This report marks the fifth anniversary of the UN Millennium Declaration and the tenth anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action. It argues that unless governments and policymakers pay more attention to employment, and its links to poverty, the campaign to make poverty history will not succeed, and the hope for gender equality will founder on the reality of women’s growing economic insecurity. The report makes the case for an increased focus on women’s informal employment as a key pathway to reducing poverty and strengthening women’s economic security. It provides data on the size and composition of the informal economy and compares national data on average earnings and poverty risk across different segments of the informal and formal workforces in six developing countries and one developed country to show the links between employment, gender and poverty. It looks at the costs and benefits of informal work and their consequences for women's economic security.

"The undersigned organizations who are subscribers and readers of The Herald on a daily basis write to protest in the strongest terms violence against women in your newsrooms. As civic society organizations we are gravely worried that civilized spaces like your newsrooms and offices have become unsafe and hostile spaces for women in your employ."

The Women's Rights Division (WRD) of Human Rights Watch was established in 1990 to monitor state-sponsored or state-tolerated violence and sex discrimination against women in all regions of the world. Much of its work consists of gathering detailed information on abuses against women and publishing reports that are as reliable, comprehensive and timely as possible, so as to effect change in repressive practices and improve respect for women's rights throughout the world.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is a worldwide network of judges and lawyers united in affirming international law and rule of law principles that advance human rights. The ICJ’s international secretariat in Geneva is seeking to recruit a Legal Officer to lead its recently established work on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The management structure of many non-profit organisations is dominated by men and often functions as a reflection of wider inequalities in society, states Shola Oshodi. Managers – mainly men – have often paid lip service to redressing imbalances and even when programmes have been developed they have been implemented as an adjunct to other factors or programs. In this context, Oshodi calls for a more gender fair culture within the non-profit sector.

In recent times the words gender and empowerment have become more and more a part of the development discourse. Different meanings, contexts and perceptions have been ascribed to it by different people depending on which side of the divide one is on. It has become a major issue that international or transnational NGO donors have now made part of their criteria in funding other organisations and their programs. But can one really say that gender and empowerment are reflected in these organisations themselves? Can the non-profit sector successfully become engendered without empowerment?

The importance of gender and empowerment in NGO’s cannot be overemphasized. Over the years these two terminologies have, to some extent, brought about a new awareness and raised the interest and determination of people in development to deal with age-old traditions, mindsets and assumptions that have stereotyped and affected more than half of the world’s population. Although these issues are currently being dealt with, more needs to be done if the desired objective of equality and justice for all is to be achieved, especially as it relates to the nonprofit sector as an institution.

Organisational culture, according to Kelleher et al (1996), “is the pattern of shared beliefs, and values that has worked to solve important organizational problems in the past” [Grabbing the tiger by the Tail, (CCIC, 1996), P.42]. These values and beliefs include and are not limited to patriarchy, bureaucracy, work behavior, workplace politics, symbols, power and masculine principles. These values and beliefs were typical of the first set of NGO’s, which came to shape and govern the way nonprofit business is conducted today. These stem from the society in which the founders and leaders grew up. The prevailing organisational culture today is predominantly what is obtainable in the larger society, and this is patriarchal and hegemonic and seeks to promote male interest over all others. Given the above definition one can by the same token say that organisational culture has also worked against solving important organisational problems of gender and empowerment within the non-profit sector. Men occupy most of the top positions in the non-profit sector in a similar way to what can be found in the private and public sector. It is a reflection of the bureaucratic and patriarchal culture of the larger society.

The structure of organisations have also not helped matters as most of the “substructure of organisations remains essentially patriarchal: designed by men, led by men in ways comparable with men’s interest” [Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail (CCIC, 1996), p. 13]. Such structures range from the composition of the management team to board membership. Therefore, the management of non-profits - mainly by men - leaves one with a big question of how can men with mindsets and stereotypes that see women as subordinates and lesser equals actively plan and execute development programs for women. These policies or activities cannot effectively tackle issues that relate and dwell on the subordination and disempowerment of women.

Prevailing organisational culture and structure have coloured and brought about several inimical attitudes on the part of players in the non profit sectors in handling the issue of bringing a gender perspective into their organisation and work. “It is an inconvenience to some, … others nod in agreement, but postpone taking the responsibility, … yet others give in to denial that NGO’s might even perpetuate social inequalities” [Clayton Andrew, NGO’s Civil Society and the State: Building Democracy in Transitional Societies, (1996),P72]. In general, they pay lip service to gender issues in their organisation while others pay little or insignificant attention. On the whole, it has been shown that even those who have made it part of their organisation’s objective, most of the time treat it as an adjunct to other factors or programs they believe are more important.

