Women & Economy

Q&A: “Gender Budgets Help You Think About People”

By Estrella Gutiérrez and - -
Gender responsive budgeting (GRB), a U.N. Women tool to curb inequality, "helps you think about people...and to use resources in a more effective manner," says Lorena Barba.

ARGENTINA: Women Build New Opportunities in Cooperatives

By Marcela Valente and - -
Forged in the 2001-2002 social and economic crisis, cooperatives in Argentina are becoming a fast track to women's participation in what were traditionally regarded as male spheres.

Activists Tie Occupy Movement to Global Gender Rights

By Sandra Siagian and - -
On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Nov. 25, a group of feminist organisations will unite to launch a campaign calling for an end of the "immoral and unethical economy of Wall Street" against women and people of colour.
Water stands in the roads of Bwaise after a light morning rainfall. The urban slum

UGANDA: Single Mothers Left Behind in Flooded Swampland

By Andrew Green
Life in Bwaise – a slum on the outskirts of the capital of Uganda – has never been easy. But increasingly erratic rains over the last three years have brought constant floods to the former swampland. Residents who can afford to are moving out, leaving the poorest – often single mothers and grandmothers – behind.
Microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus at Valladolid. Credit: Raquel Martines/IPS

Microcredit – Women Demand More Than Incomes

By Raquel Martinez
Microcredit can help a woman to have an income. It can, for better or worse, also transform gender equations in the public and private spheres.
Singles looking for spouses at a match-making party in Shanghai. Credit: Nicola Davison/IPS

China Will Need Many More Singles Parties

By Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore and - -
In a country of 180 million single people and a growing gender imbalance, tens of thousands of people across China went looking for love on Singles’ Day Nov. 11. But events on the day may only have helped point to the continuing and growing difficulty of being single.
Toba women discuss gender-inclusive projects at a weekly meeting in Rosario. Credit: Marcela Valente/IPS

ARGENTINA: Women Gain Budget Know-How

By Marcela Valente
"After so many years of feminist activism, we still hadn't realised that you need money to get things done. When I finally understood that, it was like seeing the light. It was a whole new avenue to explore," Argentine activist Noemí Chiarotti told IPS.
Manes Feston, flanked by her children, holds her four-month-old son Fedson. He was one of triplets but his siblings did not survive. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

MALAWI: No Social Safety Nets for the Poor

By Travis Lupick
In Mbedza village, a remote rural community in southern Malawi, Fedson Feston beams an infant’s awkward smile and swings his tiny arms up towards the face of his mother. Four months old, Fedson is too young to know how lucky he is to be alive.
Sixty-seven-year-old Mariana Sayitou sells kola nuts and beans on the edge of Old Fadama. Credit: Paul Carlucci/IPS

GHANA: No Pensions for Majority of Elderly Women

By - -, Paul Carlucci, and Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
On the grubby edge of Old Fadama, Accra’s infamous illegal slum settlement, 67-year-old Mariana Sayitou sits under a parasol and tends to her livelihood – selling several dozen kola nuts and a few piles of bagged beans to passers-by.
Janaina Stronzake, activist and coordinator for Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST) Credit: Tressia Boukhors/IPS

Q&A: “Food Is Not a Business, But a Human Right”

By Tressia Boukhors and - -
Rural women and small-scale producers play a key role in providing food security and food sovereignty, but many large multinational corporations threaten that progress by undermining populations' independence when it comes to food.
Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the UNCCD, at Changwon. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Q&A: ‘Soil is Key to Global Warming, Food Security’

By Manipadma Jena
Luc Gnacadja, in his second three-year term as executive secretary, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), is widely seen as delivering on his commitment to manage the world's drylands.
Credit- Manipadma Jena:IPS

SOUTH KOREA: Drylands Meet Deserts Gender

By Manipadma Jena
Delegates to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification’s (UNCCD) meeting underway in this South Korean city are convinced that women, though affected most by desertification, hold the key to addressing hunger through land regeneration.
Panguna mine's copper and gold await political settlement before extraction can resume. Credit: C.E. Wilson/IPS

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Women Call the Shots on Mega Copper Mine

By IPS Correspondents
Whether the world’s largest open-cut mine on this island territory of Papua New Guinea (PNG) will resume copper and gold production, after being mothballed for 22 years, will depend on how satisfied matrilineal landowners are with the proposals.

CUBA: Women’s Department Draws Attention to Inequality

By Dalia Acosta
Continuing its mission to promote gender studies and use academia to demonstrate the inequalities between women and men in Cuba, the Women’s Studies Department is celebrating 20 years of work with new challenges in terms of researching and drawing attention to the disadvantages faced by the female population.
Basket-weavers in Kerala, funded by microcredit. Credit: ESAF/IPS

INDIA: Microcredit Fights to Regain Credibility

By Manipadma Jena
As microcredit institutions - once touted as the vital ‘last mile' in extending credit to poor rural women -fight a government backlash that has encouraged honest borrowers to turn defaulters, hopes for revival hinge on a new bill awaiting passage in India's parliament.
Marina Rosales proudly shows off her organic guavas. Credit: Edgardo Ayala /IPS

Salvadoran Campesinas Go Organic

By IPS Correspondents
The guavas grown by Mariana Rosales are big and bright green, and the best thing about them, she says proudly, is that she does not spend a single cent on fertilisers to produce them – something extremely rare in a country like El Salvador.
Lavender cultivation offers a viable alternative to Kashmiri farmers facing crop losses from climate change. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

INDIA: Facing Climate Change With Flower Power

By Manipadma Jena
Gazalla Amin’s office on the outskirts of this city, capital of Jammu & Kashmir state, is redolent with the fragrance of lavender wafting up from heaps of the dried flowers in a corner bowl.

Rwanda Wins Gold for Forest Conservation Blueprint

By Stephen Leahy
Government policies are seldom lauded, yet Rwanda's forest policy has resulted in a 37-percent increase in forest cover on a continent better known for deforestation and desertification.

Give Women the Seeds and They Can Feed the World

By Melanie Haider
If women farmers were given more tools and resources, the number of hungry people in the world could be slashed by 100 to 150 million.

Grassroots Women Urge Rights-Based Development Path

By Kanya D'Almeida
The streets around the headquarters of the world's leading financial institutions – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – have been transformed into a canvas over the last three days.

Women Hung Out to Dry in Global Labour Market

By Kanya D'Almeida
Amid policy battles over food production, energy resources and economic decline, one untapped natural resource that is guaranteed to boost production on a global scale has been stubbornly overlooked – the power of women in the labour force.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*