International Women’s Day 2015 - Towards Gender Equality

2015/3/7	Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter
	From the Mountains to the Sea, Timorese Women Fight for More Lyndal Rowlands In Timor-Leste, the gap between rich and poor is most keenly felt by rural women and children. But while women are working hard to help rebuild Timor-Leste, their contributions are not always recognised, in a country where men’s narratives still heavily dominate. Ahead of International Women’s ... MORE > >
	The 15 Journalists Putting Women’s Rights on the Front Page Lyndal Rowlands Media coverage of maternal, sexual and reproductive health rights is crucial to achieving international development goals, yet journalists covering these issues often face significant challenges. 3Recognising the contributions these journalists make to advancing women and girls’ rights, ... MORE > >
	World Misses Its Potential by Excluding 50 Percent of Its People Thalif Deen The meeting is billed as one of the biggest single gatherings of women activists under one roof. According to the United Nations, over 1,100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and more than 8,600 representatives have registered to participate in this year’s session of the Commission on the ... MORE > >
	Opinion: Bridging the Gap - How the SDG Fund is Paving the Way for a Post-2015 Agenda Paloma Duran The countdown has begun to September’s Summit on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with world leaders discussing the 17 goals and 169 targets proposed by the United Nations Open Working Group. The post-2015 development agenda will focus primarily on strengthening opportunities to reduce ... MORE > >
	By Girls, For Girls – Nepal's Teenagers Say No to Child Marriage Naresh Newar If not for a group of her school friends coming to her rescue, Shradha Nepali would have become a bride at the tender age of 14. Hailing from the remote village of Pinalekh in the Bajura District of Nepal’s Far-Western Region, 900 km from the capital, Kathmandu, the teenager was a likely ... MORE > >
	Opinion: Let’s Grant Women Land Rights and Power Our Future Monique Barbut Women are not only the world’s primary food producers. They are hardworking and innovative and, they invest far more of their earnings in their families than men. But most lack the single most important asset for accessing investment resources – land rights. Women’s resourcefulness is ... MORE > >
	Tech-Savvy Women Farmers Find Success with SIM Cards Stella Paul Jawadi Vimalamma, 36, looks admiringly at her cell phone. It’s a simple device that can only be used to send or receive a call or a text message. Yet to the farmer from the village of Janampet, located 150 km away from Hyderabad, capital of the southern Indian state of Telangana, it symbolises a ... MORE > >
	Opinion: It’s Time to Step It Up for Gender Equality Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka If we look at the headlines or the latest horrifying YouTube clip, Mar. 8 – International Women’s Day – may seem a bad time to celebrate equality for women. But alongside the stories of extraordinary atrocity and everyday violence lies another reality, one where more girls are in school and more ... MORE > >
	Women Leaders Call for Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Post-2015 Agenda Marianela Jarroud Women leaders from every continent, brought together by U.N. Women and the Chilean government, demanded that gender equality be a cross-cutting target in the post-2015 development agenda. Only that way, they say, can the enormous inequality gap that still affects women and children around the world ... MORE > >
	For Women in Asia, ‘Home’ Is a Battleground Kanya D'Almeida Nearly half of the four billion people who reside in the Asia-Pacific region are women. They comprise two-thirds of the region’s poor, with millions either confined to their homes or pushed into the informal labour market where they work without any safeguards for paltry daily wages. Millions more ... MORE > >
	Everyone Benefits from More Women in Power Marianela Jarroud Women’s participation in decision-making is highly beneficial and their role in designing and applying public policies has a positive impact on people’s lives, women leaders and experts from around the world stressed at a high-level meeting in the capital of Chile. “It is not about men against ... MORE > >
	Opinion: Goals for Gender Equality Are Not a ‘Wish List’ – They Are a ‘To Do List’ Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka This weekend, at the invitation of President Michelle Bachelet and myself, women leaders from across the world are meeting in Santiago de Chile. We will applaud their achievements. We will remind ourselves of their contributions. And we will chart a way forward to correct the historical record. ... MORE > >
	From the Police Station Back to the Hellhole: System Failing India’s Domestic Violence Survivors Shai Venkatraman “One time my husband started slapping me hard on the face because I had not cooked the rice to his satisfaction,” Suruchi* told IPS. “He hit me so hard that my infant daughter fell from my arms to the ground.” For 20 years 47-year-old Suruchi, a resident of India’s coastal megacity Mumbai, faced ... MORE > >
	Mobile Technology a Lever for Women’s Empowerment A. D. McKenzie Providing women with greater access to mobile technology could increase literacy, advance development and open up much-needed educational and employment opportunities, according to experts at the fourth United Nations’ Mobile Learning Week conference here. “Mobile technology can offer learning ... MORE > >