BRIDGE supports gender advocacy and mainstreaming efforts by bridging the gaps between theory, policy and practice.
In a world facing enormous challenges across regions - accelerating climate change, fundamentalisms, militarism, pervasive gender based violence, and rocketing macro-economic instability - the work of social justice movements has never been more important. But as these movements fight for justice, equality and positive social, political and economic transformation, how much attention is paid to the power relations within movements themselves? Who makes the decisions, whose voices are heard and who claims to speak for whom? Social movements exist within societies where unequal power relations are rife; it is perhaps inevitable that these power relations will seep into movements and even thrive there. But movements also have the potential to transform the inequalities within their midst, leading the way toward alternative models of mobilisation that set an example of the kind of wider change they seek to achieve.
On Friday leaders of the G8 meet to launch a new food security initiative focusing on Ethiopia, Ghana Tanzania, Mozambique, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso. The launch couldn’t be more timely. Estimates suggest that the Horn of Africa food crisis continues to have an impact on more than 13 million people, most of them women and children. Between 50,000 to 100,000 people have died. This year’s drought, poor harvests and soaring food prices has led to a food crisis where 6 million people in Niger are now significantly at risk, together with 2.9m in Mali and 700,000 in Mauritania. Women face many constraints when trying to secure food. They often have a lack of access to resources including seeds and technical information. Within the household, women in poor families may eat less so that men and children can eat better or because it is culturally accepted for men and boys to eat first. Is the G8 going to place gender aware thinking at the heart of their new initiative?
Based on the Gender and Climate Change Cutting Edge Programme, Eldis have recently launched a Gender and Climate Change Key Issues Guide. This guide examines areas like the impact of climate change on women and men, why gender-aware thinking is crucial in climate change policies and how women are key players in climate change solutions. It provides an introduction to the issues, summaries and online access to inspiring documents and links to key organisations.
BRIDGE is delighted to announce their new Cutting Edge Pack on Gender and Climate Change. Produced in collaboration with policy, donor, and advocacy experts and NGOS based around the globe, it provides a transformative and rights based approach in which to tackle climate change and address gender inequality.
This Cutting Edge Pack hopes to inspire thinking and action. It contains the Overview Report offering a comprehensive gendered analysis of climate change which demystifies many of the complexities in this area and suggests recommendations for researchers, NGOSs and donors as well as policymakers at national and international level. The Supporting Resources Collection provides summaries of key texts and contacts of organisations in this field, whilst a Gender and Development In Brief newsletter contains three articles including two case studies outlining innovative local led solutions.
Gender justice and ending hunger are closely entwined, interdependent goals. Solving hunger now and in the future involves challenging the current global development model which permits and is driven by inequality. Gender analysis shows that women are providers of food as producers, processors, traders, cooks and servers. However, despite their vast contribution, women are still often excluded or have limited access to resources, credit, information and markets, greatly limiting their productivity and food security. For example, many women in developing countries are unable to own or control land in their own right, and have less access to resources such as seeds. To add to this, unequal gender roles, responsibilities and workloads often leave women exhausted and malnourished.
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BRIDGE is one of a family of knowledge services from IDS
