WOMEN, INK. BOOKLINK #56

May 2006
Tina Johnson

New Titles in the Women, Ink. Collection

Welcome to the Women, Ink. Booklink, the monthly e-mail bulletin on what‚'s new in our collection this month. A special feature of the May booklink is UNIFEM‚'s newest publication - Budgeting for Women's Rights.

The other new titles are:

  1. Beyond Access: Transforming Policy and Practice for Gender Equality in Education
  2. Partnerships for Girls' Education
  3. See Both Sides
  4. Gender and the Millennium Development Goals
  5. Warning Signs of Fundamentalisms
  6. Gender and ICTs for Development: A Global Sourcebook

Visit our website at www.womenink.org for further information and
to buy any of the featured titles.

WOMEN, INK.BOOKLINK SPECIAL FEATURE

Budgeting for Women's Rights
Monitoring Government Budgets for Compliance with CEDAW
Diane Elson

People's access to services and resources are largely determined by government budget policies. Gender budget initiatives around the world have attempted to systematically examine how government budgets address discrimination with regard to women‚'s access to housing, employment, health, education, and other services. Often these exercises have been eye-openers: a budget analysis of domestic violence policies and laws in seven countries in Latin America, for example, revealed that appropriations for domestic violence programmes and interventions were non-existent in all cases. Similar evidence of gender discrimination is found when examining taxation policies.

This publication adds a landmark to the discourse on the link between human rights standards and government budgets. It elaborates on how budgets and budget policy-making processes can be monitored for compliance with human rights standards, in particular with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Combining substantive analysis with country examples, the publication explores how a rights-based budget analysis can be applied to public expenditure, public revenue, macroeconomics of the budget, and budget decision-making. In the context of discussions on aid effectiveness, direct budget support, and accountability Budgeting for Women's Rights is of particular relevance.

2006. ISBN 1-932827-47-1. 171 pages. WE751. $15.00

 

Beyond Access:
Transforming Policy and Practice for Gender Equality in Education
Sheila Aikman and Elaine Unterhalter (eds.)

In a world in which poverty, social prejudice and poor-quality provision cause an estimated 100 million girls to drop out of school before completing their primary education, it is not enough for governments to pledge themselves to increase girls' access to school. This book presents a vision of a transformational education that would promote social change, enable girls to achieve their full potential, and be conducive to the creation of a just and democratic society.

Contributors to this book examine the extent and causes of gender-based inequality in education; analyse government policies and their implications for women's empowerment; and report on original fieldwork in a range of local contexts where gender-equality initiatives have flourished. In their introduction and concluding chapter, the editors consider the challenges that policy makers, practitioners, campaigners and researchers will have to tackle if they are to make real progress towards gender equality in education, in the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

2005. ISBN 0-85598-529-1. 263 pages. WE745. $23.95

 

Partnerships for Girls' Education
Nitya Rao and Ines Smyth (eds.)

The idea of partnerships - involving multinational donors, governments, international NGOs, the private sector, civil society and local communities - is increasingly current in debates about development. They are widely seen as the most effective way to achieve sustainable economic and social benefits for the poorest people. How does this vision translate into reality for education services? In particular, what types of partnership are most likely to increase opportunities for girls and women, millions of whom are excluded from education? Can innovative local initiatives be scaled up without losing the community involvement that made them so successful in the first place?

By documenting and analysing the achievements and challenges of actual partnerships for girls' education, this book aims to suggest strategies for progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). An account of the formation and development of the Global Campaign for Education is followed by detailed case studies from Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines, Peru and sub-Saharan Africa, illustrating a wide range of partnerships and raising crucial questions about power and control, scaling up and sustainability. The editors reflect on these questions in an extended introduction to the book, and in the conclusion they summarise the lessons learned from the examples cited.

By setting global, regional, national and local case studies in an analytical framework, this book demonstrates the importance of ensuring that partnerships are not reduced to the lowest common denominator but aspire to the highest standards and broadest visions.

2005. ISBN 0-85598-513-5. 156 pages. WE 744. $23.95

 

See Both Sides
Karen Richardson

Gender analysis has been used in international development for many years. It is now widely recognised that a better understanding of the particular needs of women and men makes a significant difference in the fight against poverty and disadvantage. This hands-on guide is designed to help those working in local government or the voluntary sector to plan and deliver services that will have a real impact on the everyday - different - lives of women and men.

