News and Commentary

WATCH: ICRW Gives Presentation on Child Marriage at the G(irls)20 Summit

hfreitag — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:39:05 +0000

Tue, 06/18/2013

ICRW's Suzanne Petroni and Jeffrey Edmeades presented on child marriage at the G(irls)20 Summit in Moscow (via Google Hangout). The Summit brings delegates ages 18-20 together to debate, discuss and design innovative ideas necessary to improve the growth of communities, countries and companies by empowering girls and women globally. The delegates then present these ideas to G20 Leaders.

ICRW's Suzanne Petroni and Jeffrey Edmeades presented on child marriage at the G(irls)20 Summit in Moscow (via Google Hangout). Petroni talks about some of the common elements and strategies of successful programs to end child marriage, as outlined in our report Solutions to End Child Marriage, and Edmeades discusses programs to help address the needs of girls who have already married.

The Summit brings together one delegate from each G20 country, plus a representative from the European Union and African Union, to debate, discuss and design innovative ideas necessary to improve the growth of communities, countries and companies by empowering girls and women globally. Delegates then present these ideas to G20 Leaders. The participants are all girls, aged 18-20.

The following video shows the events from Day 2, including presentations by Lakshmi Sundaram of Girls Not Brides; Kakenya Ntaiya and Nyaradzai Gumbonzvola of YWCA; and Jennifer Buffett of NOVO Foundation. To skip directly to ICRW's presentation, go to 2:50:00.

G8 Summit Spotlight: ICRW Tests Agricultural ‘Community of Practice’ Concept in Tanzania

idervishaj — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:11:03 +0000

Initiative provides collaborative learning space on gender integration for agricultural practitioners

Mon, 06/17/2013

By Gillian Gaynair

Agricultural practitioners in Tanzania gain deeper understanding of gender norms that influence production, and how to address such gender issues to improve farmers’ lives.

The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) is supporting a unique effort among agricultural practitioners in Tanzania to foster a deeper understanding of the gender norms that influence agricultural production and how such gender issues can be addressed by development projects to improve outcomes for women and men farmers and their families.

Working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ICRW researchers are pilot testing the concept of a “community of practice” with organizations and individuals working on agriculture in Tanzania. Named by its members as the Tanzania Gender and Agriculture Forum (TaGAF), this community provides a much-needed space for peer learning and sharing and for building skills on the practical “how to” of integrating gender considerations into programs. With over 45 members to date,TaGAF include grantees of the Gates Foundation, Alliance for a Green Africa and the McKnight Foundation, as well as gender and agriculture consultants.

Through workshops and an online platform, ICRW is supporting TaGAF members on how to identify and respond to the underlying gender-related assumptions, norms and barriers that limit women’s capacity to benefit from the training, markets and farming “inputs” – such as seeds or pesticides – that agriculture projects are providing. Researchers also are advising members on how to measure the effect that addressing gender has on improving the participation and productivity of women farmers.

While learning about gender integration, TaGAF members also are able to cultivate relationships around their work, share ideas and problem-solve together. “The concept of peer learning and networking is very valued. While people know of ‘gender,’ this is the first time they have a forum to explore the practical applications of gender concepts in their work,” said Anjala Kanesathasan, a senior health and development specialist at ICRW. “Members appreciate having a space where they are free to raise questions, brainstorm with colleagues, and learn from others who are facing the same challenges.”

Indeed, in Tanzania and elsewhere, women’s contributions to agricultural productivity often go unrecognized – by others and many times by women farmers themselves. In millions of households worldwide, farming isn’t just an economic activity, but also a social enterprise that is influenced by inter-personal relationships, familial roles and gender norms. These dynamics often determine if and how individual household members – especially women – contribute to and benefit from farming, including their participation in programs designed to enhance agricultural productivity.

“The challenge for many projects is to go beyond technical agricultural issues,” Kanesathasan said, “and address some of the unseen factors - like the gender norms that determine who controls the income earned from different crops - which can block women farmers from reaching their full potential.”

However, there are programs that have adopted promising approaches to increase women farmers’ access to agricultural inputs, skills and markets, thereby improving crop production, alleviating hunger and boosting income for the entire family. ICRW is capturing some of these successes through technical briefs that support peer-to-peer sharing.

Researchers’ findings on enhancing women’s participation in agriculture projects are outlined in the technical brief, “Cultivating Women's Participation: Strategies for Gender-Responsive Agriculture Programming,” which is based on the experiences of TechnoServe's Coffee Initiative and Faida Mali's Soil Health Project that work with farmers in Mbeya, Tanzania. Another technical brief that highlights gender monitoring and evaluation will be released this summer.

