Members' News - November 2011

• ActionAid International and Womankind Worldwide are requesting proposals for research organisations and/or individuals to lead a piece of research on the role of women in local peacebuilding in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Deadline for proposals is 21 November 2011. The aim is to develop a research paper documenting the role of women in local peacebuilding, as well as conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction at the local level, drawing on examples and experiences from the five countries, and providing recommendations on how women’s role can be supported and strengthened. This should draw on case studies of women’s collective involvement in peacebuilding at the local level and the impact it has had, and bring to the attention of donors the local level grassroots work that is going on and needs more support. For a full copy of the Terms of Reference please contact Lauren on lauren.donaldson@gadnetwork.org.uk

• Oxfam and Womankind Worldwide, among others, are supporting women’s rights in Afghanistan through the campaign Green scarves for solidarity. “Ten years ago Afghan women were promised a bright future. After more than a decade of civil war followed by repressive Taliban rule, women in Afghanistan were able to work, send their daughters to school, and even stand for parliament. But now those hard-won gains are under threat and women fear that they will be abandoned as the international military forces prepare to withdraw by the end of 2014”. On December 5 the international community will meet in Bonn, Germany for a conference which will chart the course for the international community's involvement in Afghanistan beyond 2014. This is a key time to make sure that women’s rights are firmly on the agenda for the next ten years. The campaign believes that activists globally have a very important role to play—to show governments that the rhetoric of “women’s rights” that was used at the time of western intervention has not been forgotten, “We need to call on our governments not to sell out Afghan women for the sake of peace at any price”. The women’s movement in Afghanistan has long used green scarves in their campaigning – Oxfam, among other agencies, is calling on people to wear green scarves in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan as part of a photo petition that they will deliver to ministers. Add your face to the photo petition here

• WaterAid, in collaboration with the WASH Reference Group, is hosting five online workshops bringing together experience and expertise in addressing the WASH needs of people. This will be done through different social inclusion ‘lenses’: gender, disability, HIV/AIDs and other grounds for exclusion such as age, religion or ethnic minority. This project, which will run for 12 months until 2012, aims to provide practical skills and evidence to support practitioners’ implementation of WASH projects that address the needs of all in the community. The inclusive WASH website will host a series of discussion forums and live webinars facilitated by WaterAid’s partners with expertise in the different social inclusion ‘lenses’. Project outputs will be available during and at the completion of the project via an online web portal as well as in a publication.

• WLUML is currently monitoring the political situations across the MENA region and the impact and potential threats to women’s rights. They have released this press release:

“WLUML is deeply concerned that the first public act of the Libya's National Transition Committee has been to proclaim on October 23rd, 2011, that henceforth, a number of laws will be considered annulled and that 'sharia law' is to replace them. Libya’s National Transition Committee is an interim government – what it has responsibility for – and what its first action should have concerned, is to put into place a mechanism for elections for the new government after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. WLUML feels the urgent need to reflect and raise a number of questions regarding this statement on ‘sharia law’. First, if we accept that democracy means the law of the people expressed through their votes, it is disturbing that the first act of this transitional government (which has denounced and follows a very autocratic one), is governing by decree, rather than by consulting the people through democratic means. Laws should not be annulled by the will of a ruler or rulers; they should be changed after due democratic consultation, by the will and vote of the people. Doing otherwise is to replace one undemocratic ruler by another, and to confuse democracy with monarchy, autocracy or oligarchy. WLUML will support any move by independent Libyan women organizations to demand that democratic rules be applied. Second, when we consider which laws have been de facto annulled and changed for religious ones, we see that these are laws that directly affect the rights of women in marriage, divorce, guardianship, polygamy, inheritance, etc... i.e. family codes or laws of personal status. Women are directly targeted by this change in laws and will lose many acquired rights in the process. Finally, what is this 'sharia law' being invoked in the Libyan statement? WLUML knows from its own research that laws said to be Islamic, considered in conformity with 'sharia' vary enormously from country to country - hence proving they are man-made rather than Godgiven. Furthermore they include elements from culture and traditions that have nothing to do with religion, as well as colonial laws when these best suit the interests of local patriarchy. This is how local traditions such as muta'a marriage or FGM (female genital mutilation) are adopted as part and parcel of ‘religion.’ This is also how the newly independent Algeria in the 1960s deprived its women citizens of any access to contraception and abortion, using a long abandoned French law dating from 1922. And, in Mali, the family law voted by the Parliament in 2009, provoked such an outcry by conservative Muslim organizations for alleged non-conformity to ‘sharia,’ that notwithstanding the democratic vote and the support of non-conservative Muslims – including women and secularists, the President suspended it sine die. Here again, what is democracy and 'sharia' in a country that has also signed women's rights international conventions? From the religious point of view alone, the Qur'an itself can be read in different ways: Tunisia took the historic decision in

