Nearly 65% of adults in the Arab region remain excluded from formal financial systems, according to a new report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). The Annual SDG Review 2025 paints a sobering picture of persistent financial exclusion that is undermining the region’s ability …
Nepal has become the first country to implement the concept of community forest use effectively, by assembling its grassroot forces, especially the rural women. The first Regional Community Forestry Users' Group Workshop was inaugurated by Salim Miya Ansari, state minister for forests and soil Conservation on May 23, at the …
The I st phase of a women's small loan project concluded in Deukhuri, Kathmandu recently. Implemented by a group of local NGOs and supervised by the ministry of local development with the Asian Development Bank's finaneial assistance, this phase of the project was geared to encourage women to be thrifty …
AS the date for the United Nations (un) conference on women -- in Beijing in September -- approaches, the Vatican is chafing for a repeat showdown. It has released a statement spitting fire and brimstone at the "sinful" positions taken by the us and other Western countries over abortion, contraception, …
"Bath? Twice a month! Washing clothes? Who knows!" There was deep hurt behind the sarcastic laughter of the angry woman. Her audience understood. There were about 300 women -- from 9 districts of Gujarat -- who had congregated in Ahmedabad on May 30 to attend a meeting organised by the …
A 41-page critical study by 2 independent inspec- tors says that UN development agencies have bungled science and technology (5& T) projects in Africa. Evaluating 16 projects, the inspectors argue that a vague definition of 5&T; is at the heart of the UN system's failure. The organisation's penchant for treating …
With the 4th un Conference on Women and the ngo Forum on Women (Beijing) round the corner, the New York-based Women's Environment and Development Organisation (wedo) has launched the 180 Days/180 Ways Women's Action Campaign. It aims to bring in positive changes in women's lives. During the 180 days between …
If a non-nuclear nation is bullied by a nuclear weapon state, global help will be rushed to it, was the assurance of the UN Security Council which - adopted a resolution pledging help for signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, at a meeting, on April 12. Non-aligned nations, claimed that …
Rising above their despair, oppressed and abandoned women have taken to street-theatre, staging shows in the slums of Hyderabad. Under the guidance of Puran Chandra Rao, writer-director of the play Aurat, these women are educating their friends in the slums about the evils of dowry, malnutrition and the benefits of …
HAPPY days are here again for thousands of women in the Madurai, Ramanathapuram and Kanyakumari districts of Tamil Nadu. Cutthroat moneylenders had better stay away, and drunken, violent husbands restrain their hands. Women can now own land, procure potable water within the village itself. And demolish arrack shops. "It's not …
BECKY Sidebottom, a Yorkshire woman with "immortal longings" goes to a fantasy country, Lapalistan, where she encounters Desi Khunbarrah, the most sexually magnetic man she has ever met. Rana's Lapalistan is ruled by Colonel Phouma, the Chairman of the Great Revolutionary Council of 1780, whose members function by consensus only. …
Women can get sterilised, but men will get the land. The Uttar Pradesh government's decision to reward sterilisation volunteers with a patta (DEED) for land has resulted in women going in for tubectomy, and the men collecting the rewards. Many other instances of gender discrimination came to light during a …
IN THE highland village of Paini, 7 km off Joshimath in the Garhwal Himalayas, the village Mahila Mangal Dal (MMD) -- the women's welfare group -- today has a sizeable treasury of money in its village fund. The fund not only helps the women during lean periods, but also meets …
WHILE Indians hotly debate whether common folk can be entrusted with the management and control of their forest resources, local communities in several other developing countries are already entrenched in their idyllic fortresses. The results have been, to say the least, positive, even dramatic. In Nepal, village communities have been …
THIS state-of-the-art report on women and sustainable development, supported by INSTRAW (United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women) is an outcome of several initiatives on the topic -- most specifically, INSTRAW's programme on Gender, Environment and Sustainable Development, launched in 1990. Women, the Environment and …
PAKKHI, a sleepy village tucked away in the picturesque Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, woke up one day in April with women blocking roads to stop illegal quarrying. Last year, the women of Gerthun, Kauna, Umri and Kalakkad got together to build a ropeway across the nearby river. These are …
FOR both the poor and the rich, life is full of choices; but whereas for the rich, choosing is mostly synonymous with freedom and happy expectancy, the poor must always choose between one kind of pain and another. Shall I feed my son and starve the daughter, because the food …
IS THERE anything new to be said on the subject of women and health? The first impression of-the section on this topic in the government's Draft Country Paper for the 1995 Beijing Conference on women is that everything the women's groups have been saying for the last 2 decades is …
Development can spawn curious offspring. The prospect of involving rural women in a refresher course on the importance of maintaining vegetable gardens surely qualifies as one of these. And that's precisely what Growing Together, a 28-minute film by Joss Brooks, purports to do. But this anecdote hides a larger irony. …
FEMINIST writing normally falls into one of 2 categories: either it is completely simplistic rabblerousing targeted at the lowest common denominator, or it is jargon-ridden academic work that theorises ad infinitum about the reasons for women's oppression. Betty Friedan, Shulamith Firestone and other American women who wrote at the height …
