Women & Economy

Tahrir Square Finds a GrEEK Neighbour

By Rachel Williamson
The group of buildings near Tahrir Square could be modern campus-style office space anywhere. It’s hard to believe that just outside the heavy steel gates lies downtown Cairo, the noisy, polluted and now troubled heart of Egypt.

Women Still Walk Two Steps Behind in Arab World

By Thalif Deen
In much of the Arab world, women's participation in the labour force is the lowest in the world, according to the United Nations, while women in politics are a rare breed both in the Middle East and North Africa.

Untimely Rains Hit Cuban Tobacco Harvest

By Ivet González
Near the close of the harvest , local people in the Cuban municipality of San Juan y Martínez, which boasts the finest tobacco plantations in the world, are seeing their hopes of a plentiful season dashed by unexpected winter rains.

Labour Anger Simmers in Cambodia

By Michelle Tolson
An uneasy calm prevails in Cambodia after the government crackdown on protests by garment workers in January. With public gatherings banned and charges framed against 23 union leaders and activists, labour discontent may not be spilling on to the streets, but it is simmering.

OP-ED: The Care Imperative

By John Hendra and Magdalena Sepulveda Carmona
As the debate about a future global development agenda to succeed the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 gathers pace, there is broad agreement that gender equality and women’s empowerment are crucial components.

Ghana’s Small Women’s Savings Groups Have Big Impact

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
Dunwaa Soayare, 45, a smallholder farmer, widow and mother of five had the sort of economic profile that meant she was denied access to credit from Ghana’s mainstream banking institutions.

Poverty Rises Amidst Gold

By Catherine Wilson
Natural reserves such as gold, copper, nickel, gas and timber are being extracted in the western Pacific island states of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands to feed the soaring economies of East and South East Asia. But despite these Pacific nations recording economic growth rates of 6-11 percent over the past seven years, opportunities for human development have not been grasped.

Growing Inequality Mars 20 Years of Women’s Progress

By Jonathan Rozen
As the world moves closer to the 2015 end mark of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a new U.N. report illuminates how far global society has come, but also how far it still must travel to achieve its objectives.

OP-ED: We Need Everyone to Build a More Sustainable World

By Tarja Halonen
Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, an annual event that deals with a subject that is very close to my heart.  The summit gathered together amazing people: Nobel Prize winners, thought leaders, heads of state, corporate innovators, and academicians to deal with the paramount challenges of the 21st Century all focused on three pressing dimensions of sustainability:  food, water and energy.

Poverty Wages Unraveling Cambodia’s Garment Industry

By Minh Le
Cambodia’s garment industry is regularly plagued with strikes and protests. But when armed security forces opened fire on striking workers in the capital city of Phnom Penh on Jan. 3, killing five and injuring dozens, it suddenly became clear that this was not just another protest.

A Tale of Two Worlds

By Joan Erakit
As violence rips through South Sudan and ongoing conflict plagues the Central African Republic and Syria, developing countries stand at a difficult crossroads – struggling to grow economically and politically, yet fielding deep inequalities within their own borders.

Impoverished Cambodians For Sale

By Michelle Tolson
Many Cambodian women arrive in South Korea or China for marriage, only to find themselves being chosen as mistresses, say labour rights activists. While young Cambodian men, who travel to Thailand to work on fishing boats, often fall prey to drug abuse.

Questions Linger over Haiti Housing Projects

By Correspondents
Four years after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, questions continue to haunt the four main post-disaster housing projects built by the Haitian government.

Eucalyptus Trees Make Way For Food Crops

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
A project to reclaim agricultural land lost to eucalyptus plantations is bearing fruit in Cameroon.

Fashion Backward: Cambodian Government Silences Garment Workers

By Michelle Tolson
“Cambodian garment workers have two handcuffs and one weapon [against them]. One handcuff is a short-term contract [10 hours a day, six days a week]. Even if they get sick, if they get pregnant they feel they have to get an abortion so they don’t lose their jobs.

Women Farmers in Chile to Teach the Region Agroecology

By Marianela Jarroud
An organisation that brings together some 10,000 peasant and indigenous women from Chile is launching an agroecology institute for women campesinos, or small farmers, in South America.

Seedpods Worth More than Gold in Argentina’s Arid North

By Fabiana Frayssinet
Tired of the drought driving away their men and killing their livestock, the women of Guanaco Sombriana, a town in northern Argentina, have found a new source of income by using the seedpods of native trees that up to now merely provided shade in this arid landscape.

Every Eucalyptus Felled Equals Gallons of Water

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
Sabina Shey Nkabiy, a farmer in Cameroon's North West Region, moves around these days with a million-dollar smile on her face. The mother of six, who used to trek 10 kilometres a day to farm, now harvests food in her backyard.

Rebuilding Lives Skilfully

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Farhat Bibi, 43, was left to fend for her three young sons after her husband was killed in a bomb attack in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) three years ago. A few days later, she landed at a camp for people displaced by violence. “The camp proved to be a blessing in disguise,” she says.

Kashmiri Women Claim Their Rights

By Athar Parvaiz
Mehnaz Bano (not her real name), a 37-year-old woman in a hamlet in Indian Kashmir, is living a “satisfied and peaceful” life ever since she secured her daughter’s property rights before her remarriage – though not without a long and tedious struggle following her first husband’s death.

Assisting Rather than Deporting Trafficking Victims in Spain

By Inés Benítez
María came to Spain from Paraguay to work as a housekeeper in a hotel. But it was a false job promise, and she ended up in a nightclub, where she was forced to work as a prostitute.
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