Date: June 7-9, 2010.

The conference plans to focus on political, economic, social/cultural, and technological solutions.

This global meeting will expand on Women Deliver’s hallmark of exclusivity, reaching out to new partners and new communities.

With all these partners in one room, the aim is to further prove that maternal and reproductive health is a global priority.

Women Deliver 2010 will move the dialogue to the global arena with two strong messages:

1. The MDGs will not be achieved without investing in women.
2. There is just enough time, if the world commits funding now, to achieve MDG5 - additional US$10 billion annually by 2010 and US$20 billion by 2015.

For further information, please visit Women Deliver.

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) is committed to collaborating with project partners and stakeholders to promote and support dialogue in relation to women, gender and development. As part of our ongoing strategy to advocate for best practice in the sector, we are pleased to bring you E-Gender - a mechanism for Australian and international readers to share information on their gender and development work, both nationally and internationally, as well as sharing international resources and items of interest.

Thank you for your feedback to date, and we encourage your ongoing input in this initiative. IWDA is keen to feature information about resources, events and opportunities in Australia and invites you to contribute. Please send information to be included to egender-items@iwda.org.au

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Location: Budapest, Hungary.

Deadline for applications: April 10, 2010.

The Gender Equality Research Fellowship is a new ERRC programme, introduced in 2010.

This programme will provide the opportunity for interested individual activists working at a local level in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine to conduct research on gender equality issues that have been neglected up to now or on issues already researched, but looking at them through perspectives not yet explored.

The fellowship is expected to start in April/May and will last for approximately 6 months.

For the complete job description, please visit the ERRC website. 

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) is committed to collaborating with project partners and stakeholders to promote and support dialogue in relation to women, gender and development. As part of our ongoing strategy to advocate for best practice in the sector, we are pleased to bring you E-Gender - a mechanism for Australian and international readers to share information on their gender and development work, both nationally and internationally, as well as sharing international resources and items of interest.

Thank you for your feedback to date, and we encourage your ongoing input in this initiative. IWDA is keen to feature information about resources, events and opportunities in Australia and invites you to contribute. Please send information to be included to egender-items@iwda.org.au

#egender

IWDA is proud to say that Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls, Producer-Director of IWDA partner organisation fem’LINKPACIFIC, has recently been chosen to sit on the UN Expert Panel on the Role of Women in Peace and Security.

Congratulations Sharon! You are an extraordinary activist and voice for not only the women of the Pacific, but for women around the world, and we are delighted that your unwavering commitment to women, peace and security has been recognised in such an environment.

About the new civil society group

The United Nations has invited a newly established group of independent experts to advise on ways to better protect women in conflict situations, and to ensure that their voices are heard in peace processes and that they are included in post-conflict reconstruction and governance structures.

The establishment of the group of experts from civil society comes as the landmark Security Council resolution 1325 on the role of women in peace and security marks its tenth anniversary in 2010.

The expert group will advise a UN High-Level Steering Committee set up by Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro, which is tasked with enhancing the UN system’s efforts to implement the resolution.

To read more, please visit the UN News Centre

Women as Innovator Entrepreneurs: Generating Economic Growth and Job Creation

Program Dates:  August 8 - August 19, 2010

Application Deadline: Thursday, April 1, 2010

The 2010 program will focus on the important role that innovative entrepreneurship plays in contributing to economic growth and job creation.

Innovators may generally be defined as those who have created an original idea or product, are recognised for their ability to “build a better mouse-trap” or improve upon an original idea or find new arenas for application.

Launched in 2002, Changing Faces is a program designed to bring together women from the United States and the Asia Pacific region to participate in dialogue on leadership and issues specific to women in leadership around the region. 

This is an exciting opportunity for women to gain empowerment into the decision making processes of their communities and reach their full potential as leaders with greater responsibility and influence. MT.

For more information, please visit the East-West Center.

Please note, IWDA does not necessarily endorse all the information contained in the newsletter, it is provided as an intended source of reference.

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) is committed to collaborating with project partners and stakeholders to promote and support dialogue in relation to women, gender and development. As part of our ongoing strategy to advocate for best practice in the sector, we are pleased to bring you E-Gender - a mechanism for Australian and international readers to share information on their gender and development work, both nationally and internationally, as well as sharing international resources and items of interest.