Read last week's G8 Summit feature about an innovative program in Kenya that is catering to the unique needs of women farmers there.

ICRW’s Ravi Verma Selected to Advise on Family Planning Commitments

ggaynair — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:57:40 +0000

Verma to serve on working group created after 2012 London Summit on Family Planning

Fri, 06/14/2013

By Gillian Gaynair

ICRW’s Ravi Verma has been selected from hundreds of applicants worldwide to help provide technical guidance on achieving commitments made during last year’s London Summit on Family Planning.

The International Center for Research on Women’s (ICRW) Ravi Verma has been selected from hundreds of applicants worldwide to serve on a working group that will provide technical guidance on achieving commitments made during last year’s London Summit on Family Planning.

Verma, who leads ICRW’s Asia Regional Office in New Delhi, will be one of 18 members of the Rights and Empowerment Working Group for Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), a global partnership forged after the London Summit. During the 2012 summit, more than 150 leaders from donor and developing countries, the private sector and international organizations – including ICRW – made commitments to improve women’s and girls’ access to contraceptive information, services and supplies. Donors also pledged an additional $2.6 million in funding.

FP2020 is now working with governments, multi-lateral organizations, the research community and others to implement commitments to enable 120 more million women and girls to access contraceptives by 2020. Its working groups will be instrumental in guiding these efforts.

“I’m excited and feel very privileged to have been selected to this strategic role globally,” said Verma, who will serve a two-year term.

FP2020 received more than 350 applications from 61 countries for membership to its working groups. Verma’s group will provide guidance and support to other working groups on rights-based approaches to family planning. The other groups formed by FP2020 will focus on:

· Country Engagement – to facilitate access to funding, technical assistance and country-to-country support for family planning programs

· Performance Monitoring and Accountability – to enable data collection and analysis necessary to improve accountability in implementing financial, policy and program commitments

· Market Dynamics – to better the availability, affordability, information and quality of family planning methods

Women’s Demand for Reproductive Control

ICRW Commits to Build Evidence on Women’s Access to Family Planning Services

WATCH: "Let's Raise Our Voices"

hfreitag — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:14:13 +0000

On June 3rd, ICRW co-hosted "Let's Raise Our Voices," an event held in London that brought together leading experts to discuss strategies for preventing violence against women and girls. W atch the video.

On June 3rd, ICRW co-hosted "Let's Raise Our Voices," an event held in London that brought together leading experts to discuss strategies for preventing violence against women and girls.

Panelists included Mabel van Oranje, advisory committee chair of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage; Nata Duvvury, co-director of the global women’s studies program at the National University of Ireland Galway; and Ravi Verma, director of the ICRW Asia Regional Office.

Lynne Featherstone, Britain’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development, delivered the keynote address, and Cherie Blair, former first lady of Britain and founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, provided welcoming remarks.

During the event, ICRW also shared new research findings on gender-based violence in India, which has been in the spotlight globally after the fatal rape of a young woman on a bus last December. ICRW President Sarah Degnan Kambou also gave recommendations for how the global community should invest resources to combat violence against women.

Girls 20 Feature: Empowering Adolescent Girls in Delhi

idervishaj — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 18:00:02 +0000

ICRW study concludes well-rounded programs are most effective

Wed, 06/12/2013

By Jennifer Abrahamson

ICRW study finds that programs addressing the multiple needs of adolescent girls in India are the most effective at transforming their lives.

Priya and Talat will not be attending this year’s Girls 20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. But like most teenagers, both have big dreams and aspirations for their futures. And as is the case for adolescent girls everywhere, the path to adulthood in Delhi can be mined with both possibility and danger – and disapproving parents.

“Whenever I watch Indian Idol and India’s Got Talent, I feel like ‘Oh I wish I could be there.’ I’m very fond of singing,” Talat explained. “But if I tell my father now he’s not going to encourage it because he’ll say it’s a useless thing to do.”

Priya said she also enjoyed singing, and upon request, both girls performed short solos, right there in the middle of the Self-Employed Women’s Association’s vocational school in Delhi, known as SEWA Bharat – ‘India’. Dulcet melodies like those sung by Bollywood stars pining for love rang out through adjacent rooms filled with teenaged girls who were learning how to stitch traditional Indian clothing and master graphic design computer programs.

