Monthly Corner
IDH Publication, 2026
Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is not just a social issue, it’s a systemic challenge that undermines agricultural value chains.
In rural and isolated areas, GBV threatens women’s safety, limits their economic participation, and weakens food security. When women cannot work safely, entire communities lose resilience, and businesses lose productivity. Climate resilience strategies that overlook gendered risks leave communities exposed and women vulnerable.
Ending GBV is essential for building equitable, sustainable, and climate-resilient agri-food systems; and it’s not only a human rights imperative, but also central to climate adaptation and economic stability.
The good news? Solutions work. Programs like the Women’s Safety Accelerator Fund (WSAF) demonstrate that addressing GBV can enhance productivity and strengthen workforce morale and brand reputation. Safe, inclusive workplaces aren’t just good ethics, they’re smart business.
Gurmeet Kaur Articles
Luc Barriere-Constantin Article
This article draws on the experience gained by The Constellation over the past 20 years. It is also a proposal for a new M&E and Learning framework to be adopted and adapted in future projects of all community-focused organisations.
Devaka K.C. Article
Sudeshna Sengupta Chapter in the book "Dialogues on Development edited by Prof Arash Faizli and Prof Amitabh Kundu."
Events
Vacancies
- We’re Hiring: National Evaluation Consultant – Bangladesh
UN Women is recruiting a National Evaluation Consultant (Bangladesh) to support the interim evaluation of the Joint Regional EmPower Programme (Phase II).
This is a great opportunity to work closely with the Evaluation Team Leader and contribute to generating credible, gender-responsive evidence that informs decision-making and strengthens programme impact.
📍 Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh (home-based with travel to project locations)
📅 Apply by: 24 February 2026, 5:00 PM
🔗 Apply here: https://lnkd.in/gar4ciRr
If you are passionate about feminist evaluation, gender equality, and rigorous evidence that drives change (or know someone who is) please apply or share within your networks.
- Seeking Senior Analyst - IPE Global
About the job
IPE Global Ltd. is a multi-disciplinary development sector consulting firm offering a range of integrated, innovative and high-quality services across several sectors and practices. We offer end-to-end consulting and project implementation services in the areas of Social and Economic Empowerment, Education and Skill Development, Public Health, Nutrition, WASH, Urban and Infrastructure Development, Private Sector Development, among others.
Over the last 26 years, IPE Global has successfully implemented over 1,200 projects in more than 100 countries. The group is headquartered in New Delhi, India with five international offices in United Kingdom, Kenya, Ethiopia, Philippines and Bangladesh. We partner with multilateral, bilateral, governments, corporates and not-for-profit entities in anchoring development agenda for sustained and equitable growth. We strive to create an enabling environment for path-breaking social and policy reforms that contribute to sustainable development.
Role Overview
IPE Global is seeking a motivated Senior Analyst – Low Carbon Pathways to strengthen and grow its Climate Change and Sustainability practice. The role will contribute to business development, program management, research, and technical delivery across climate mitigation, carbon markets, and energy transition. This position provides exceptional exposure to global climate policy, finance, and technology, working with a team of high-performing professionals and in collaboration with donors, foundations, research institutions, and public agencies.
FATHER AND SON: WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Peril magazine asked me and my son Luke to share some reflections on gender and culture for their ‘Man up’ edition. Here it is for your reading pleasure. #patriarchy #masculinity #parenting.
Original piece posted here Click here to read Luke’s piece, ‘Dad Never Taught Me to Man Up’.
John Siddham was born in India in the late 1950s and now lives in Australia. His son, Luke, was born in Australia in the mid-90s. We asked them both to reflect on their relationship to gender and culture.
I grew up in India, a land that has given birth to many religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, and many others that came to India and still thrive and survive today. As such, India is a land of spirituality and religiosity, a land of thinkers, reformers and philosophers. It is also a land of contrasts and contradictions with extremely rich and poor people, highly educated professionals and illiterate youth, people with compassion to all living beings and yet violence committed against most vulnerable people including women and girls.
I had a religious upbringing and had friends in the neighbourhood and school from different faiths. We celebrated all the festivals, went to each other’s places of worship. The annual feast at my local parish, our Lady of Health, drew huge crowds of not just Christians but Hindus, Muslims and many others who come to worship to seek good health.
Amongst the hustle and bustle, and with all the colours of rituals and ceremonies, one could not fail to notice the undertone of patriarchy. In most cases at these celebrations, women were relegated to the rear bench, reflecting the patriarchal hierarchies visible in everyday life. As a system, growing up, it was so entrenched that most people were blindly complicit, even women. Though I could not articulate what I saw growing up as “the patriarchy” at the time, I was aware of the imbalance in the treatment of women, girls and those from lower castes.
My upbringing at home laid a strong foundation. Dad was an activist, heavily engaged in the rights and dignity of the workers, which was more than his full-time role as a public servant. Mum welcomed me to the kitchen and included me in all the chores traditionally held by women and laid the foundations for well-rounded development. My siblings, including my three younger sisters, together with mum, shaped the feminine side of my life. Gradually though, my concern for the underprivileged and activism for the rights of the youth grew and took me to new places and opened up my world through a different lens.