Thank you for your feedback to date, and we encourage your ongoing input in this initiative. IWDA is keen to feature information about resources, events and opportunities in Australia and invites you to contribute. Please send information to be included to egender-items@iwda.org.au

It is commonly argued that cheaper imports reduce poverty in a country because they enable the poor to spend, which in turn boosts the economy.

But new research has cast doubt on this argument, with findings indicating that the majority of women, especially the poor, are unlikely to be able to take advantage of imports resulting from the new Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

Carolina Gottardo, Head of Policy and Advocacy at One World Action, which conducted the study with the Commonwealth Secretariat, explains that at first glance cheaper imports - including washing machines and gas cookers - “seem like a fantastic idea, especially for women who bear the brunt of most household duties in the developing world.”

Yet the reality, she says, is that these kind of goods which are affected by the new trade policies, do not benefit poor women.

This article highlights both the need for a gender based approach to trade negations in order for poor women to no longer be excluded from the poverty debate and offers recommendations as to how this can best be achieved. MT.

 To read more, please visit the Pacific Islands News Association.

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) is committed to collaborating with project partners and stakeholders to promote and support dialogue in relation to women, gender and development. As part of our ongoing strategy to advocate for best practice in the sector, we are pleased to bring you E-Gender - a mechanism for Australian and international readers to share information on their gender and development work, both nationally and internationally, as well as sharing international resources and items of interest.

Thank you for your feedback to date, and we encourage your ongoing input in this initiative. IWDA is keen to feature information about resources, events and opportunities in Australia and invites you to contribute. Please send information to be included to egender-items@iwda.org.au

Closing date: March 19, 2010

Anticipated Start Date: April 15, 2010

The Coordinator of Events and Operations ensures activities and operations run smoothly and efficiently so that the objectives and strategic priorities of Nobel Women’s Initiative are met and plans of action are successfully implemented.

The co-ordinator plays a key role in advancing Nobel Women’s Initiative’s core advocacy and policy agendas through successful coordination and implementation of Nobel Women’s Initiative’s projects and events.

For more information, please visit the Nobel Women’s Initiative.

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) is committed to collaborating with project partners and stakeholders to promote and support dialogue in relation to women, gender and development. As part of our ongoing strategy to advocate for best practice in the sector, we are pleased to bring you E-Gender - a mechanism for Australian and international readers to share information on their gender and development work, both nationally and internationally, as well as sharing international resources and items of interest.

Thank you for your feedback to date, and we encourage your ongoing input in this initiative. IWDA is keen to feature information about resources, events and opportunities in Australia and invites you to contribute. Please send information to be included to egender-items@iwda.org.au

The 45-member Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), presiding over one of the largest gatherings of women at the United Nations, listened to dozens of speakers spelling out the successes and failures of gender empowerment worldwide.

The stories covered a wide range of issues, including political under-representation, discrimination in employment, rise in maternal mortality, widespread sexual violence and the benefits of paid parental leave, Norwegian-style.

Bibiana Aido, Spain’s minister for equality, pointed out that the EU has come close to its goal of attaining 60 percent female participation in the labour force, with rates ranging from 37 percent to 73 percent. 

Still, she said, “women remain also largely under-represented among decision makers in the economy.”

This article highlights the areas of gender empowerment that have increased significantly over the past 15 years, along with identifying the key areas that continue to demand serious attention in order for improved equality for women to occur.  This article provides a very informative insight into the current progress of women’s empowerment world-wide. MT.

Please visit IPS to read more.

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) is committed to collaborating with project partners and stakeholders to promote and support dialogue in relation to women, gender and development. As part of our ongoing strategy to advocate for best practice in the sector, we are pleased to bring you E-Gender - a mechanism for Australian and international readers to share information on their gender and development work, both nationally and internationally, as well as sharing international resources and items of interest.

Thank you for your feedback to date, and we encourage your ongoing input in this initiative. IWDA is keen to feature information about resources, events and opportunities in Australia and invites you to contribute. Please send information to be included to egender-items@iwda.org.au

Women News Network (WNN) is dedicated to bringing you in-depth international women’s news not found in our current public media stream.

Women bear the brunt of a world water shortage that is getting more and more critical as clean water becomes more and more scarce.

The UN says two-thirds of people will face some degree of water shortage by 2025.

Women are taking the international problems of clean water management at a grass roots level today.

In Part One, WNN meets with Maude Barlow, author of the book “Blue Gold.”

