A new project has seen some of South Africa's finest handiwork appearing in some of the UK's most well-heeled stores. The accessories involved have been created by a novel partnership between 700 South African craft workers and six of London's best designers.

Innocentia Edwige A. Guedegbe created an association which encourages women in Benin to participate in the development of their community. Now women are members of parent-teacher associations and fight for their girls to have access to schooling. She is one of eight women from Africa nominated to receive the Prize for women's creativity in rural life from the Women’s World Summit Foundation.

Over 75 percent of HIV infections are transmitted through sexual relations between women and men. In countries where young people account for a high proportion of all new infections, HIV-positive young women may outnumber their male peers by as much as six times. Therefore, addressing gender roles and power dynamics between women and men, and how they impact on sexual relations and decision-making, is critical for effective prevention to ultimately halt the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This is according to a UNFPA programme brief on gender and HIV/AIDS.

This new on-line discussion provides an opportunity to explore with others the specific, concrete ways that reproductive health and women's economic status are interrelated, and how they are affected by gender roles and expectations.

Agenda is a feminist media project based in South Africa. One of our projects is the production of a quarterly journal ‘Agenda: Empowering women for Gender Equity on issues of women and gender in Africa’. We have embarked on a three-part journal series - one per year from 2001 to 2003 - entitled ‘African Feminisms’. The purpose of this series is to open up theoretical debate about the nature and condition of gender analysis and activism or women’s organisations in Africa and among African peoples.

A third of all women canvassed at three ante-natal clinics in a study in Soweto, South Africa, admitted to having had “transactional sex” in return for food, clothing, transportation, school fees, cash or gifts for their children – and were HIV positive.

This month, our Special Focus is on advancing women's economic, social and cultural rights. The section covers initiatives to highlight economic, social and cultural human rights (ESCRs) in gender-specific forums, as well as efforts to include gender perspectives in agendas and forums addressing ESCRs. Over the coming weeks, we will provide links to key documents and details of related projects and upcoming events.

Gender inequality is sometimes fatal, as people are learning this week at the International AIDS conference in Barcelona. In this, the third decade of the global AIDS pandemic, stigma against women infected with HIV/AIDS is one of the single greatest challenges that face us as we try to slow the spread of this deadly disease.

The face of AIDS is female. The international conference on AIDS being held this week in Barcelona bares the truth. Women - heterosexual women in sanctioned relationships - are the world's chief victims of AIDS. They are not yet a majority of those who suffer from AIDS but they will be, and soon. Some 44 percent of those who are HIV-positive are now women, according to a United Nations report prepared for the conference.

At least 150 women protesters have besieged Chevron-Texaco's main oil export facility in Nigeria's southern oil region to back demands for jobs for their children, company officials said on Wednesday.

African health rights activists and researchers from all sub-regions of the continent will meet to discuss issues with policy makers and health service providers -- bringing a forum for debate on some of the most critical issues of Gender and Health in Africa between 4 and 7 February, 2003 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Women are still poorly represented in management, a report from the Federation of Uganda employers released recently says. The report shows huge disparities in gender when it comes to management positions.

The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs yesterday began a two-day workshop on the situation of women and children in the country. The theme of the workshop "Promoting Gender Mainstreaming and Children's Rights Protection in Ghana" has the objective of creating a good working relationship between the ministry and the media to help educate the public on the harm of gender imbalances.

Maverick US attorney Ed Fagan and a team of South African lawyers have lodged a new class action that categorises women and children as specific complainants in a multibillion-rand lawsuit against companies thought to have benefited during the apartheid era.

Girls in Malawi have to overcome a mountain of sometimes insurmountable obstacles if they hope to complete their education, a new study has found. The girls' battle to get an education falls within the shocking statistic that only 20 percent of Malawi's children complete primary school.

As long as women were denied basic needs such as access to condoms and power to negotiate their sexual relationships, the HIV/AIDS epidemic would continue to increase, activists say.

The International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) based in Turin, Italy in collaboration with the Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) South Africa is offering an on-line distance learning programme of 12-weeks duration. Twenty participants will be registered on the three-module programme, running from 15 August to 15 November.

Women were particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and the pandemic was feasting on gender inequality, leading to an "accelerating catastrophe" for women, said Stephen
Lewis, the Secretary General's UN Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa in a statement.

The Eastern and Southern African Symposium on Young Women and HIV/AIDS, will take place in Nairobi, Kenya between 27-29 November. The theme is HIV/AIDS, Education and Youth.

WWF has recognized the efforts of two outstanding women for their role in conservation at an awards ceremony held last week in Washington, DC. Sushila Nepali of Nepal and Patricia Skyer of Namibia were selected to receive this year's awards for their conservation work in their native countries.