1956 to forbid polygyny (aka polygamy), as legislators pointed out that the Qur'an clearly indicated both that equal treatment between wives is required and that it was not possible for a man to treat several women perfectly equally; Algeria in 1962 used the same verse to allow a man to have 4 wives and legitimize polygamy. Which of these contradictory interpretations is 'sharia'? We denounce the loose use of the term 'sharia' to give a false religious legitimacy to patriarchal interpretations of religion, as well as to patriarchal traditions.

WLUML calls on women's organizations and progressive people around the world to remain alert to the contradictions between pretending to be a democracy and decreeing the application of undefined religious laws. We also call for the utmost protest when governments and political groups justify their patriarchal moves in the name of 'sharia'.”

 For further information on this, you can send an email fatou@wluml.org

September 2011

• Save the Children’s latest report ‘No Child Out Of Reach’ calls for immediate action to end the global health worker crisis The current shortage of 3.5 million doctors, nurses, midwives and community health workers means that millions of children do not receive the health care they need, and risk an early death from preventable causes. The goal of saving 15 million children’s lives by 2015 cannot be achieved unless a health worker – with the right skills, equipment and support – is within reach of every child. This new report sets out the scale and the causes of the crisis, and recommendations for how it can be overcome. Progress will require political action at the global level, backed by strong national efforts in every country with a critical shortage of health workers. Around the world, hundreds of organisations and millions of individuals have come together behind this urgent call to put a health worker within reach of every child. ‘No Child out of Reach’ presents the evidence to back that call and makes the case for why the world’s leaders must invest in health workers as the best way to achieve the goal of reducing child and maternal deaths. To read the report, click here

• FORWARD would like to invite all supporters to the UK premiere film launch of ‘The Blood of Women’, a documentary by Christian Lajoumard of Acrobates Films on Monday 10 October 2011 at Amnesty International UK, Human Rights Action Centre, New Inn Yard. In Northwest Kenya the Great Pokot is a region where Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is practiced on a massive scale. The Blood of Women presents the consequences of FGM through the testimonies of Pokot women, doctors and social workers. It addresses related issues such as Child Marriage and Obstetric Fistula and also highlights some positive voices of change within the community. The film aims to draw attention to the entrenched social norms that perpetuates these abuses and the challenges in tackling them. Please RSVP by 6th October 2011 to Naomi@forwarduk.org.uk

• There is a new edutainment TV series by Puntos de Encuentro, which was researched and validated with the communities involved in the topics they worked on in Nicaragua. Currently, Puntos de Encuentro are producing methodological packages to accompany the series, these will deal with topics such as sexual commercial exploitation of adolescents, sexual abuse, maquila workers rights, young gay and trans rights, gendered family economics and others. To watch a trailer of the series, please click here