In the course of this activism, I met Lyn at a conference in Belgium. When we were dating, so to speak, as we lived in different cities and continents, between Paris and Geneva, India and Australia. It was the original long-distance romance. This was a period where the Internet was non-existent and long-distance phone calls were a luxury.
Those days, I had to wait for a telephone operator to connect us, sometimes losing almost a day waiting at a post office phone booth. We wrote letters, on thin papers, with tiny handwriting to squeeze as much to say within the five grams of the Airmail post.
We knew where we stood in terms of our views and activism. That was rock solid, and that’s what attracted us to each other. We broke with traditions that conflicted with our views, rejecting the idea that either of us was a property of the other, believing instead we should both be free to flourish and that our relationship was an enabler rather than enslaver.
When we married, we broke with numerous traditions.
Lyn kept her name. She rejected the idea of her dad walking in the aisle and handing her over to me. We walked into the church together and welcomed our guests. We rewrote the proceedings in ways that reflected two people in equality rather than a marriage of between then traditional “man and wife”.
Our day to day life reflected this in our relationship to each other and to the community around us. Eventually, the time came to christen our first child, a son.
I grew up in a patrilineal tradition where the father is considered the head of the family, children are given their father’s surname, and the women take their husbands’ name. It’s given, and no one questions it. Though it’s only a name, but it carries a profound and symbolic meaning in reinforcing male domination, something that conflicted with my core value and made me uncomfortable.
Our son came into the world two weeks early, upsetting our plans, one of which was to decide on a name. We were ready with a name for a girl but not yet for a boy.
Our son remained nameless for the first few days. We were too busy with our hands full, running on high gear, feeding, changing, bathing, and squeezing in naps. While we had worked on a first name with friends who came for afternoon tea one day, we hadn’t sorted out the surname yet.
We talked a lot during the in-betweens of changing nappies, feeding, and trying to get a nap, but we hadn’t made a decision yet, and the christening was rapidly approaching. We looked at all permutations of combining our names, and there were plenty of them, but we were not happy with what was on offer. Or maybe it was that I wasn’t sure, and I wondered why?
Suddenly, the day was upon us. The ceremony seemed to be going very fast, or that’s what my brain messaged me. I thought I knew the answer, even though we hadn’t made a decision yet but it somehow seemed to be obvious. The ceremony ended and it was an opportune moment for me to announce to the family and friends, and I did.
“Luke will carry his mother’s name.”
There, in front of our family and friends, I confirmed:
“He will be known as Luke Dundon.”
Oh yes, the irony, I made the announcement as a man to the community. And I was happy to insert my name as his middle name. But still, Lyn would have been pleased with a combination of names as several of our friends had done, double barrel names. I wasn’t comfortable with that, a long-hyphenated name, sounded like a compromise. I believed, more than a name, it was important they carry a part of me, my influence, my values, and what I stand for. I was happy to let go of my name, though there is no other Siddham living in Australia at this time, still, it wasn’t important to me.
In time, Lyn suggested that maybe our second child could carry my last name. I said, “Let’s see.”
Then, when our second child arrived a few years later, I thought to myself, “Why? Why do I want her to have my name? What are we trying to achieve, a compromise?”
In the end, I didn’t want our arrangement to confuse our children with different names growing up. We didn’t want to appear as a concocted family, though ultimately there is nothing wrong with that. We agreed, we were trying to break a tradition by not giving our children their father’s name. This was our way of showing about our position on gender relations. That Man is not the centre of the universe and the Woman a subservient, that both are equal and deserve respect. That a man can let go of power and still achieve harmony in a relationship. Now both our children carry their mother’s name.
This doesn’t mean we are supporting a matriarchal system either but for now we are breaking with one patriarchal tradition, and we will leave it to our children to create a family that is neither matriarchal nor patriarchal but respectful of everyone.
Click here to read Luke’s piece, ‘Dad Never Taught Me to Man Up’.
https://peril.com.au/back-editions/edition-35/father-and-son-whats-...
Add a Comment
-
Comment by Alejandra Bernardo Andrés on September 26, 2019 at 2:29
-
Thank you for sharing your personal experience. It is always difficult to confront patriarchy nut it is necessary for promoting women and girls´s rights. I always say that is we all were feminist there were not need to fight for any other thing. We would all be equal.
-
Comment by Martin Morris Okolo on September 25, 2019 at 20:34
-
Oh this is a great piece. It makes me miss a part of me! My Spanish Lady who could not settle for African Life Time Marriage and Patriarchy in place of her four year at most contract marriage as allegedly practiced in Spain by early 2000.
Surely, the culture and all traditions of patriarchy were and are still a hindrance.
I just love the way you worked out a free and 'democratic' way into marriage life. I love the piece!
© 2026 Created by Rituu B Nanda.
Powered by
You need to be a member of Gender and Evaluation to add comments!
Join Gender and Evaluation