Dreams of stardom aside, both Talat and Priya are taking a more pragmatic approach to life. At the SEWA Bharat Delhi center, they are taking advantage of a subsidized ‘empowerment’ program providing adolescent girls from low-income families with an array of vocational and life skills. Outside the building, the Yamuna River curved past, its shores choking with plastic bags, bottles and other detritus. Delhi’s bustling center was somewhere on the other side, far beyond this neighborhood where the girls both live.

Talat’s plans include finding a good job somewhere out there in the big city so she can ‘make a lot of money’ to pay for singing lessons. And Priya made it very clear that her first and most important goal in life was to become a policewoman, an ambition inspired by prevalent sexual violence in Delhi, and in particular, by the horrific gang rape and murder of a young medical student there in December. She has also witnessed terrible violence against women elsewhere, in the villages of her family’s ancestral homeland in Bihar, India’s poorest state. Perhaps not surprisingly, Priya was the second Indian girl I had met in a week who expressed a passion for protecting women as a career.

Strengthening girls’ economic potential is not only critical for their own advancement; it is also vital for a country’s economic development. India loses $56 billion a year in potential earnings because of adolescent pregnancy, secondary school dropout rates, and joblessness among young women. Which is why it especially important to ensure that girls have the education, skills, and resources needed to be self-sufficient, pursue their future goals and contribute as equal members of society. The International Center for Research on Women’s (ICRW) last year launched its Turning Point Campaign which is focusing resources on research and programs that examine and address adolescent girls’ unique challenges to leading healthy, productive, and gender-equitable lives as adult women worldwide.

A recent ICRW scoping study looked at 47 development programs in India targeting adolescent girls, conducting more in depth analysis of 20 of those, in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Delhi. ICRW researchers examined interventions focused either on livelihoods or sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), or a combination of the two. They found that sexual and reproductive health and rights interventions in India – while critical – far out-numbered those focusing on adolescent girls’ livelihoods. They concluded that more programs that adopt a comprehensive approach to meeting their different needs – life skills, knowledge of SRHR and services, education and livelihood training and support – are essential to helping more girls change the course of their lives.

Priya and Talat’s parents are migrants from Bihar and their mothers both dropped out of school, marrying in their mid-teens. The program at SEWA Bharat in Delhi will almost certainly provide the girls with a future their own mothers never had a chance to even consider. Not only have they learned soft business skills like accounting, banking, graphic design and English. They’ve also received lessons in subjects like ‘sexuality’, essential to their safety as they enter a male-dominated workforce. And once the course is over, SEWA assists girls with job placement and making market linkages for those girls who aim to start their own small businesses.

Priya sees the SEWA course as a stepping stone to achieving her dream of becoming a policewoman; she hopes it will help her find a white collar job (her own mother works in a garment factory) in a bank or office that will fund her college studies and training in law enforcement.Talat hopes the course will help her get a job in graphic design -- her brother has convinced their father that it is a viable profession -- because it will allow her to be creative and use her mind while also saving money to pursue a singing career.

Both girls were also quick to talk about their futures beyond careers – their roles as wives and mothers. Priya is a romantic at heart who hopes for a ‘love marriage’ with a modest, humble man one day – but not until she’s at least 25. Talat has a more pragmatic outlook, preferring a wealthy husband and an arranged marriage (love marriages only lead to fighting, she warned). But age isn’t so important to her.

“It’s not about age, I can get married at any age,” she said. “But only once I’m independent, once I’m able to stand on my own two feet.”

The specifics of the girls’ long-term interests clearly diverge. But what they share runs far deeper than Indian Idol or a love marriage: a chance to lift themselves and their future families out of poverty, a chance to pursue their dreams, and perhaps most important of all, a chance for a life that they choose for themselves.

G8 Summit Spotlight: Investing in Women Farmers Pays Off

idervishaj — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:52:07 +0000

Mon, 06/10/2013

By Gillian Gaynair

Women will continue to play a critical role in the struggle for global food security – a focus of this year’s G8 summit June 17-18 – for years to come. ICRW researchers take a closer look at two agricultural projects in East Africa that are making a difference.

The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) has launched a new research project to test whether reshaping the business model of independent agricultural entrepreneurs – known as agro-dealers – in Western Kenya to better respond to the needs of women farmers and promote equality within farming households could ultimately help alleviate hunger among families.

The two-year effort, “Innovations in Gender Equality to Promote Household Food Security (IGE),” is funded by the United States Agency for International Development and is being carried out in partnership with Kenya’s Agricultural Market Development Trust (AGMARK). AGMARK is a Nairobi-based nonprofit that specializes in providing technical support and training to agro-dealers. Its overarching goal is to improve farmers’ access to and knowledge of various agricultural resources in Kenya as well as in Eastern and Southern Africa.

