives more independent and fulfilling. That such an idea is put forth by an Ivy League academic from the United States of America, and not by a bleeding-heart leftist from Cuba, is striking. But not surprising.

Women’s unpaid work: Time to take concrete action

By Shaheen Anam
(The Daily Star, Bangladesh) - In 1995, during the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the UNDP Human Development report stated that women's unaccounted work would amount to USD 3 trillion annually if monetised. Since then women's unpaid and care work has become a much discussed topic around the globe led by rights and development organisations. Recognition of women's unpaid and care work has been included in Goal 5 of the SDGs as a target to be achieved by 2030. However, there is little concrete evidence on how states are going about achieving this target.

Changing the Gender Bias in Agriculture

By Busani Bafana
Women entrepreneurs are playing an important role in transforming global food security for economic growth, but they have to work twice as hard as men to succeed in agribusiness.

‘Men-streaming’ Women’s Economic Empowerment

By Nalini Khurana and Ravi Verma
Most initiatives around Women's Economic Empowerment (WEE) are largely myopic in their approach. Failure to recognise the role of men and masculinities in this context can pose a significant barrier to both women and men's economic well-being.

Political Commitment Key to Health for All

By Ban Ki-moon
One of my proudest accomplishments as the former UN secretary-general was playing a part in the ambitious global agenda for sustainable development (SDGs), including the goal of universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030.

Undermining Human Rights of Women Trapped In Sex Trade

By Jessica Neuwirth
Seventy years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was signed in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. Following two devastating world wars the United Nations General Assembly set out a brand new vision of human rights that the world could agree on going forward. It is still the benchmark by which most modern-day human rights organisations live.

Promoting Gender Equality On Front Lines

By Jessica Neuwirth
Last week’s announcement by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) of £50m ($64.3m) to help end female genital mutilation (FGM) is great news. The biggest ever financial commitment by any donor, it could be a game changer for the African-led movement to end this abhorrent subjugation of women.

Gender Inequality is Stunting Economic Progress

By Siddharth Chatterjee
‘Do not let us off the hook; keep our feet to the fire’. These were the words of the UN Secretary General Mr. Antonio Guterres when he promised to personally lead the global body towards greater gender equality.

Women’s Climate Leadership More Vital Than Ever In Light Of Climate Change Report

By Osprey Orielle Lake and Emily Arasim
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which arrived thunderously in October, concludes that we have only 12 years remaining to transform our energy systems and ways of living to limit the worst effects of climate change.

Kenyan Women Turning the Tables on Traditional Banking and Land Ownership

By Miriam Gathigah
It was less than eight months ago that Mary Auma and her three children, from Ahero in Kenya’s Nyanza region, were living in a one-room house in an informal settlement. Ahero is largely agricultural and each day Auma would go and purchase large quantities of milk and resell it – earning only a 10 percent profit.

Latin American Rural Women Call for Recognition and Policies

By Mariela Jara
Rural women in Latin America play a key role with respect to attaining goals such as sustainable development in the countryside, food security and the reduction of hunger in the region. But they remain invisible and vulnerable and require recognition and public policies to overcome this neglect.

G20 Women’s Summit Pushes for Rural Women’s Rights

By Daniel Gutman
Rural women play a key role in food production, but face discrimination when it comes to access to land or are subjected to child marriage, the so-called affinity group on gender parity within the G20 concluded during a meeting in the Argentine capital.

Entrepreneurial about Gender Equality

By Hong Joo Hahm
Asia and the Pacific needs more women entrepreneurs. Women’s economic empowerment and gender equality depend on it, as does the inclusive economic growth needed to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. This drives a new initiative by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, generously supported by Global Affairs Canada, focused on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to finance in our region.

It’s Not Complicated: UN Must Clarify Immunity

By Paula Donovan
The UN’s youngest entity, UN Women, announced last week that a senior official, Ravi Karkara, had been found guilty of sexual transgressions against an unspecified number of men after a 15-month internal investigation. Newsweek reported that "at least" eight made accusations against him. Karkara’s punishment? Dismissal.

Ethiopian Domestic Workers Battle for Survival in Saudi Arabia

By Rabiya Jaffery
Marjani F, 44, spent 8 years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital working as domestic help. “My husband was killed by the military after being accused of organizing a protest. I have four children and there was no way I could pay the bills staying there,” she says.

2017 Global Findex: Behind the Numbers on Bangladesh

By Joep Roest
On the face of it, the 2017 Global Findex shows that Bangladesh has made great strides toward financial inclusion since the previous Findex was released in 2014.

The Sun Powers a Women’s Bakery in Brazil’s Semi-arid Northeast

By Mario Osava
“The sun which used to torment us now blesses us," said one of the 19 women who run the Community Bakery of Varzea Comprida dos Oliveiras, a settlement in the rural area of Pombal, a municipality of the state of Paraiba, in Brazil's semi-arid Northeast.

Community Work Among Women Improves Lives in Peru’s Andes Highlands

By Mariela Jara
At more than 3,300 m above sea level, in the department of Cuzco, women are beating infertile soil and frost to grow organic food and revive community work practices that date back to the days of the Inca empire in Peru such as the "ayni" and "minka".

Food Sustainability, Migration, Nutrition and Women

By Enrique Yeves
We worry about how we can continue to put food on our tables; and yet one-third of food is never eaten, instead being lost or wasted.We worry about eating properly, and yet in many countries, poor nutrition, obesity and micronutrient deficiencies are increasingly common. This trend is taking place in the Americas, Oceania, Asia, Africa and in Europe.
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