Caroline Sweetman – författare

This book links gender issues to the life-courses of women and men. Gender-based discrimination is experienced differently according to age, generation, and status in the family. In particular, female children and elderly women perform an enormous amount of the world’s work. endure appalling abuse of the human rights, and receive disproportionately few benefits from development. Writers here call for development policy and practice to recognise this vast contribution, and enforce the rights of women of all ages to an equal share of development outcomes. Other topics included here are the use of life-histories in understanding social and economic change; the economic survival of older people and children in an era of AIDS; the vulnerability of older men to gender-based abuse; girl-trafficking and AIDS; educating adolescent girls and boys to eradicate gender inequality; and the role of employment in changing young women’s status in society. Countries featured include Bangladesh, Mexico, Jordan, Tanzania, and Nepal. Authors include Maribel Blasco and Ann Varley, Sabina Rashid, and Sylvia Beales.

The articles in this collection explore the wide range of reasons why women and men decide to move within and outside their native countries, whether it be for employment, upon marriage or in response to conflict. The authors stress the importance of seeing an individual migrant in her or his context as a member of a social network, spanning different locations. Understanding these links helps us to understand migration as part of a wider strategy for making a living. The articles also explore how migration may offer women a chance to challenge oppressive gender relations: migrants are exposed to different ways of being and doing, which show that culture is neither universal or fixed. Conversely, migration may be a route into continuing gender-based discrimination, because women become isolated from their support systems.

The delivery of new technologies to communities in developing countries has been hailed as the key to economic and social progress. However, women’s experiences show that this view is an exaggeration, over-simplifying the potential of technology to deliver `development`. Different technologies in varying social contexts offer opportunities to challenge existing barriers to economic and political participation, but they can also be used to consolidate existing imbalances of power. This collection of articles from Gender and Development considers technologies of many kinds, including those intended to save women`s labour, to enable them to control their fertility and to learn and communicate using computer technology. Writers include Radhika Gajjala and Annapurna Mamidipudi, Heather Schreiner and Maggie Foster.

This collection of articles focuses on the Millennium Development Goals from a gender perspective. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of this way of understanding and addressing poverty, and suggests ways of strengthening the approach by using key insights and approaches associated with the thirty-year struggle to establish and uphold the rights of women. Contributions to this volume include articles on women’s rights, health, and education. Among the authors are Naila Kabeer, Noeleen Heyzer, Ceri Hayes, and Peggy Antrobuus.

In the face of extreme weather events, desertification and a rise in the sea levels, governments and communities increasingly recognize that the need to adapt and mitigate to climate change is urgent. The global agenda and negotiations focus on what governments, corporations and institutions can do in the search for large-scale technological solutions. Yet women, men and local communities all have roles, responsibilities and interests that hold the potential either to harm or benefit the environment. This book considers the gendered dimensions of climate change. It shows how gender analysis has been widely overlooked in debates about climate change and its interactions with poverty and demonstrates its importance for those seeking to understand the impacts of global environmental change on human communities. Ranging in scope from high-level global decision-making to local communities, the contributors examine the potential impacts of environmental degradation and change on vulnerable groups. They highlight the different vulnerabilities, risks and coping strategies of poor women and men in the face of environmental degradation and increased livelihood insecurity. They show how good gender analysis at all levels of policy-making and implementation is essential in ensuring equitable outcomes for women and men and key to creating climate change policies that work for poor people as well as for the rich.

Each one of us lives life as a carrier of multiple identities - including gender, race, class and age. The sum of these identities determines our opportunities in life, and empowers or disempowers us, depending on our context. This collection of articles focuses on the implications that this has for development goals of poverty alleviation and human rights. In particular, critiques from Southern women challenge development organisations for their inadequate and inappropriate policy and practice. Development programmes have addressed gender inequality as a key concern, but most organisations have yet to understand how other aspects of difference intersect with gender to unite and divide groups of women from each other. Improving development policy and practice means understanding inequality in its complexity, and developing ways of working which acknowledge difference, rather than suppress it. It means practising as we preach, by transforming our own organisational cultures. This entails confronting issues of power and inequality, and challenging racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Contributors to this issue include Ranjani K Murthy, Everjoice Win, and Dorine Plantenga. Case studies come from India, Zimbabwe, Latin America and the UK.