The IGE project is a one-of-a-kind undertaking that challenges traditional approaches to improving women farmers’ control over their earnings and their access to agricultural technology and resources. Instead of narrowly focusing on women farmers – as has been the norm – ICRW’s latest research includes men: spouses, agro-dealers – who sell farm “inputs,” such as fertilizer, veterinary services and crop pest management – and members of Farmer Input Savings and Loan (FISL) groups, which pool members’ financial resources to buy farming necessities as well as to make small loans. Both men and women work as agro-dealers and belong to FISL groups.

The endeavor is taking place in two counties in Western Kenya, and is a pilot project of the Obama administration’s Feed the Future initiative to increase U.S. investment in agricultural development. Most innovative about the ICRW effort is the focus on husbands of women farmers and on improving decision-making between couples. ICRW and AGMARK have already trained community members to reach out to farming households and help spur conversations about farming goals and decisions.

“We hope that we can prove that farmers who save for farm inputs and have an appreciation of gender dynamics, will increase their production and productivity, strengthen couples’ decision-making abilities and create more harmony at home and in their community,” said Bell Okello, who leads the IGE project and is the gender, agricultural and rural development specialist for ICRW’s East Africa Regional Office in Nairobi.

“We also believe that agro-dealers with a better understanding of gender dynamics will be best placed to serve women and men farmers by tailoring services and products that meet their specific needs.”

Worldwide, the face of agriculture is often female. However, despite their central role, women farmers face a number of constraints stemming from gender inequality, including limited access to farming-related technology, information, credit, and training services. These missed opportunities adversely affect women’s productivity, making food less readily available and hunger harder to keep at bay.

The landscape is no different in Kenya. Research shows that if Kenyan women farmers had more equitable access to seeds, fertilizer and equipment, household agricultural productivity could increase by 10 to 20 percent. With equal access to farming resources and education as men, women could also improve by 22 percent their yields in maize, beans and cowpeas, the main food staples in Kenya.

Experts say that creating more equitable household dynamics also is critical to improving food production and alleviating hunger. Even if women farmers’ access to resources improves, “How do she and her spouse negotiate what seeds to buy, what crops to grow and how to use the earnings from their yields?” said Aslihan Kes, an economist and gender specialist at ICRW. “Decision-making in the household realm is excluded in most interventions that focus on women farmers. We hope to show that if a woman benefits, her husband benefits too, and vice-versa.”

Meanwhile, in Western Kenya there are some 3,000 agro-dealers – independent entrepreneurs who sell certified improved seeds and fertilizers, among other inputs and service items. (Only 30 percent of the 90 new agro-dealerships in the area are owned or fully managed by women.) Many also offer trainings to farmers, link them to credit and markets and mobilize them to establish FISL groups.

“Our recent research in Western Kenya shows that women farmers interact closely with agro-dealers – more so than men – and also make up the majority of FISL members,” Okello said. “But the services that agro-dealers offer largely do not take into account women’s needs.

With that, IGE aims to strengthen existing ties between agro-dealers and farmers by capitalizing on their business relationship with FISL groups. It also strives to improve the relationship between agro-dealers and other agricultural service providers, such as research organizations and nongovernmental organizations. Researchers suggest that doing so will, in part, yield more opportunities and benefits for women farmers.

Specifically, the project envisions a training and education model that:

Strengthens agro-dealers’ skills in supporting FISLs and promoting gender equality
Increases farmers’ purchase of seeds and other necessities by catalyzing savings through FISLs. This would eliminate the cash constraint that prevents many women farmers from buying and using improved farming resources
Works with FISL members and their spouses to improve household communication and cooperation around agricultural decision-making and activities.

“We believe that better functioning FISL groups will improve farmers’ ability to purchase fertilizers, equipment and other necessities,” Okello said. “In turn, farmers’ production and household food security has the potential to be enhanced as well as agro-dealers’ sales, profits and sustainability.”

ICRW researchers also predict that a more integrated, equitable approach to increasing household agricultural productivity is likely to empower women farmers and foster more leadership among them. That, according to Okello, is perhaps the most significant challenge of the IGE project.

“While encouraging farmers to save through FISLs is fairly achievable,” he said, “transforming the mindset within farming households to be more egalitarian takes time and is likely to be met with resistance.”

Related publications:

Agrodealerships in Western Kenya: How Promising for Agricultural Development and Women Farmers?