See Both Sides provides invaluable strategy, training exercises and impact assessment tools, and shares examples from the experience of an organisation providing services to lone parents. This successfully used gender analysis to widen its target group, revitalise existing services and develop new ones. The process enabled them to better understand who lone parents are, recognise that welfare structures do not always reach them in their diversity, and change their work to reflect the reality of the ways in which parents share care.

There is much common ground between gender and other equality areas: See Both Sides can also be used to support work on race, disability and other equalities.

2004. ISBN 0-85598-537-2. 82 pages. WE741. $7.95.

 

Gender and the Millennium Development Goals
Caroline Sweetman (ed.)

In 2000, the leaders and heads of state of 189 countries signed the Millennium Declaration, which set a series of targets for global action against poverty by 2015. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a result of this process. This collection of articles focuses on the MDGs from a gender perspective. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of this way of understanding and addressing poverty, and suggests ways of strengthening it by using key insights and approaches associated with the 30-year struggle to establish and uphold the rights of women.

Contributions to this volume include articles on women's rights, health and education. While the contributors all urge gender and development workers and feminist activists to engage in efforts to attain the MDGs, they also point to the hazards of restricting action to the current priorities set out in the MDG framework if women‚'s full human rights are to be served and supported. Among the authors are Naila Kabeer, Noeleen Heyzer, Ceri Hayes and Peggy Antrobus. There is an extensive list of resources.

2005. ISBN 0-85598-550-X. 117 pages. WE743. $16.50.

 

Warning Signs of Fundamentalisms
Ayesha Imam, Jenny Morgan and Nira Yuval-Davis (eds.)

Since 2000 the popular appeal of fundamentalisms has been growing across the world and in different communities. In 2002 Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) held an international conference on the theme 'Warning Signs of Fundamentalisms'. This book includes many of the papers presented at the conference, some of which analyse the common danger signals that indicate the rising intensity of such right-wing political projects, and some of which focus on specific strategies of resistance – political, legal, and cultural.

The papers relate to a variety of contexts and global issues: Afghanistan, Algeria, Austria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Gambia, India, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Palestine, Rwanda, South Africa, USA and Yugoslavia; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identities; multiculturalism; the Internet; as well as fundamentalisms in Catholic, Hindu and Jewish contexts.

Fundamentalist movements are political movements with religious, ethnic and/or nationalist imperatives. They construct a single version of a collective identity as the only true, authentic and valid one, and use it to impose their power and authority. They usually claim to be the representatives of authentic tradition, and they speak against the corrupting influence of modernity and 'the West'. However, fundamentalists are far from pre-modern. To promote their project, they use all the modern technological means available, from the media to weaponry. Furthermore, the vision they conjure up is a constructed and selective vision, rather than a revival of something in the past.

Feminists have particular concerns when it comes to fundamentalist movements. Although many women take part in these movements, overall fundamentalist politics tend to constitute a threat to women's freedom and autonomy - and often their lives. Gender relations in general, and women in particular, are often used to symbolize the collectivity, its 'culture and tradition‚' its boundaries and its future reproduction.

2004. ISBN 0-9544943-2-6. 182 pages. WE737. $17.95

 

Gender and ICTs for Development: A Global Sourcebook
Minke Valk, Sarah Cummings and Henk Van Dam (eds.)

Around the world, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have changed the lives of individuals, organisations and indeed entire nations. ICTs can have profound implications for women and men in terms of employment, education, health, environmental sustainability and community development. Women want to have access to information and to engage in communication that will improve their livelihoods and help them to achieve their human rights, yet - due to gender inequality in the information society - they are often prevented from accessing and shaping ICTs.

This book features five case studies illustrating ways in which women have been able to make the most of digital opportunities, examining e-commerce in Bhutan, entrepreneurship by women workers in China, post-conflict communication using radio and ICTs in Sierra Leone, sustainable fisheries production in Ghana and information exchange related to HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean.

The book also provides an extensive annotated bibliography of the international literature on gender and ICTs for development, in particular rural development, and relevant web resources.

2005. ISBN 0-85598-565-8. 141 pages. WE747. $27.15

 

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