In fact women’s movements have had to spearhead and place the issue of gender and empowerment at the forefront of the development discourse, leaving these movements with the responsibility of negotiating and bargaining with men and powerful masculine institutions. Right from the 18th century till today, the women’s movement “have organised against inequalities based on sex and demanded legal reforms aimed at removing patriarchy within the family and society” [New C, cited in Jackson and Pearson, Feminist Visions of Development, (1998, London and New York) P75]. This has been done by seeking legislative reform and through lobbying of international bodies like the UN to advocate for women’s rights.

In addition, these movements have succeeded in moving women’s interest into the public arena of politics, economics and power institutions through the reframing of issues into rights for women while at the same time advocating for women’s right to occupy positions of power in terms of political and economic decision making within the society.

If one examines NGOs, would NGO’s themselves be truthfully labeled as organisations that further the pressing issues of gender and empowerment through the setup of their own organisations? NGO’s have often allocated resources and implemented various programs to help women, but often these were actually designed and implemented by men. Furthermore, as a way of upholding the prevalent status quo between the sexes, they have sought to remove and substitute the word “women” with gender.

It is highly important that the terminology gender should be used together with the word women to make NGO's in the development circle grab the bull by the horn instead of providing them with a term under which they hide and embellish their unwillingness - intentionally or otherwise - to bring about equality and justice within the development world.

Gender issues should not only be tackled from the feminine perspective, but also from the masculine, in terms of re-educating men to change their perception of women’s role /position which should in turn bring about a change in the nature of men’s participation which would better foster the empowerment of women. Rowlands, (1998) notes that eliminating male bias and moving women out of the condition of near-universal subordination that they still currently occupy, will require cultural, economic and political changes [Afshar Haleh, Women and Empowerment (1998), P17].

Although there have been various attempts to treat gender and empowerment as separate and distinct terms in development, both are interrelated. One cannot function or successfully be achieved without the other. For some time now the focus has been on the number of women employed as against men without a correlation of the type of job/positions women are employed in or occupy in the non-profit sector. I sincerely believe that the issue of gender cannot be fully treated without empowerment. An organisation, in complying with the request on the need to ensure some sort of gender fairness, may still perpetuate bias, inequality and injustice by employing women at the lower cadre of the organization.

There is a need for development managers especially in sub-Saharan Africa to work towards transforming the formulation and execution of development policies from the way it stands now into more “feminist values of openness, fair treatment, clear lines of accountability, unity and shared responsibility and above all a commitment to people trust” [Kelleher et al, Grabbing the tiger by the Tail, (CCIC, 1996), P41]. Empowerment for women may well stem from the involvement and leadership of women at all levels rather than the inclusion of women for the sake of “number equality” as many people think or advocate. As rightly pointed out by Fowler, (1997) this would be further aided by a gender fair culture within NGO practices [Fowler Alan, Striking a Balance: A guide to Enhancing the Effectiveness of Non-Governmental Organizations in International Development (1997, London :Earthscan), P79].

* Shola Oshodi-John is the Programme Coordinator for the Civil Liberties Organization, Nigeria’s foremost human rights and membership based organization. She has worked with international organizations and women’s groups within and outside Nigeria for the past six years with a focus on international development, gender and public policy and non-profit management.

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The SADC and Gender 2005 campaign is a partnership that aims to raise the current target of women in decision-making from thirty to fifty percent, and to elevate the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development to a Protocol. The main focus of the campaign was the SADC Heads of State summit in Gaborone from 17-18 August 2005.

This is a three-day series of activities with the main events being an International Women's conference, an exhibition and Edutainment Show. This seeks to bring women activists from all over the world to share their skills, experiences and knowledge in solidarity with other women. The conference aims to help mobilise and raise awareness about how poverty is created, its local and global impacts and how best it can be eradicated to enhance gender equality.

A new report, released by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in anticipation of the 2005 World Summit, argues for closer attention to the role of women, particularly working poor women, in the informal economy, and the impact of this on efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals. UNIFEM's report, Progress of the World's Women 2005: Women, Work and Poverty, is the third publication in a biennial series first introduced in 2000 to track and measure the world's commitments to gender equality.

This paper presents key elements for the development of a conceptual framework that will allow a better understanding of the interrelationships between migration, gender, remittances and development. It identifies the main elements that are in play and that cannot be overlooked in a gender analysis of the sending, use and impact of remittances. The framework aims to establish the basis for formulating a more adequate response to questions such as: how does the growing feminisation of migration affect remittance flows? How can remittances contribute to the achievement of gender equality? And how can remittances be mobilised to achieve sustainable development that includes women?

