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Read the latest news from GADN, as well as details of gender and development publications, news, jobs and events in our November newsletter. Previous newsletters are stored here

Where do we stand? How can the development community navigate current pressures to deliver development for women?

On the 3 November, GADN and the DSA held a joint meeting to bring together members of the GADN and DSA to look at the issues facing development at a time of multiple changes, especially around the issues of women and girls, and to explore how well different players –academics, researchers, consultants and development agency staff – were responding to the pressures and opportunities these changes provide. The meeting had three broad aims, to: 

• look critically at dominant approaches to gender equality and women’s rights in the current aid environment
• better understand how these approaches fit – or clash – with realities for women on the ground and what impacts they are having on the practice of women’s organisations in the global south
• share frustrations, pressures and constraints to working on gender and reflect on how to pursue a more critical approach in our work on gender, to respond to the concerns of women’s rights NGOs and to work more effectively in partnership with them.  

For a full report of the meeting, please click here. Please note the report includes some of the points raised at the meeting and does not necessarily represent the views of the organisers. 

Copies of the presentations can be found here:

Andrea Cornwall: Are dominant donor approaches to women’s empowerment building undermining the strategies and struggles of women’s rights organisations in the global south?

Tina Wallace: The corporate sector and development - how are international NGOs relating to the growing role of the corporate sector in UK aid spending: what challenges does this raise and how far have INGOs thought through the opportunities and risks involved?  

Helen Dixon: A perspective from the south: how do gender and development trends fit or clash with the realities and priorities of women’s rights organisations ‘on the ground’?

Brief from GADN and BRIDGE: Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness and Beyond: What next for Gender Equality, Women's Rights and Aid Effectiveness?

BRIDGE and GADN have produced a briefing to share information about the High-Level Forum (HLF-4) and its implications for gender equality and women’s rights; and support women’s organisations and gender equality advocates to engage with and influence the debates leading up to HLF-4 and beyond. Find it on our Aid Effectiveness page.

Resources to support your work on gender and development

GADN has been updating the website with the latest reports, toolkits and publications on gender and development. Check out the individual working group pages or our publications page. If you have any resources you would like to share, please email lauren.donaldson@gadnetwork.org.uk

GADN Activities Report

Find out what GADN got up to in 2010-2011. Read the Activities Report here

UN Women: A New Opportunity to Deliver for Women 

The birth of UN Women marks a historic moment. This is an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate progress towards the goals of gender equality and women’s empowerment and bring about far-reaching changes for the world’s women and girls. But success is only possible if we build a powerful and effective agency that has the autonomy, status, expertise, operational capacity and budget to deliver real and lasting impact.

This paper outlines concrete recommendations for shaping an agency able to deliver real results for women and girls in 4 areas: global autonomy and decision-making, operational capacity and accountability, civil society participation and funding.

'Violence Against Women and Girls: Your Questions, Our Answers'

Produced by GADN's VAW Working Group, this resource was launched during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence (25 Nov - 10 Dec) and will be a great tool for campaigning and for anyone who would like to know more about violence and how it affects women and girls around the world.

GADN member Tearfund has produced Bangla and French versions of the GADN VAWG question and answer resource and CAWN has produced a Spanish version. Find them all here.

New social networking website connects practitioners around the world working for gender justice

Engagingmen.net is a practitioners' portal for people around the world who are interested in engaging boys and men in gender justice, supporting women's empowerment, ending violence against women and the spread of HIV&AIDS, promoting responsible fatherhood, healthy relationships, and more.