Life without discrimination may be a reality for many Western women but in Ethiopia, the road to equality remains a daily struggle. Ethiopian women are still subjected to genital mutilation and arranged marriages, and suffer a lack of access to education - infringements of women's basic human rights which are denying them the opportunity to improve their lives in one of the world's poorest countries.

The African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) is the first Africa-wide fundraising and grant-making fund that aims to support the work of organisations working to promote women's rights in Africa. The AWDF funds local, national, sub-regional and regional organisations in Africa working towards women's empowerment.

The Global Fund for Women is inviting organisations outside of the United States of America to submit proposals for projects to improve women's human rights. The Global Fund for Women offers small, flexible, and timely general-support grants ranging from US$500 to US$15,000.

For the first time, Kenyan men are admitting that they are at the receiving end of domestic violence. Battered men have now set up a body to protect them from their spouses. The organisation, 'Men for Gender Equality Change Now', was relatively unknown in the country until a dramatic case of a desperate man, seeking assistance, came to the fore.

Dr. Linus Ettyang was at home in his Nairobi suburb last year when he saw a woman lying under a tree near his house, bleeding profusely from an incomplete abortion or miscarriage. He quickly put the woman in the car and drove her to the nearest hospital, run by missionaries. But the nursing sisters turned the patient away, saying they didn't treat women suffering from abortion complications. According to a report released earlier this month by the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Population Fund and UNICEF, women in Africa have the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, with women having a staggering 1-in-16 lifetime chance of dying while pregnant.

Christopher Senteza is a committed Christian who has been with his partner for six years. But Christopher is also gay, something the church in Uganda frowns upon and the state can throw you in prison for.

Ghana is scheduled to hold both presidential and parliamentary elections next year – a prospect that has galvanized the country’s women. A series of meetings is being held nationwide to draft a women’s manifesto for the two polls. Organisers hope this will end a situation where – as they put it – women have been left behind in the democratisation process.

The Algerian government has set up a commission to revise the north African country's family code to improve women's rights, an official said on Monday. Under the current code, based mainly on Islam's strict Sharia law and adopted in 1984, women must submit to male protection throughout their lives.

The ongoing conflicts in Sudan have largely interfered with family cohesion, with most men going into permanent hiding to avoid execution or conscription into enemy forces. There is now hope, however, for the abandoned women, following last week's affirmation that a final deal could end the 20-year-old civil war.

Nice Mulejo was just 9 years old when her father decided to pull her out of school and give her away for marriage. But two days before the wedding, a concerned teacher learned of the preparations and begged Mulejo's father to allow the girl to attend school for one more day. When he reluctantly agreed, the teacher used the extra day to whisk Mulejo off to a government boarding school for girls.

Parliament has passed a Bill seeking to establish an autonomous National Commission on Gender and Development. The commission will co-ordinate and facilitate gender mainstreaming in national development. It will also initiate legal reforms on issues affecting women.

In last week's parliamentary elections, the number of women legislators increased by 150 percent in a country where women candidates had complained that it is difficult for them to be taken seriously as representatives or as authority figures because of their gender.

Rights campaigners in Uganda are demanding a law to protect women from domestic violence, which has been blamed for the high prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS among them. The campaigners, mostly women's groups, have argued that lack of such legislation would water down efforts to fight the pandemic.

From October 24 until November 21st 2003, young women from across the globe will connect in an electronic forum to discuss strategies for integration of gender dimensions and empowerment of young women and girls at all levels of the ICT for development field. Their goals will be to identify challenges, prioritize needs for support and uncover strategies for building communities of learning, that will allow young women to begin or advance their engagement with ICTs.

From October 24 until November 21st 2003, young women from across the globe will connect in an electronic forum to discuss strategies for integration of gender dimensions and empowerment of young women and girls at all levels of the ICT for development field. Their goals will be to identify challenges, prioritize needs for support and uncover strategies for building communities of learning, that will allow young women to begin or advance their engagement with ICTs.

The Look FIRST (Full Impact Review and Screening of Trade) Campaign calls for policy-makers to conduct studies of all trade agreements before they are signed, using the Trade Impact Review, a study designed by the Women’s Edge Coalition.

Rwanda's historic elections sent the world's highest share of women to parliament, knocking long-time champion Sweden from the top spot, the Inter-Parliamentary Union said on Wednesday. Rwanda's women now occupy 48,8 percent of the seats.

Increasingly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the context within which women's human rights are to be protected and realized is one of decentralized or decentralizing states. The IDRC Gender Unit is launching a competitive call for proposals for research investigating whether and how contemporary decentralization reforms, in practice, contributes to or on the contrary hinders the realization and protection of women's and girls' civil, political, social, economic and/or cultural rights.

A low-key parliamentary election in Swaziland at the weekend yielded a new crop of MPs that includes the head of a banned opposition political party and a sharp increase in the number of women legislators.

Gender equality and violence against women presented continuing challenges to the international community, Angela King, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, told a United Nations committee last week, as it began its consideration of issues related to the advancement of women. Gender equality was the responsibility of everyone, and the international community must promote the advancement of women in political, economic and social spheres, she continued.