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421. Governing Climate Funds: What will work for women?

Author:
Sonia Lowman and Elizabeth Arend
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
As the international community mobilizes in response to global climatic changes, climate funds must ensure the equitable and effective allocation of funds for the world's most vulnerable populations. Women and girls, disproportionately vulnerable to negative climate change impacts in developing countries, have largely been excluded from climate change finance policies and programmes. This report examines four funds -climate funds and non-climate funds, to draw out the lessons for gender integration in global finance mechanisms. Women and girls must not only be included in adaptive and mitigative activities, but also recognized as agents of change who are essential to the success of climate change interventions.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Gender Issues, and Health

422. Land Titling as Women's Empowerment: Critical Observations from Recife Brazil

Author:
Regina K. Pritchett
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Development literature overwhelmingly argues in favor of formal property ownership (titling) as a practical intervention for poor women's empowerment and to address urban poverty. In this body of literature empowerment is equated with financial, social and politic al gains but it lacks a rigorous definition. Luke's three-dimensional power framework provides a methodology for critical assessment of empowerment. The chapter structures Luke's analysis around a case study from a center city slum in Recife, Brazil. Ultimately the chapter demonstrates how a critical definition of empowerment can move thinking and practice towards re-engineering titling process for gender equity in urban land markets.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Gender Issues, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Brazil and Latin America

423. Women, Migration and the Work of Care: The United States in Comparative Perspective

Author:
Sonya Michel
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
In most societies, responsibility for care—of children, the elderly, and those living with chronic illness or disability—has traditionally been assigned to women. Today, however, the gendered division of labor is being reordered worldwide. Since the 1990s, women's shift into paid labor in countries around the globe has strained their capacity to care for their families. The “care deficits” produced by this shift present a challenge to individuals seeking to reconcile work and family, as well as to national policymakers who must balance demands for care with those for equal opportunity for women, and for the full development and utilization of human capital. This issue also has a marked transnational dimension, as “global care chains” increasingly draw women from poorer nations to take up paid care work positions in richer ones, producing not just care deficits but “care drains” from sending countries.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Globalization, Health, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States

424. Dowry and Division: Youth and State Building in South Sudan

Author:
Marc Sommers and Stephanie Schwartz
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Most South Sudanese youth are undereducated and underemployed, and their priorities and perspectives are largely unknown. To address this critical knowledge gap, the authors conducted field research between April and May 2011 with youth, adults, and government and nongovernment officials in Juba and two South Sudanese states. The increasing inability of male youth to meet rising dowry (bride price) demands was the main research finding. Unable to meet these demands, many male youth enlist in militias, join cattle raids, or seek wives from different ethnic groups or countries. Skyrocketing dowry demands have negatively and alarmingly affected female youth. They are routinely viewed as property that can generate family wealth. Potent new postwar identities involving youth returning from Khartoum, refugee asylum countries, and those who never left South Sudan, are stimulating hostility and conflict. Excess demand on government jobs, widespread reports of nepotism in government hiring practices, cultural restrictions against many kinds of work, and a general lack of entrepreneurial vision are fueling an exceptionally challenging youth employment situation. Gang activities continue to thrive in some urban centers in South Sudan. They are reportedly dominated by youth with connections to government officials and by orphans. While most undereducated youth highlighted dowry and marriage as their primary concerns, members of the elite youth minority emphasized vocational training and scholarships for higher education. While South Sudanese youth view their government as the primary source of education, jobs, and hope, the government of South Sudan does not appear poised to provide substantial support to vital youth priorities related to dowry, employment, education, and training. The government of South Sudan and its international partners need to proactively address nonelite youth priorities. They must find ways to cap dowry demands, protect female youth, and support orphan youth, in addition to expanding quality education, job training, and English language training.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Gender Issues, Political Economy, Sociology, and Youth Culture
Political Geography:
Africa and South Sudan

425. Gender in Transition: The Case of North Korea

Author:
Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
This paper uses a survey of 300 North Korean refugees to examine the experience of women in North Korea's fitful economic transition. Like other socialist states, North Korea has maintained a de jure commitment to women's rights. However, we find that women have been disproportionately shed from state-affiliated employment and thrust into a market environment characterized by weak institutions and corruption. As a result, the state and its affiliated institutions are increasingly populated by males, and the market, particularly in its retail aspects, is dominated by women. Among the most recent cohort of refugees to leave North Korea, more than one-third of male respondents indicate that criminality and corruption is the best way to make money, and 95 percent of female traders report paying bribes to avoid the penal system. In short, the increasingly male-dominated state preys on the increasingly female-dominated market. These results paint a picture of a vulnerable group that has been disadvantaged in North Korea's transition. Energies are directed toward survival, mass civil disobedience is reactive, and as a group, this population appears to lack the tools or social capital to act collectively to improve their status.
Topic:
Corruption, Gender Issues, Markets, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Israel and North Korea