Swazi businesswomen say the floundering national economy will benefit from their entrepreneurial talents when they are no longer constrained by discriminatory laws. Gender rights activists in Swaziland often use the story of businesswoman Thandi Khumalo to illustrate the personal and economic devastation that can result from Swazi women's lack of legal status as adults in traditional law. "She was robbed of everything she owned because, by Swazi custom, she was a minor. Her male relatives cheated her of everything she had earned as a brilliant businesswoman. That is why we are placing our hopes on the new national constitution, which is supposed to guarantee equality for women," said Cynthia Khumalo, Thandi's niece and a businesswoman in the central commercial city of Manzini.

Every day, Minta, a 40 year-old mother of six, fetches water for the household, does the laundry in the river, labours on her millet farm and, if there is food, prepares the family meals before collapsing into bed, exhausted. But during this particularly difficult lean season, there is no food, and the daily grind has become even more unbearable. With her youngest child wasting away from hunger, Minta has had to walk three hours in the scorching sun on an empty stomach in the hope of getting some food aid.

This paper assesses the implications of the current non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations for developing countries with a particular focus on the impact on women. It highlights that if the major countries get their way, tariffs on industrial products will have tremendously negative impacts on industrial development in developing countries. Effects are likely to spread across three broad areas: budgetary and financial, employment / livelihood and entrepreneurship survival and growth prospects.

The Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance on August 19 welcomed the decision by leaders at the just-ended SADC summit to endorse the African Union position on gender parity in all areas of decision-making. But the alliance expressed disappointment at the failure by Heads of State to seize the first opportunity open to them following this decision to “walk the talk” by appointing a woman to one of the two top positions in the SADC secretariat despite competent women having applied. The final communiqué is also silent on the recommendation made by the Council of Ministers that the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development be elevated to a Protocol for Accelerating Gender Equality. The Alliance issued a press release following the summit, which you can read by clicking on the URL provided.

The Gender & Diversity Program (G&D) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has announced the first 11 awardees of a new fellowship programme for women crop scientists working in national research institutes and universities in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The programme is supported by The Rockefeller Foundation and implemented by G&D. "The fellowship supports professional growth in both scientific expertise and people management, facilitating development of female science leaders and strengthening their institutions," said Ms Vicki Wilde, G&D Program Leader.

The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) funds local, national, sub-regional and regional organisations in Africa working towards women’s empowerment. The AWDF is an institutional capacity-building and programme development fund, which aims to help build a culture of learning and partnerships within the African women’s movement.

This paper sets out to look at the question of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in relation to women’s development in Africa. The emphasis is on current issues and the paper highlights key issues and challenges faced by women in Africa and to a smaller extent, globally. The paper provides examples of good practice and includes recommendations to Civil Society Organisations on how to create an enabling environment for women to access and use ICTs for development.

The African Union has finally confirmed the ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) on the Rights of Women in Africa by Cape-Verde. There are now twelve instruments of ratification deposited out of the fifteen that are needed for it to enter into force. The Council of Ministers of Togo adopted at its meeting of July 27th 2005 in Lomé a bill authorizing the ratification.

In advance of the 43rd anniversary of Africa Women's Day on Sunday, Amnesty International called on African governments that have not yet done so to ratify the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Protocol) quickly and without reservations. The Protocol, adopted on 11 July 2003 by the African Union (AU) Assembly of Heads of State and Government has to date received only 11 ratifications. Fifteen ratifications are required for the Protocol to enter into force. The AU Assembly at its 2nd Summit in 2003 in Maputo, Mozambique expressed a commitment to achieve a speedy and regional wide ratification of the Protocol.

Amnesty International is concerned about the on-going intimidation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights activists in Uganda. The latest incident follows steps taken by Ugandan law-makers in July 2005, who voted for a constitutional amendment to criminalize marriage between persons of the same sex. Activist Victor Juliet Mukasa, Chairperson of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), fears for her safety after her house was raided on the night of 20 July 2005. Local government officials in a suburb of the capital city, Kampala, entered her house in her absence and seized documents and other material, apparently looking for “incriminating evidence” relating to the activities of SMUG.

Although greater efforts have been made to curb malaria and HIV/AIDS in Malawi, not enough is being done to tackle the country's alarming maternal death rate, says a coalition of local NGOs. Maternal mortality stood at 1,800 per 100,000 live births in 2003 - the second worst rate in the world after Sierra Leone, according to the United Nations. In an analysis of the 2005/06 health budget the Economic Justice Network (EJN), a coalition of around 70 civil rights bodies, recommended that the authorities implement a "deliberate policy" to address the problem.