• Plan released 'Because I am a Girl: So, what about boys?' this month, the fifth in a series of annual reports published examining the rights of girls throughout their childhood, adolescence and as young women. The report shows that far from being an issue just for women and girls, gender is also about boys and men, and that this needs to be better understood if we are going to have a positive impact on societies and economies. Drawing on research and case studies, the report argues that working for equality must involve men and boys both as holders of power and as a group that is also suffering the consequences of negative gender stereotypes. It also makes recommendations for action, showing policy makers and planners what can make a real difference to girls’ lives all over the world. Elders member and former Brazil President Fernando Henrique Cardoso who wrote the report foreword said fathers in particular have a key role to play in leaving old ‘machismo’ ideas behind. “I call on all men and boys to throw their weight behind the campaign for equality and to challenge those who oppose women’s rights and equality,” he said. “The complementary skills and qualities of both men and women are needed to tackle the enormous challenges we face. This will not be easy. But we will all gain from such changes. Societies with greater equality between men and women, girls and boys, are healthier, safer, more prosperous and more truly democratic.” To read the report, click here

• Gender Action, OXFAM and the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) present a new publication ‘Governing Climate Funds: what will work for women?’ This publication highlights women and girls' disproportionate vulnerability to negative climate change impacts in developing countries, and demonstrates how they have been largely excluded from the benefits and governance of existing climate funds. It examines two climate funds and two non-climate funds in order to recommend ways in which gender dimensions can be better integrated in global climate finance mechanisms and how women can equally participate in their governance. It concludes that women and girls must be included in all adaptive and mitigative activities, and recognized as agents of change who should play a full role in climate fund governance. Download that report here

• On September 13 2011, ActionAid launched the latest in its series of Real Aid reports on aidcquality. Real aid 3: ending aid dependency focuses on a good news story: the last 10 years have seen a dramatic fall in aid dependency. Overall, aid dependency (measured by aid’s share in government spending) has fallen by one-third in the world’s poorest countries. Real aid has helped to make this happen. That is, aid which leaves poor countries in the driving seat of their own poverty reduction, is not tied or spent on technical assistance and does not impose policy conditions. Real aid 3 also reveals that since 2006 there has been an increase in good quality aid – real aid – from 51 per cent to 55 per cent. However the remaining portion is characterised as ‘substandard’ – aid which is mainly well-intentioned, but which could work harder and deliver better results. The report also compares different donors’ performance on giving real aid. The UK does well, coming second in the league table of donors with 85% of its aid being real aid. They could improve this further by pressing multilaterals to allow developing countries more of a say in how aid is spent, and continuing to improve technical assistance to ensure cost-effectiveness and country ownership. The report concludes by offering recommendations for Busan and beyond, to ensure that the future sees more real aid and further reduction in aid dependency for poor countries. Download the report here

• HEAL Africa (Restored member) have conducted research in eastern DR Congo to present “Before the War, I was a Man”. The fight of the international community against sexual violence in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is missing the true causes. This is shown by the study of the Congolese humanitarian organisation HEAL Africa. ''Most of the projects focus on women. If you want to stop sexual violence you have to involve men also'', explains Desiree Lwambo, author of the study and gender advisor at HEAL Africa. This would be even more important today than in former times because many men lost their place in society.''Decades of war, corruption, social injustice and impunity have destroyed traditional values, but so far there are no alternative values in place'', says Lwambo. The survey of HEAL Africa among 212 men and women found out that for many men the projects for women are even felt as a provocation. ''Men are all the time blamed for everything, but I have never seen a humanitarian organisation which is caring for men only'', complains a student in Goma, the capital of the province North Kivu. The anger of men ends up in a lack of esteem of international help organisations. As a consequence young men especially don't take the campaigns for women's rights and those against violence seriously. HEAL Africa stipulates therefore a paradigm shift of the development policy for Eastern Congo. ''Humanitarian projects must better take into account the fragile conditions of Congolese society'' postulates Lwambo. Read the study here

July 2011

• Call for participation from WaterAid: Menstrual hygiene is a much neglected issue within the water and sanitation sector and there are critical gaps in the body of evidence on menstrual hygiene, including a lack of systematic studies analyzing best practices in Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM). To address this gap, WaterAid is currently developing MHM guidelines for practitioners from the WASH sector, and other related sectors such as reproductive health and education.

