Women & Economy

In Swaziland, Seeds Beat Drought

By Mantoe Phakathi
The overcast sky is a sign that it might rain, and Happy Shongwe, a smallholder farmer from rural Maphungwane in eastern Swaziland, is not exactly happy.

Sowing a Healthier Future

By Claudia Ciobanu
“If there was enough political will to defeat hunger, we would defeat it right now - immediately,” says Enrique Yeves, chief of corporate communications at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Keeping Food Security Central to U.N.’s Post-2015 Agenda

By Thalif Deen
As the United Nations prepares to launch an ambitious post-2015 development agenda, the message from one of its Rome-based agencies is unequivocal: the eradication of hunger and malnutrition should remain a high priority when the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) end in 2015.

Indian Farmers Flex Collective Muscles

By Stella Paul
Chelmet Padmamma, 42, of Babanagar village in southern India’s drought-prone Medak district, is a happy woman: the rain has come earlier this year, thrice soaking the three-acre farm that she co-owns with four other women from her village.

How to Close Latin America’s Rich-Poor Chasm

By Cydney Hargis
Latin American governments have increasingly been working to lessen inequality in the region, but new data suggests their efforts vary widely in quality and impact.

Q&A: Women Hardest Hit by Growing Austerity Measures

By Thalif Deen
The widespread financial crisis in Europe, and its negative fallout in the developing world, has triggered severe austerity measures worldwide.

BOOKS: The Brothel Next Door

By Silvia Romanelli
The underground sex trade is closer to our everyday world than we may think.

International Community Urged to Declare “War on Food Waste”

By Carey L. Biron
A quarter of all food calories grown for human consumption is being lost or wasted, either purposefully or otherwise, according to new estimates.

Battle Against Hunger Lost Without Gender Empowerment

By Thalif Deen
When the United Nations launched its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) back in 2001, two of its primary objectives were to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 and promote gender empowerment worldwide.

Walmart, Gap Seek Separate Safety Standards for Bangladesh Factories

By Carey L. Biron
Top U.S. companies are now in negotiations to agree on new safety standards for their clothing-producing contractors in Bangladesh, a month after a garment factory’s collapse in Dhaka killed more than 1,100 workers.

Despite Push by Obama, Minimum Wage Hike Stagnating

By Matthew Charles Cardinale
During his State of the Union address earlier this year, U.S. President Barack Obama spoke about the need to increase the federal minimum wage, which Congress has not voted to raise since 2007.

Australian Retailers Feel Heat of Bangladesh Tragedy

By Kalinga Seneviratne
Australia’s largest textile workers’ union and activist groups are up in arms that the country’s leading retail chains, who source most of their fashion labels from Bangladesh, are refusing to sign a legally binding accord that will help to improve labour and safety standards in Bangladeshi garment factories.

OP-ED: The Nexus Between Women and Development

By Babatunde Osotimehin
Every three years since 2007, a global advocacy organisation called Women Deliver has convened an international conference to talk about issues relating to the health and well-being of girls and women.

Caribbean Farming Gets Its Roots Wet

By Desmond Brown
As Caribbean communities grapple with the entwined challenges of climate change and food security, modern technologies offer hope that the region's stagnating agricultural sector can be made more profitable.

Afghan Women Harassed into Unemployment

By Shelly Kittleson
While global attention is fixed on the scheduled pullout of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014, women here have a much more immediate concern: how will they survive another day at work?

Giving Paraplegic Women a New Lease on Life

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Gul Shada thought it was the end of the road for her when she and her husband met with a road accident last year in the Nowshera district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Not only did the mishap leave Shada widowed at the relatively young age of 37, she also sustained an injury to her back that immobilised her.

Female Garment Workers Bear Brunt of Tragedy

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
Last month, 18-year-old Shapla was just another one of thousands of garment workers employed in a factory in Savar, a suburb of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka.

The Challenge of Being a Maasai Woman

By Joan Erakit
The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Tanzania has long been a beacon of traditional culture to many Africans - and for Westerners on safari through Maasai Mara, Samburu or Amboseli, a familiar face.

Q&A: The Security of a Nation Is Its Women

By Ravi Kanth Devarakonda
Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, a human rights lawyer and the general secretary of the global rights network World YWCA, knows what it is like to struggle against poverty and violence: she herself comes from a poor family in Magaya village in Murewa district, which lies northeast of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare.

Dominican Women in Argentina Especially Vulnerable

By Marcela Valente
Despite the enormous distance between the two countries, Argentina has become an increasingly frequent destination for migrants from the Dominican Republic, especially women, who are vulnerable to falling prey to sexual exploitation networks.

Few Meaningful Changes in Wake of Dhaka Factory Collapse

By Katelyn Fossett
Worker advocacy groups here are calling on some of the most high-profile U.S.-based clothing companies to make drastic reforms to their international labour practices in the wake of the factory collapse that killed more than 420 workers in Dhaka last week.
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