Women & Economy

‘Ethical Fashion’ Champions Marginalised Artisans from South

By A. D. McKenzie
“Work is dignity,” says Simone Cipriani. “People want employment, not charity.”

Zimbabwean Women Weave Their Own Beautiful Future

By Busani Bafana
Seventy-seven-year-old Grace Ngwenya has an eye for detail. You will never catch her squinting as she effortlessly weaves ilala palm fronds into beautiful baskets.

Zimbabwean Women Weave Their Own, Beautiful Future

By Busani Bafana
Seventy-seven-year-old Grace Ngwenya has an eye for detail. You will never catch her squinting as she effortlessly weaves ilala palm fronds into beautiful baskets.

Jamaican Gov’t Sees IMF Successes but No Benefits for the Poor

By Zadie Neufville
For Jamaicans like Roxan Brown, the Caribbean nation's International Monetary Fund (IMF) successes don’t mean a thing. Seven consecutive tests have been passed but still, the mother of two can’t find work and relies instead on the kindness of friends and family.

Sri Lankan Women Stymied by Archaic Job Market

By Amantha Perera
Wathsala Marasinghe, a 33-year-old hailing from the town of Mirigama, just 50 km from Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, once had high hopes that the progressive education and employment policies of this South Asian island nation would work in her favour. Today, she feels differently, believing that “an evil system” has let her down.

Ethiopia’s First Film at Cannes Gives Moving View of Childhood, Gender

By A. D. McKenzie
A boy, a sheep and a stunning mountain landscape. These are the three stars of Lamb, a poignant film directed by 36-year-old Yared Zeleke and Ethiopia’s first entry in France’s prestigious Cannes International Film Festival.

The U.N. at 70: Time to Prioritise Human Rights for All, for Current and Future Generations

By Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin
Seventy years ago, with the founding of the United Nations, all nations reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, and in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.

Lessons from an Indian Tribe on How to Manage the Food-Forest Nexus

By Manipadma Jena
Scattered across 240 sq km on the remote Niyamgiri hill range in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, an ancient tribal group known as the Dongria Kondh have earned themselves a reputation as trailblazers.

Latin America Must Address Its Caregiving Crisis

By Fabiana Frayssinet
As in the rest of the world, the care of children, the elderly and the disabled in Latin America has traditionally fallen to women, who add it to their numerous domestic and workplace tasks. A debate is now emerging in the region on the public policies that governments should adopt to give them a hand, while also helping their countries grow.

African Women Mayors Join Forces to Fight for Clean Energy

By A. D. McKenzie
When some 40,000 delegates, including dozens of heads of state, descend on Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference later this year, a group of African women mayors plan to be there and make their voices heard on a range of issues, including electrification.

Latin America’s Social Policies Have Given Women a Boost

By Fabiana Frayssinet
Although they do not specifically target women, social policies like family allowances and pensions have improved the lives of women in Latin America, the region that has made the biggest strides so far this century in terms of gender equality, although there is still a long way to go.

Sri Lanka’s Development Goals Fall Short on Gender Equality

By Ranjit Perera
When Rosy Senanayake, Sri Lanka’s minister of state for child affairs, addressed the U.N. Commission on Population and Development (CPD) in New York last month, she articulated both the successes and shortcomings of gender equality in a country which prided itself electing the world’s first female head of government: Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike in July 1960.

In India, a Broken System Leaves a ‘Broken’ People Powerless

By Neeta Lal
As India paid glowing tributes to Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the architect of its constitution and a champion of the downtrodden, on his 124nd birth anniversary last month, public attention also swivelled to the glaring social and economic discrimination that plagues the lives of lower-caste or ‘casteless’ communities – who comprise over 16 percent of the country's 1.2 billion people.

In India, a Broken Systems Leaves a Broken People Powerless

By Neeta Lal
As India paid glowing tributes to Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the architect of its constitution and a champion of the downtrodden, on his 124nd birth anniversary last month, public attention also swivelled to the glaring social and economic discrimination that plagues the lives of lower-caste or ‘casteless’ communities – who comprise over 16 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion people.

Q&A: “People Need to Be at the Centre of Development”

By Sandra Siagian
In a populous archipelago nation like Indonesia, where 250 million live spread across some 17,500 islands, speaking over 300 languages, the question of development is a tricky one.

Watch What Happens When Tribal Women Manage India’s Forests

By Manipadma Jena
Kama Pradhan, a 35-year-old tribal woman, her eyes intent on the glowing screen of a hand-held GPS device, moves quickly between the trees. Ahead of her, a group of men hastens to clear away the brambles from stone pillars that stand at scattered intervals throughout this dense forest in the Nayagarh district of India’s eastern Odisha state.

Opinion: Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016: Transforming Economies, Realising Rights

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Our world is out of balance. It is both wealthier and more unequal today than at any time since the Second World War.

No Woman, No World

By Sean Buchanan
Almost exactly two years ago, on the morning of Apr. 24, over 3,600 workers – 80 percent of them young women between the ages of 18 and 20 – refused to enter the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, because there were large ominous cracks in the walls. They were beaten with sticks and forced to enter.

Kenyan Pastoralists Protest Wanton Destruction of Indigenous Forest

By Robert Kibet
Armed with twigs and placards, enraged residents from a semi-pastoral community 360 km north of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, protested this week against wanton destruction of indigenous forest – their alternative source of livelihood.

Opinion: To Solve Hunger, Start with Soil

By Anne-Marie Steyn
Peter looked confused as he recounted how he’d painstakingly planted potatoes to sell and to feed his family of eight, only to find that when harvest time rolled around he had been greeted with tiny tubers not much bigger than golf balls.

Rights Abuses Still Rampant in Bangladesh’s Garment Sector

By Naimul Haq and Kanya D'Almeida
Some say they were beaten with iron bars. Others confess their families have been threatened with death. One pregnant woman was assaulted with metal curtain rods.
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