Monthly Corner
Laura Hughston - Blog
Arnoux Mouafo Nop & Dimitri Tsona Zapzi - Article
Prof. Wangari Mwai and Prof. Catherine Ndungo - BOOK
- Understanding Gender and Identity Through The Gender Dictionary
Publisher: Bleeding Ink Scribes
RAI SENGUPTA - gender-transformative evaluation tools
This synthesis draws on evidence from 17 humanitarian evaluations across diverse crisis settings. It identifies key feminist evaluation innovations across four domains - design, methods, analysis, and ethics - illustrating how feminist principles can be embedded throughout the evaluation process. It also surfaces broader shifts required at policy, institutional, and practice levels to realise the transformative potential of feminist approaches in humanitarian contexts.
The toolkit translates these insights into applied guidance for evaluators and organisations. It provides step-by-step support across the full evaluation cycle, including planning, design, methods, analysis, ethics, and dissemination. Drawing on global feminist evaluation practice, humanitarian guidance, and gender evaluation standards, it includes adaptable tools, participatory and arts-based methods, guiding questions, and templates for field application.
Ritu Dewan & Swat Raju - Article
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In Promises & Reality 2026 Citizen’s Review of Year 2 of the NDA-III Government. Coordinated by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, June 20, 2026. pp 94-100.
UTTHAN - Research Report
Traversing the path with women farmers in their fields and in our reflections/writings, a stark observation was the sheer lack of localized and regional vocabulary and terminology to adequately capture and communicate the understanding of climate change and mitigation strategies, informed by the unique experiences and needs of small and marginal women farmers. This is what propelled our research - to examine how women farmers perceive, express, experience, and respond to climate variability across
Our Research Report centres the lived experiences, generational knowledge, and resilience strategies of small and marginal women farmers from the coastal (Bhavnagar) and hilly (Dahod & Panchmahal) regions i.e two contrasting agro-climatic zones of Gujarat. Through their voices, the study reveals exactly how climate change intersects with gender, land rights, labour burdens, and food security.
Events
Vacancies
About the job
At Includovate, we are expanding our Pacific Research & Evaluation Talent Pool and inviting researchers, evaluators, consultants, and development practitioners to join a growing network of professionals committed to creating meaningful social impact.
As a feminist research incubator and certified social enterprise, Includovate works with partners including UNICEF, UNFPA, the ILO, governments, and development organisations across 23+ countries. Our work spans gender equality, social inclusion, health, disability, youth, climate, WASH, market systems, and other development priorities.
We are particularly keen to connect with experts from:
📍 Papua New Guinea
📍 Solomon Islands
📍 Vanuatu
📍 Timor-Leste
📍 Fiji
📍 Samoa
📍 Tonga
📍 Indonesia
📍 Australia
and across the wider Pacific region.
We welcome expertise in:
✓ Research, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning
✓ Gender Equality & Social Inclusion
✓ Health & SRHR
✓ Disability Inclusion
✓ Youth Development
✓ Climate & Environment
✓ WASH
✓ Market Systems Development
✓ Governance & Community Development
Whether your expertise lies in data collection, research, evaluation, technical advisory, facilitation, or team leadership, we would love to hear from you.
By joining our Talent Pool, you become part of a trusted network of professionals who may be considered for future research, evaluation, advisory, and consulting opportunities across the Pacific region and beyond.
🔗 Register here: https://lnkd.in/eyF66S7H
Respecting dignity of persons with disability
A friend recently shared an article published in an online edition of an English medium national newspaper. The article was well intentioned, and spoke about the weakness of non-compliance to universal accessibility regulations in Sri Lanka’s infrastructure and public spaces, and which results in marginalizing a significant minority in our society – who the writer references as the less abled.
This prejudiced use of terminology vexed me, and reminded me of the varying occasions where I had been privy to conferences, discussions and policy forums where an assortment of discriminatory and demeaning terminology is casually used.
The topic of disability has evolved over decades, just as any topic related to human conditions, and with the changing perceptions fueled by interdisciplinary studies about disability; terminology pertaining to disability has also metamorphosed.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities came into force in 2008 and has been instrumental in fueling a right-based framework globally. Prior to the convention disability was innocuously attended through a combination of medical treatment and charitable giving.
Terminology such as differently abled, handicapped, special children, and specially abled were comfortably placed and used within a model of charity – where it was perceived that anyone with a disability must be helped. With the charitable mindset, there is also the perception that a disabled body is less.
The convention asserts that while anyone can be born with a physical impairment or have an impairment later in life due to accidents, medical conditions and aging; it is not the impairment which causes disability but it is society – infrastructure and attitudes – which makes a person disabled.
This social model on disability and the premise that it is society which discriminates persons with disabilities and create barriers to the enjoyment of their rights was an established debate among disabled people’s organizations and disability rights activists across the world.
It was the collective voice of persons with disabilities, care-givers, rights activists and disabled people’s organizations which demanded governments to provide equitable resources and opportunities to enable a dignified and independent life for persons with disabilities, including the adoption of right terminology.
The Convention was drawn up with extensive participation by persons with disabilities, and assigns responsibility to acceding governments to shift from mere charitable (social protection) and medical (treatment) service to a right-based process to ensure that persons with disabilities are treated with dignity, and enjoy equal access and participation, just as any citizen.
The Convention upholds dignity and human rights and advises to do away with discriminatory and demeaning terminology which perpetuate views that persons with disability are less and different ; and in place adhere to terminology prescribed in the convention for varying categories of persons living with disability are – (a) persons/children/women with disability, and those termed as blind, should be referenced from a person centered perspective as (b) Person who is blind or persons with visual impairment; Similarly terms such as deaf and mute must be disused and in place (c) Person who is deaf or person with hearing impairment and person who is speech impaired; and derogatory terms such as retarded, deranged, must be abolished and right terminology (d) learning disability, developmental disability and psychological disability must be adopted and used.
The government of Sri Lanka ratified and acceded to the Convention in February of 2016. Therefore, the government has an onus to ensure that the dignity of persons with disabilities are not compromised by continuing to use discriminatory terminology in public discourse, when formulating new policy, government circulars and in national media.
A key step would be for the government through a higher authority to Gazette recommended terminology on disability in Sinhala, Tamil and English, referencing the Convention and make it mandatory that all Ministries and Departments are in adherence. The government can liaise with national level Disabled People’s Organizations, civil society organizations committed to disability rights and independent disability rights advocates in this endeavor to protect the dignity of persons living with disability.
(For more referencing on right terminology can be accessed at http://cab-acr.ca/english/social/diversity/disabilities/pwd_guideli... )
(Author Nirmi Vitarana is a researcher at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo ,Sri Lanka)
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