Women & Economy

Some Nurses Take Flight, Others Take to the Streets

Nurses in India are up in arms against the deterioration of the nursing profession in the country, including unfair wages and the policies of private hospital managements.

Will the World Listen to Women?

What does birth control have to do with reducing global emissions?

Rio+20: Creating a Future Girls Want

On a wall in the Rio conference centre is an unusual, brightly coloured tree. It is made of sticky notes, arranged so that the tree's branches extend down and out. On these notes, delegates passing by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girls Scouts (WAGGGS) have been asked to write down the futures they envision.

Saving the Mangroves Front

On a humid islet covered with mangroves, Lucena Duman and her neighbours have found a route out of poverty. They work as conservationists and tour guides in this isolated corner of the Philippines.

Michelle Bachelet. Credit: Courtesy of UN Women

Q&A: Women Must Be at the Forefront of Rio+20, and Beyond

Unlocking women's energies and allowing them to become drivers of change could fuel the motor of sustainable development.

Mozambican entrepreneur Lucia Bebane has a budding peanut business despite the challenges for small businesspeople. / Johannes Myburgh/IPS

Building a Company in Mozambique – One Peanut at a Time

When you board Mozambique’s national carrier, Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique, you will most likely be given small blue packets of peanuts to munch as the jet whisks you from the country’s capital, Maputo, to as far afield as Europe. Sugar, salt or chilli flavour. Take your pick.

Women Look for a Place in New Egypt

"It was so frustrating but so exciting at the same time," recalls 15-year-old Mariam Assam, a year-10 student in Cairo. Assam was recalling the days she tried to join protestors during the Egyptian revolution in January 2011 but was intially prevented by her parents who said street protests were no place for a girl to be.

Mohamed Beavogui

Q&A: The World Must Learn From Smallholder Farmers

As Africa's Sahel region faces a new food crisis, smallholder famers hold the key to making future development policies sustainable.

Climate Change and Family Planning – Twin Issues for LDCs

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.

‘More Indian Working Women Aborting Motherhood’

A young professional in India’s burgeoning IT hub Gurgaon, a major satellite city of national capital New Delhi, Manideepa Moitra works as a software content writer not just to make a living but to secure a career in the demanding sector that catapulted India on the global outsourcing  industry map.  

Decreasing water levels in the local Lunkhwakwa River have created an opportunity for theenterprising women of Genda to start fishing. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo

While Men Go Drinking, Women Go Fishing

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.

Queueing up for arsenic-free water in Bangladesh. Credit: NGO Forum

Caught Between Diarrhoea Bugs and Arsenic

Achieving the Millennium Development Goal of providing access to safe drinking water for its 160 million people by 2015 is a tough call for Bangladesh, which is caught between arsenic contaminated groundwater and diarrhoea-causing microbes in its ponds and rivers.

Jane Karuku, the new AGRA boss, dreams of seeing smallholder farmers become the drivers in Africa

Q&A: Women Farmers Are Key to a Food-Secure Africa

While women constitute the majority of food producers, processors and marketers in Africa, their role in the agricultural sector still remains a minor one because of cultural and social barriers.

In Mauritania mobile phones are used in rural areas. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Q&A: Skipping Lunch to Afford a Mobile Phone in Africa

On a continent of over one billion people, where half the population have mobile phones, the use of mobile communication and internet technologies is crucial to boost development in Africa.

Women of the World Unite for Rights

The world’s recent financial and political upheavals have not been kind to women. In Libya’s Tripoli, female suicide rates increased tenfold during the revolution, while dismal job prospects have young Greek women abandoning their career aspirations, participants in a global forum on women’s rights said over the weekend.

Economic Crisis Hits Gender Budgeting

Worldwide, women are largely responsible for managing family budgets, controlling 65 percent of global spending. But, women’s needs are often ignored when it comes to government budgeting, delegates at an international meet in Turkey's largest city observed.

Women even earn less than men in traditionally female professions like nursing and teaching. Credit: UN Photo/Martine Perret

U.S.: Only Four-Fifths of Men’s Pay for Women

Forty-seven years after the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women in the United States are still struggling against wage discrimination in the workplace.

Johannesburg Stock Exchange CEO Nicky Newton-King.  Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Q&A: Increasing Investment Opportunities in Africa

More than three years after the start of the global economic crisis, which has had a considerable impact on African trade, investments and gross domestic product, investment prospects on the continent are increasing.

Amman’s streets are more for cars than for women.  Credit:  Michael Coghlan/CC-BY-SA-2.0.

Not for a Woman in Amman

Two young women in brightly coloured hijabs and tight jeans stand on the edge of a freeway as cars whiz by. They watch the traffic, heavy in Amman where car ownership is skyrocketing by 10-15 percent a year. When there’s a break in the steady flow of vehicles, the women hold hands and race across the road.

Malawi’s Army Commander General Henry Odillo hands over the presidential sword to President Joyce Banda at her swearing in ceremony. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

“A New Dawn Rises over Malawi”

It would be too simplistic to think that Malawi’s problems have ended with the death of President Bingu wa Mutharika. But it is an opportunity for newly appointed President Joyce Banda, who is also leader of the opposition People’s Party, to step up and offer a new and more responsive style of leadership.

Brazilian women have been making headway in traditionally male-dominated fields. Construction workers in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

Brazilian Women Are the World’s Happiest

Money may not buy happiness – but it has helped make women in Brazil become the happiest, most optimistic women in the world, according to a study.

« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*