426. Pro-poor Growth through Export Sector Support: What Works Where and Why

Author:
Peter Gibbon and Henrik Nielsen
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This report reviews international experiences with pro-poor development assistance to export sectors. Such support has become more common in the last decade and a half, following the emergence of widespread consensus amongst policymakers that export growth can be a key poverty reduction mechanism – since it should increase both national income and formal employment. This contributes to poverty reduction directly through increased employment and indirectly through creating additional resources for governments to pursue pro-poor policies. Nevertheless, policymakers normally also agree that some types of export growth are more (potentially) pro-poor than others, especially but not only in their employment effects. It is initiatives to respond to this challenge that will be treated in this report.
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, Poverty, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Africa

427. Sri Lanka: Women's Insecurity in the North and East

Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Women in Sri Lanka's predominantly Tamil-speaking north and east are facing a desperate lack of security in the aftermath of the long civil war. Today many still live in fear of violence from various sources. Those who fall victim to it have little means of redress. Women's economic security is precarious, and their physical mobility is limited. The heavily militarised and centralised control of the north and east – with almost exclusively male, Sinhalese security forces – raises particular problems for women there in terms of their safety, sense of security and ability to access assistance. They have little control over their lives and no reliable institutions to turn to. The government has mostly dismissed women's security issues and exacerbated fears, especially in the north and east. The international community has failed to appreciate and respond effectively to the challenges faced by women and girls in the former war zone. A concerted and immediate effort to empower and protect them is needed.
Topic:
Security, Economics, and Gender Issues
Political Geography:
South Asia and Sri Lanka

428. Investir dans l'agriculture au Burundi: Indispensable pour combattre l'insécurité alimentaire et améliorer les conditions de vie des femmes paysannes

Author:
Paula San Pedro
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
L'agriculture est vitale pour le Burundi. C' est le pilier de l'économie qui emploie 90 % de la population, fournit 95% de l'offre alim entaire, contribue à presque 35% du produit intérieur brut (PIB) et représente 90% des re cettes d'exportation grâce à la vente de café et de thé. 1 Néanmoins, le développement de ce secteur est fortement volatil car il dépend de conditions météorologiques très variabl es, de prix internationaux fluctuants et d'une stabilité politique très fragile.
Topic:
Agriculture, Gender Issues, Political Economy, and Food
Political Geography:
Africa

429. Care and Support of Male Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence

Author:
Michael Peel, Wynne Russell, Alastair Hilton, Lizle Loots, and Liz Dartnall
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Abstract:
The world is increasingly aware that armed conflict and sexual violence against women and girls often go hand in hand. However, armed conflict also brings danger of sexual violence for men and boys. Male survivors of sexual violence are less likely than women and girls to disclose assaults (Callender and Dartnall 2011), with the result that such violence is "vastly under-represented" in official statistics (WHO 2002: 154). Nevertheless, sexual violence against men and boys—including rape, sexual torture and mutilation, castration, sexual humiliation, forced incest and forced rape, and sexual enslavement—is a pervasive feature of armed conflicts around the globe. It can emerge in any form of conflict—from interstate wars to civil wars to localised conflicts—and in any cultural context (Russell 2008).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Gender Issues, Human Rights, War, and Sex Trafficking

430. A systematic review of parenting interventions to prevent child abuse tested with Randomised Control Trial (RCT) designs in high income countries

Author:
Laura McCloskey
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Abstract:
Child abuse is not a stand-alone family problem, and is associated with multiple risk factors. Some demographic risk factors which correlate with child abuse are low family income; bearing a child before age 18; mother unmarried and low educational attainment. Psychosocial risks include drug or alcohol dependency, depression and parenting stress. Finally, parents who are coercive, lack knowledge about childrearing, and tend to blame infants and children for age appropriate behaviors are at risk for abusing their children. Many parenting interventions reviewed in this paper target more than one risk factor.
Topic:
Demographics, Gender Issues, Human Rights, Poverty, and Sociology