In Part Two, WNN looks at women fighting back for control over their water resources.

This footage was initially released in 2007 but unfortunately these discussions are still too relevant today. It’s brilliant to hear the stories of female activists strengthening the movement and challenging traditional social roles. AC.

 Part One

http://vodpod.com/watch/215236-water-crisis-1-everywoman-women-and-the-politics-of-water

Part Two

http://vodpod.com/watch/215246-water-crisis-2-everywoman-women-and-the-politics-of-water

International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) is committed to collaborating with project partners and stakeholders to promote and support dialogue in relation to women, gender and development. As part of our ongoing strategy to advocate for best practice in the sector, we are pleased to bring you E-Gender - a mechanism for Australian and international readers to share information on their gender and development work, both nationally and internationally, as well as sharing international resources and items of interest.

Thank you for your feedback to date, and we encourage your ongoing input in this initiative. IWDA is keen to feature information about resources, events and opportunities in Australia and invites you to contribute. Please send information to be included to egender-items@iwda.org.au

#egender

Jane Sloane - IWDA Executive Director

Two or three things I know for sure

The snowy streets of New York feel far away from the summer warmth of Australia and yet the buzz and energy of so many women, and smaller numbers of men, descending on New York from all quarters of the globe creates its own fire.

The occasion is the 54th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the annual fortnight long event where government and non government representatives from around the world gather to discuss progress on gender equality and on initiatives that advance this cause.

I’m here with IWDA President, Mary Hawkins, and yesterday we presented the Asia Pacific Breakthrough model to the United Nations, as a replicable model for the creation of Women, Faith and Development Alliances in other countries designed to influence policy decisions and political will and to leverage significant funds focused on improving the lives of women and girls.  We joined the co-founders of Washington Breakthrough and the US Women, Faith and Development Alliance at this session and we jointly launched a global Women, Faith and Development Alliance.

It was a stunning session, graced by the presence of Her Excellency, Mary Robinson, who played a key leadership role with Breakthrough and in supporting the creation of a Women, Faith and Development Alliance.  In her address, Her Excellency shared with us the work in which she is engaged with a group of eminent elders where their focus is on dignity as an inalienable human right which deserves more attention. Dignity. It’s something we work for everyday in our work with women.

In question time afterwards, a Muslim woman stood up,very emotional and said “I go to so many secular sessions here at CSW where there seems no place to speak about my experience. Here, I can speak. And I ask again, why I am I so silent on the issues I face as a woman?”  “Thank you”, said another woman, “for remembering the needs of rural women in your alliance and in your work.”

Question time was also an opportunity for Susan Brennan, President of the World YWCA, to  encourage us all to ensure that young women are embraced and supported in such a network. The sense of energy and embrace in the room was palpable. As Mrs Robinson said, ‘this is an idea whose time has come’.

There were other reasons to feel energised. Thanks to the advocacy efforts of many NGOs, including IWDA, three Indigenous women from Australia joined the CSW delegation this year, funded by the Australian government.

One of the women from the Solomon Islands who spoke at the Breakthrough Summit, Ruth Maetala, so electrified her audience that she attracted funding to also participate in CSW. “I blame Breakthrough for this!” she laughingly said when we saw her in New York, trying to adjust from balmy Solomon Islands weather to the freezing temperatures in New York city. How good it is to know that another Pacific women’s voice will be heard at this forum.

We received great encouragement from one UN funding agency for our newly-formed Asia Pacific Women, Faith and Development Alliance, and for a proposed campaign-led approach in relation to maternal, sexual and reproductive health and addressing violence against women.  So hopefully funds may flow to support this work.

Meeting with the Director of a UN agency that supports IWDA’s work, he said

“You know, we rarely fund western NGOs these days - however we’re impressed with IWDA’s strong partnership with women’s organisations in the Asia Pacific and this encouraged us to make an exception.”

Partnership and the lifting up, the light-letting, of voices and views of the women in the countries we support is vital. This is the reason IWDA exists, and how exciting it is to see some of the women with whom we partner fully assuming the spaces they need and deserve.

To paraphrase Dorothy Allison, two or three things I know for sure:

We are a movement so resilient, fluid and connected

We are generative agents of change

There are no limits

Happy International Women’s Day
Jane Sloane

Executive Director
International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA)

“When women benefit, the whole community benefits.”

The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others.’
Dag Hammarskjold
UN Secretary General 1953-1961