Cultivating Women’s Participation: Strategies for Gender-Responsive Agriculture Programming

Invisible Market: Energy and Agricultural Technologies for Women’s Economic Advancement

Next week we look at how agricultural practitioners in Tanzania are gaining deeper understanding of gender norms that influence production, and how to address gender issues to improve farmer’s lives. Look for this article on Monday, June 17, 2013.

ICRW Wins Third place in the RaiseForWomen Challenge

idervishaj — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:22:04 +0000

Fri, 06/07/2013

ICRW’s Turning Point Campaign was a huge success in the RaiseForWomen Challenge, raising nearly $115,000 plus a special bonus donation from the organizers. We are so grateful to all who made donations to help us continue to support girls and young women, and change the course of their lives for the better.

ICRW’s Turning Point Campaign came in third place in the RaiseForWomen Challenge. With your incredible support, ICRW raised nearly $115,000 plus a special bonus donation from the Skoll Foundation for coming in third place. We are so grateful to have such amazing support to help us continue our work in helping adolescent girls have a chance to grow into healthy and empowered women, to choose whom and when to marry, and to postpone motherhood until they are adults.

The RaiseForWomen Challenge was launched by the Huffington Post, in partnership with CrowdRise, Skoll Foundation and Half the Sky Movement, to help nonprofit organizations focusing on women gain recognition and resources to strengthen their efforts in improving the lives of women and girls worldwide. The Challenge raised over $1.1 million.

The Challenge ran from April 24 through June 6, 2013. Using the CrowdRise platform, nonprofits competed with each other to raise funds for their cause. The top three teams that raised the most for their cause by the end of the Challenge won grand prize donations amounting to $75,000 from the Skoll Foundation.

Congratulations to GFED for raising more than $200,000 and winning the RaiseForWomen Challenge, and to Zonta International Foundation who won second place.

ICRW blogs also featured on the Huffington Post site:

“Breaking the Cycle of Child Marriage in India” by Jennifer Abrahamson

“Beyond the Classroom” by Jeff Edmeades

“On Her Own Two Feet: Providing Girls in India With Hope - and Job Skills - for a Better Future” by Jennifer Abrahamson

“Changing the Course for Child Brides in Ethiopia” by Gillian Gaynair

“A Life More Enlightened: Giving Girls A Second Chance in Egypt” by Allie McGonagle Glinski

“Family Planning 101: Delaying Marriage and Motherhood in India’s Heartland” by Jennifer Abrahamson

We are so grateful to the Huffington Post, CrowdRise, Skoll Foundation and Half the Sky Movement for launching this incredible initiative to support organizations in empowering women and girls around the world. Thank you to all who made donations and helped spread the word about this initiative to help us continue to support girls and young women, and change the course of their lives for the better. Thank you for being part of the solution!

To learn more about our work with adolescent girls, visit our Turning Point Campaign page.

WATCH: ICRW Joins Huffington Post for a Google Hangout as part of Raise for Women

hfreitag — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 17:39:33 +0000

Thu, 06/06/2013

The Huffington Post's Daniel Koh hosts a Google Hangout with the three leading participants – including ICRW – in the Raise for Women Challenge, a fundraising effort to raise awareness and funds for organizations providing crucial programs for women and girls.

The Huffington Post's Daniel Koh hosts a Google Hangout with the three leading organizations in the Raise for Women Challenge, a fundraising effort Huffington Post launched with the Skoll Foundation and Half the Sky Movement to raise awareness and funds for organizations providing crucial programs for women and girls. ICRW's Ann Warner discusses our work, the importance of research, and how the research is put into action. Warner is joined by Lynn McKenzie of Zonta International and Margaret Butler of The Komera Project.

VIDEO: ICRW Addresses Child Marriage on Al Jazeera International

amoustakis — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:08:54 +0000

Tue, 06/04/2013

ICRW's Ann Warner joins a panel discussing the causes and consequences of child marriage. Al Jazeera asks the four-person panel, should communities who practice child marriage be allowed to do so or should it be eliminated altogether?

ICRW's Ann Warner joins a panel discussing the causes and consequences of child marriage. Al Jazeera asks, should communities who practice child marriage be allowed to do so or should it be eliminated altogether?

Ann Warner is a senior Gender and Youth specialist at ICRW. Warner is joined by:

Lakshmi Sundaram

Global Coordinator, Girls Not Brides

Maria Al Masani @al_masani

Vice President, External Communications, Madbakh Women's Intiative

Naana Otoo-Oyortey

Executive Director, Forward UK