An innovative health and human rights program in Senegal is on the brink of eradicating a centuries-old custom that involves excising large parts of the female genitalia, a custom which can have a debilitating effect on women's reproductive and general health, as well as their overall quality of life. It's known to most as female genital mutilation, or FGM, and currently some 2 million women around the world are subjected to it every year.

Over the past decade, progress has been made on the African continent in the area of women’s political and economic empowerment. Although the road to women’s full incorporation in the areas of development, peace building and politics in long and replete with obstacles, recent developments at the regional level provide space for optimism. This is according to Prof. Maria Nzomo, the Kenya High Commissioner to Zimbabwe, who was speaking in October at a keynote address made at a Regional Strategy Meeting on Women's Political Participation and Gender Mainstreaming in AU and NEPAD.

Despite the many international commitments to gender equality, much remains to be done in terms of mainstreaming commitment to gender equality into development. It seems that the major global development institutions appear currently to be more concerned with mainstreaming trade into development. For example, the outcomes of the major international conferences, from the International Conference on Financing for Development to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, show a great deal of progress made in mainstreaming trade into development. Women’s rights and gender activists have voiced their concern that this progress is paralleled by lip service to gender equality and women’ s rights, says this article from the journal Gender and Development: Women Reinventing Globalisation.

National women leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mrs Josephine Anenih, has urged women politicians in the country to resist intimidation and face political challenges squarely. Anenih told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the weekend in Amawbia, near Awka, that name-calling, blackmail, harassment and intimidation had become serious impediments to the active participation of women in politics.

The increase of the global degradation of ecosystems, the excessive consumption of water, contamination and salinization of water-bearings, aquifers and dams, along with the impact of extreme poverty which has been worsened by privatization, are contributing factors to an environmental catastrophe. This has had profound effects on the availability of drinking water and, consequently, has led to the violation of the right to life, safety, food, health and education of billions of human beings. Women are the most affected by this crisis. More than half of the 1.2 billion people who do not have access to water are women and girls.

The government of the Central African Republic should appoint women to a male-only Ministry of Planning committee charged with vetting projects for submission to donors, a former government minister, Lucienne Goddot, said. "It is difficult to get a project presented by women's NGOs approved for funding [by the committee]," she told IRIN.

The Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's Studies at Carleton University and the Institute of Women's Studies at the University of Ottawa are launching a four year project to allow scholars from the developing world, working in the field of "Gender and Development", to spend a research term at their institutions. The purpose of this fund is to attract highly qualified researchers from developing countries.

Rural Uganda is a difficult place for women. Many women are the primary providers for households, either responsible for doing much of the agriculture work, or running a small business. Despite this role as providers, men, not women, usually have access to credit and local business exchanges. The Uganda chapter of the Council for the Economic Empowerment for Women of Africa (CEEWA) tries to rectify this problem and help women find the financial resources they need directly. In addition, as part of its Women's Information Resource Electronic Service (WIRES) initiative, CEEWA-Uganda recently brought information and communications technologies (ICTs) directly to the villages by building local telecentres.

UNICEF and The Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) at the New School would like to announce call for papers for an International Conference that will promote Social Policies for Children, Women and Family. The three-day Conference will be held from April 28th - 30th, 2004 (see time-line below) at the New School in New York. The papers at the Conference will present analytical and policy papers on the progressive realization of human rights and children's, women's, and family well-being issues based in the use of household data, especially Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS).

"If it were between countries, we’d call it a war. If it were a disease, we’d call it an epidemic. If it were an oil spill, we’d call it a disaster. But it’s happening to women, and it’s just an everyday affair. It’s violence against women, or simply, domestic violence." This is how Michael Kaufman, an American campaigner against gender-based violence described the degree of attention towards Violence Against Women (VAW) globally. As the world observes this year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, from 25 November to 10 December, southern African countries should take the opportunity to review and intensify the pace towards realising the goal to prevent and eradicate VAW and children in the sub-region.

About 80 percent of Zambian wives find it acceptable to be beaten by their husbands "as a form of chastisement", according to the latest Zambia Demographic Health Survey. Out of 5,029 women interviewed countrywide, 79 percent said they should be beaten if they went out without their husband's permission. Sixty-one percent said a beating was acceptable if they denied their husbands sex, while 45 percent said a beating was in order if they cooked 'bad' food.

Brigit Namwalo has nothing to celebrate. As the world marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25, she sat in her house, dejected, nursing a wound inflicted by her husband of 12 years. "I have lived in this abusive marriage for the last eight years. I really want to move out, but I fear that I may not be able to take care of my children," the mother of four told IPS in Nairobi.

As part of its support to the 16 Days of Activism on Gender Violence campaign the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) is circulating articles of the Gender and Media (GEM) Commentary Service for use in mainstream media. The GEM Commentary Service provides mainstream media with fresh perspectives on the news that affects the every day lives of women and men in Africa. Please indicate use of the articles by writing to Patricia Made on: [email protected]

The Global Fund for Women, an international network of women and men committed to a world of equality and social justice, advocates for and defends women's human rights by making grants to support women's groups around the world. The Global Fund makes grants to seed, support, and strengthen women's rights groups based outside the United States working to address human rights issues.

The much-touted New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) risks deepening African women's poverty, the Kampala, Uganda-based coordinator of the African Women's Economic Policy Network told more than 200 women last week in an All Africa Conference of Churches pre-Assembly. "It's a document at the macro level. It doesn't capture the micro realities. NEPAD favours putting raw materials into the market and keeping labour costs low. That labour has a woman's face," she said.

A new report, launched by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), highlights the urgency of making the elimination of violence against women a serious global priority. The report singles out gender inequality as the chief source and breeding ground for the continuing scale of violence against women.

The Anglican Church of Uganda said Saturday that it has severed ties with the Episcopal Church of the United States for elevating an openly gay man to the rank of bishop.

Women and girls should be safe in their homes, on the streets, in the workplace and in school, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA Executive Director, said on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination on Violence against Women on November 25. Yet, far too many live in fear and countless others have paid with their lives, she stated.

Violence and discrimination against women and girls is fuelling Africa's AIDS crisis, Human Rights Watch says in a report to be released on World AIDS Day. African governments must make gender equality a central part of national AIDS programs if they are to succeed in fighting the epidemic. The 40-page report, "Policy Paralysis: A Call for Action on HIV/AIDS-Related Human Rights Abuses Against Women and Girls in Africa," documents human rights abuses that women and girls suffer at each stage of their lives and that increase their risk for HIV infection.

"AMANITARE is a pan-African partnership that works to build an influential social movement to institutionalise the recognition of African women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights as fundamental to their civil and human rights. The struggle against gender-based violence is at the heart of AMANITARE’s work, with the recognition that violence is a widespread, brutal tool used to systematically control women’s bodies, self-expression and social and political participation. Violence denies African women and girls the agency granted as citizens and equal members of our communities. Violence against women is fuelled by a lack of recognition and respect for women’s rights to their bodies, and their rights to make decisions regarding their sexuality and fertility."