MHM is complex and needs to be addressed holistically and in context as a package of services that includes voice and space to talk about the issue, adequate water, privacy, facilities for washing and disposal and increased awareness amongst men, women, boys and girls. Based on a review of existing literature, manuals and programme documentation, and interviews with practitioners with experience on the ground, the guidelines will set out the key elements of MHM programmes and how to contextualise them.

The research team (Sarah House, Therese Mahon and Sue Cavill) would be pleased to hear from practitioners and organisations with documentation or experiences to share. Please send any relevant documentation or suggestions to Sue Cavill (suecavill@wateraid.org). The guidelines are being produced through the SHARE initiative and will be available at the end of 2011.

• Plan’s recent report ‘Weathering the Storm: Adolescent Girls and Climate Change’ highlights the need to better integrate the specific needs of adolescent girls in climate change and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes.

 The findings presented in the report are based on interviews with girls involved in Plan International’s programmes in Ethiopia and Bangladesh. We were particularly keen to hear stories from girls themselves in relation to how climate change is impacting on their lives and what they feel that policy makers should do differently.

 The impacts of climate change, whether they are gradual changes in agriculture and living conditions or the more cataclysmic effects of a cyclone or flood, are different for different populations. Whilst inevitably children everywhere are badly affected we illustrate how girls, in particular, bear the greater burden. The report evidences how, as a result of climate change, adolescent girls face increases in household responsibilities and are more likely to be forced into work resulting in less time for them to attend school or study at  home. It also emphasises the policy and funding gap to address these issues by policy makers.  The girls themselves were clear on where they felt that policy priorities should be targeted. They wanted greater access to quality education where they can learn skills to improve their adaptive capacity; greater protection from violence especially early forced marriage, sexual violence and forced labour and they wanted their concerns to be heard and acted upon by policy makers.

• Oxfam have launched a training pack on Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction. Understanding how gender relations shape women’s and men’s lives is critical to disaster risk reduction (DRR). This is because women’s and men’s different roles, responsibilities, and access to resources influence how each will be affected by different hazards, and how they will cope with and recover from disaster. Unequal power relations between women and men mean that, despite the incredible resilience and capacity for survival that women often exhibit in the face of disaster, they also experience a range of gender-specific vulnerabilities.

 Oxfam believes that all of its work should strive to strengthen gender equality and women’s rights by transforming the balance of power between women and men. It sees this as both a matter of justice and basic rights, and as a means of addressing poverty and  suffering more effectively. This is particularly important in preparing for, and responding to, disasters and the impacts of climate change, as these tend to magnify existing  inequalities between women and men.

 This training pack has been written for Oxfam programme staff, partner organisations and other agencies working in areas associated with DRR. Its purpose is to provide a ‘gender lens’ through which they can plan, implement, and evaluate their work. The focus here is on the operational aspects of projects and programmes, and to a lesser extent on influencing broader institutional policies and practices through policy and advocacy work. The pack aims to develop participants’ skills and competencies in addressing gender issues throughout the project cycle, from assessment, analysis, and  planning through to implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.

• Save the Children are pleased to share with you their new report ‘An Equal Start: Why gender equality matters for child survival and maternal health’. This report has been produced in support of our global Every One campaign, which seeks to highlight and tackle the toll of preventable child and maternal deaths. The report provides evidence of the impact of gender discrimination upon child mortality and maternal health, and goes on to discuss how we can address the issue. It adds an important dimension to the global debate on how to reduce child and maternal mortality and challenges us to place women and girls at the centre of our work, and to break the cycle of discrimination.

