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1. Income Innovation in the Not-for-Profit and For-Purpose Sectors in Australia

Author:
Gemma Hardie and Min Wah Voon
Publication Date:
08-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Women's Development Agency (IWDA)
Abstract:
This report shares the findings of research by the International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA), conducted in 2019 and 2023, on income innovations in the not-for-profit and for-purpose sectors in Australia. A Rapid Scan of Income Innovations in the Not-For-Profit and For-Purpose Sectors in Australia draws from interviews with 26 individuals and organisations about diversifying funding beyond traditional grants, fundraising and philanthropy. The intended outcomes of the research were to: Identify income innovations in the not-for-profit and for-purpose (NFP+FP) sectors that currently generate untied income (excluding traditional funding) Help inform IWDA’s broader strategic planning and decision making.
Topic:
Development, Innovation, Philanthropy, and Non-profits
Political Geography:
Australia

2. Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan: Foreign Policy Responses

Author:
Farkhondeh Akbari and Jacqui True
Publication Date:
07-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Women's Development Agency (IWDA)
Abstract:
Nearly two years on from the Taliban’s takeover, diplomatic efforts have so far failed to anticipate or halt the unfolding regressive regime in Afghanistan. Feminist foreign policy approaches can guide both normative and practical efforts to protect and defend women’s fundamental rights in the country and support local actors to create alternative spaces for women’s and girls’ to reclaim their rights to education, employment, and political agency. This paper makes the case that governments employing a feminist foreign policy approach – as well as those who claim to prioritise gender equality – must use the term “gender apartheid” to signal their condemnation in the strongest terms. The situation of women and girls in Afghanistan is becoming more critical every day under the Taliban’s terror regime of gender apartheid. The international war fought by militaries has ended but the war against women and girls has escalated. Egregious violations of human rights and pervasive gender-based violence are occurring, targeting women protesters, women associated with the previous government, and ethnicminority women. The Taliban regime not only restricts the rights of women, but also commits new forms of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), such as abducting women who protest peacefully, raping them in custody, burning the hands of Panjshiri women, and lashing Hazara women. The latter are specific tortures for specific ethnic identities. These acts are also intended to dishonour the families and communities of the victims.1 The war against women is an extension of conflict by other means. The Taliban’s barbaric treatment of women and the international community’s apparent impotence to gender oppression emboldens the Taliban regime and its extremist ideology. The Taliban threatens regional and global peace and stability as extremist groups and regressive leaders in other countries are galvanized by the Taliban’s success. Despite not formally recognising their regime, some regional countries, namely China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Qatar, have chosen to cooperate more with the Taliban by giving them control of Afghanistan’s consulates. To date, diplomatic engagements to negotiate with the Taliban regarding its political and ideological gender policies have been futile and ineffective. The brutal oppression of women has been the defining characteristic of Taliban rule and a chief symbol of its grip on power.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Apartheid, Development, Human Rights, Taliban, Women, and Gender
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and South Asia

3. A feminist approach to Australian Overseas Development Assistance?

Author:
Annabel Dulhunty
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Women's Development Agency (IWDA)
Abstract:
Over the past nine years, the Australian aid program has suffered extensive budget cuts, lost significant development expertise within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) after the integration of AusAID, and seen significant reprioritisation of its objectives due to the emergence of Covid-19. Despite these setbacks, however, gender equality and women’s empowerment seemingly remain important to the aid program. Why then is a feminist foreign policy needed for Australia and its aid program? While DFAT must be commended for increasing funding for gender equality in the past decade, Australia is still below average compared with other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) donors when it comes to funding for projects which aim to advance gender equality as a principal or significant objective. Also, the 80% target on gender equality is one of the only development targets which consistently has not been met. The Australian aid program largely focuses on ‘gender mainstreaming’ as a cross cutting issue. While important, gender mainstreaming can easily become a ‘tick box’ exercise and get lost within broader program objectives (Cornwall and Rivas, 2015). In 2016 DFAT created an important Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Strategy which gave greater weight to gender equality in DFAT’s programming. This is a significant achievement. While the strategy outlines three objectives, the main emphasis is given to women’s economic empowerment – whereby investment in women is portrayed as ‘smart economics’. This approach to women’s empowerment focuses on connections with businesses, public private partnerships and women’s access to credit. While these activities have some value and DFAT was arguably constrained by the Coalition government’s priorities at the time, there is scope now, with a change of government, to go beyond neoliberal framings and take a more holistic approach to empowerment. The time is right to create a feminist aid policy which should sit under a broader feminist foreign policy (FFP) approach (informing aid as well as trade, defence and other foreign policy issues).
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Foreign Aid, and Feminism
Political Geography:
Australia