Newsroom

[Rituu B Nanda]

This is a place to post latest news, happenings, events, debates, documents, evaluations, research material, surveys, book releases, movies, videos  and resources on gender and development. We invite members to post if they come across relevant material.

[Akanksha Babbar]

"Ensuring safe and healthy conditions for the reproduction of the population is obviously the most fundamental requirement of any society. So the progress of a society can be determined (and indeed is routinely judged) by the extent to which mothers and young children experience safe, healthy and nutritious conditions of existence and childbirth. In most countries, ensuring such conditions is seen as a most basic obligation of the state.

India is different. In fact, it is one of the few countries in the world (and perhaps the only one that prides itself on becoming an emerging giant on the world stage) in which the provision of services to ensure safe reproduction is not treated as an automatic and essential part of public service delivery, but rather as a special “scheme”, and now in so-called “mission mode”. " -Jayati Ghosh on privatizing the ICDS

http://www.frontline.in/columns/Jayati_Ghosh/privatising-the-icds/a...

[Akanksha Babbar]

On news reporting and journalism through a 'Gender lens' :

"One of significant differences the finding brings out is the role of men and women in news stories. It found that three-quarters of “experts” were men and 79 per cent of “victims” were women. It further states: “the most interesting findings here are that while nearly a fifth (19%) of women quoted or mentioned were ‘victims,’ hardly any men fell into this category (2%); and that men featuring in news stories are significantly more likely than women to be ‘experts’ (82% of total men, compared with 61% of total women).” -A.S. Panneerselvan, Reader's Editor, the Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-gender-lens/article401972...

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/Readers-Editor/telling-the-untold-l...

[Robin Beecroft]

I found an article today called "Stop! Mind the gender gap in development discourses"

Gender equality seems to have lost its resonance in development discourses, though lessons from experiences in implementing Millennium Development Goals show that countries can experience different levels of economic growth and still suffer from massive social and economic inequalities. This post argues that it is time to include gender equality as a cross-cutting theme and anchor for development agendas to attain balanced development outcomes.

Do post comments if you find this article offers valuable insights – or especially if it is no good at all! All comments are useful.

[Akanksha Babbar]

Thanks for sharing this article Robin!I think its very important for development interventions and policy making to address context specific discourses of feminism and gender relations for better outcomes. 

[Robin Beecroft]

Thank you, Akanksha. I am glad to know this is interesting for you. I thought it was a well argued piece of work.

[Robin Beecroft]

European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) Seeks Gender Equality Research F...

Do visit the published announcement through the link for more details than I can put here. In summary, this program offers opportunity for interested researchers and activists to conduct research on gender equality issues in Roma communities. Research projects should be action-oriented, i.e. they should aim at informing Romani communities or enabling them to benefit from the research (advocacy, direct action, litigation, raising awareness, etc.). The ERRC will give preference to community-based research proposals. they offer a monthly stipend and financial support for expenses incurred during the field research.

[Robin Beecroft]

Gender Equality Newsfeed

This may be interesting to members as a feed that is published and regularly updated by UN Women Watch. You can follow them and so keep track with what they are publishing online.

[Robin Beecroft]

Last week, there was an interesting article published by The Guardian here in the UK that members may be interested in reading:

Why ignoring gender could harm your programme

"Over the past decade, evaluation has become an essential part of most development programmes. This reflects the growing emphasis on designing cost-effective projects that demonstrate significant change. This shift has coincided with a greater awareness of the need to focus more explicitly on gender as a key factor in development-related issues. Overall, these developments are welcomed; as practitioners we should all aim to use evidence of what works and, crucially, what doesn't work to improve our programmes. Doing so also results in better outcomes for beneficiaries.

"However, the evaluation community has been slow to appreciate the fundamental role that gender may play in shaping the results of their programme evaluations...."

I hope this is useful for members.

[Vaidehi Krishnan]

 Dear Rituu,

This is a wonderful space but I wish your main menu could have provision for a 'dropdown' leading viewers - to Forum--Topic--Newsroom as appears on the URL link.  This would be very useful in my opinion.  Thanks, now that I have been led to this link, I am liking it very much and find it useful too.

[Vaidehi Krishnan]

Dear All,

With great pleasure and a sincere request to all we are availing of this space and medium to reach out to women who may find our 'Women's Synergy' plaftform useful.  Do feel free to refer and spread word of us.

Thanks & best... from the Women's Synergy Desk!

[Rituu B Nanda]

Listening to smaller voices: using an innovative participatory tool for children affected by HIV and AIDS to assess a life skills programme

This paper details the evaluation of a Life Skills programme implemented by Family Health International (FHI 360), India. The evaluator and author, Sonal Zaveri, describes the evaluation process used to determine how the programme had changed (or not) the lives of children who were infected, orphaned, affected or vulnerable to HIV.

You can leave your comments on the website http://betterevaluation.org/resource/example/listening_to_smaller_v...

[Vaidehi Krishnan]

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Women's Synergy!  Please visit the link:

http://bit.ly/16T1Qa1

which has an article by Anindita Sarkar, one of our Co-Trustees, (also known by the name Andy Paula the writer and food blogger) on WS. Best !