 The report demonstrates that unless the unequal status of women is tackled, further efforts to reduce maternal and child mortality are likely to be undermined. Currently, gender discrimination is resulting in lives lost unnecessarily, wasting economic potential and holding up progress on MDGs 4 and 5. Research presented in this report suggests that, although child mortality is on the decline, more girls than boys are dying during childhood,  and in some regions the gap is widening.

With this report, we are urging policy makers and governments to fully recognise the scale and impact of gender inequality as an integral part of the global momentum to reduce child and maternal mortality. The report provides a number of examples of successful  initiatives already underway. These need to be scaled up and reinforced by better gender mainstreaming within health service delivery. In addition, we call for a dramatic increase in efforts to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the scope and effect of gender inequalities through data collection and research.

 Should you have any questions about the report, please do not hesitate to contact any of the authors of the report, Jessica Espey or Nadja Dolata.

• WIDE have produced a Spanish version of One World Action’s toolkit on Just Budgets. To access Budgeting for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment: Practical tool in Spanish, click here.  The English version is also available.

• NFWI have produced a final project report for their Women Reaching Women project. The report gives an overview of the three year educational project on world poverty, climate change and gender inequality, working alongside Oxfam GB and The Everyone Foundation. Women Reaching Women aimed to broaden awareness of these issues amongst WI members, their families and communities.

 The report was produced to share key achievements and lessons from the project on how  to engage the wider public on these issues in a way that inspires, informs and empowers, and was disseminated at the end of project conference in April (a huge thank you to those that were able to attend).  A toolkit of key lessons is also attached, and we hope both documents will offer useful insights on public engagement for organisations working on  these issues (particularly in light of DFID’s Awareness Review published in May

 NFWI’s members are keen to keep working on these issues, so NFWI are currently exploring next steps and would like to hear from organisations that do work around linking grassroots women’s groups here in the UK to those in developing countries or can offer us some insight into this area. All WI groups are registered charities, so they are unable to fundraise for other charities, but can take part in awareness raising activities or activities around engaging with grassroots international women’s networks.  Please contact Yetundé Akintola (y.akintola@nfwi.org.uk) for more information.
 
• GAPS are currently working with the Associate Parliamentary Group (APG) on women, peace and security on an Inquiry on UNSC1325 and Northern Ireland. They are calling for evidence for an inquiry which will focus on questions around how UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security should be implemented in Northern Ireland. The broad areas of investigation can be found on the GAPS website. Findings from the call for written evidence will be evaluated and used to inform the Inquiry ahead of oral evidence sessions after the summer. At the end of its considerations, the APG will publish a report of findings along with recommendations.

 The deadline for submitting evidence is 18.00 on Monday 22 August 2011, in soft-copy by email to Chris Levick (levickc@parliament.uk) with “Northern Ireland Inquiry” in the subject line.

• GAPS and the Associate Parliamentary Group on Women, Peace and Security (APG), are calling for submissions for the annual review of the UK National Action Plan (NAP) on women, peace and security.  The UK NAP is a key tool for the implementation of the UK's commitments on women, peace and security under UN Security Council Resolution 1325 . In order to strengthen the NAP and ensure its implementation, GAPS and the APG would like to invite written submissions based on the terms outlined here. This is a fantastic opportunity to strengthen the UK's policy on women, peace and security and submissions are welcomed from organisations and individuals. You can read the current UK NAP on the FCO website and responses to past reviews of the NAP on the GAPS website .

• ActionAid have produced a leaflet on Building comprehensive resilience and facilitating women’s leadership. The leaflet outlines two factors critical to the success of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) efforts - the need to build comprehensive resilience and the importance of promoting and facilitating women's leadership in DRR initiatives.  Published to coincide with the Third Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in May 2011, the leaflet gives an overview of ActionAid's experience in DRR and provides practical examples from our work with communities living with the threat of disasters.

• CAWN's 20th Anniversary newsletter is now available on their website. The newsletter is a celebration of CAWN's origins, achievements and the wonderful women in Central America that CAWN have been working alongside for the last 20 years.