What are the differences between women’s and men’s experiences of health, sickness and health care? How does our gender identity affect our physical and mental wellbeing? Despite improvements in health indicators in many countries, developing countries are currently facing a health crisis. New diseases like HIV and drug-resistant strains of diseases including malaria, pneumonia and tuberculosis, are spreading. Many people in developing countries have never had access to formal medical services. Others have lost their access due to reductions in public spending as a result of structural adjustment policies, international debt repayments and the de-prioritisation of health against other sectors. This book argues that two fundamental changes are needed if both women and men are to achieve better health. The first of these is to ensure equal access to all the resources that men and women need for healthy minds and bodies: not only to medical care, but to food, water, shelter, a source of income and a sense of control over ones life. The second is to ensure that health services and resources enable women and men to meet all their physical and mental health needs. Articles included here focus on understandings of reproductive health; integrating gender issues into infectious disease prevention; the impact of HIV/AIDS on women; working with communities to promote health and on the monitoring and evaluation of health projects from a gender perspective.

Conflict, displacement and natural disasters are experienced differently by men and women from the different risks and vulnerabilities they face during disasters to their changing roles, relationships, responsibilities and resources in preparing for and coping with crisis. Despite this differences between men’s and women’s needs are not always fully integrated into humanitarian interventions. Addressing gender issues from the outset can make the difference between success and failure. This collection of articles explores the interface between gender and humanitarian work. Several contributors focus on humanitarian activity during natural disasters or analyse responses to conflict. Others consider the post-crisis period of reconstruction and provide lessons and recommendations for conflict resolution and peace-building. While the difficulties of integrating gender equity goals into interventions are acknowledged, the authors argue that gender-blind responses can further endanger the survival of women and their families and their long term position in society and also deny them the opportunity of exercising their potential as peace-builders.

Over the past 50 years, billions of dollars and working days have been expended on the development of countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific. The alleviation of poverty is the primary concern of many - though not all - organisations working in the development sector. This book examines how gender inequalities impact on men’s, women’s and children’s experiences of poverty and demonstrates the importance of integrating gender analysis into every aspect of development initiatives. Covering a range of issues including macro-level neo-liberal restructuring, poverty reduction strategies, gender budgets, education, HIV/AIDS, globalization and poverty in the north, the contributors bring new insights into impacts of gender-blind development policies at all levels. They show how gender equality forms an integral part of development which must be mainstreamed into all poverty alleviation programmes and development initiatives if these are to create positive outcomes for poor people.

Women all over the world are increasingly employed - and exploited - at the far end of the global supply chain. Whether by picking fruit in Chile, processing cashews in Mozambique, sewing in Chinas Export Processing Zones, or providing biotech companies with indigenous knowledge in India, women’s labour and skill are crucial elements in the scaling up of globalised production processes. It might be argued that women benefit in terms of status and income from this trend, but what are the hidden costs of new trade regimes, and do they outweigh the benefits? What do women stand to lose from trade agreements on agricultural products, intellectual property, and the movement of migrant labour? Contributors to this volume show how women are finding ways to influence national and international trade policy agendas in developed countries and are joining forces in global forums to campaign for reforms. Authors include Nazneen Kanji, Pun Ngai, Peggy Ntseane, Marceline Suman Sahai, and Marceline White. Case studies are cited from a wide range of countries, including Australia, Botswana, China, Mexico, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.

Over the past decade, organisations working on development issues have taken an increasing interest in women’s needs and rights. But working on promoting awareness of women’s marginalisation demands more than an equal opportunities policy. This book draws together the experience of organizations working to promote women''s full participation in the development process, looking at the obstacles that stand in the way. Issues examined include gender auditing; the institutionalization of gender; the experience of a UN agency of integrating gender into its country programme; the process of creating a gender strategy and using gender training.

Women are active players in reconciliation and post-conflict reconstruction processes. Moreover, sustainable peace depends on equal representation of all citizens in peacetime decision-making.This collection of articles explores conflict prevention through development projects in places where resources are scarce, and age-old agreements between groups come under strain. Other activities take place to arrest existing conflicts, by forming alliances across warring forces - the authors argue that women play a significant but underestimated role in this type of work. Most of their activities take place through grassroots organisations, due to their lack of access to formal decision-making. Traditional stereotypes of mothers and wives are invoked by many women to legitimise innovative conflict prevention strategies which men might otherwise question.Other articles here focus on women''s efforts to build lasting peace through transforming old inequitable government structures into democratic institutions. International organisations and NGOs tend to limit their focus to women''s welfare and protection in conflict and post-conflict situations, but they should focus as well on supporting women''s attempts to gain access to leadership.