The Drum Beat 344: MDG #3 - Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women

Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #3 calls on world leaders to take action to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education by 2015. Communication initiatives being implemented around the world are actively supporting this global effort to empower women and secure their equal status - as measured by the ratio of literate young women to young men, the share of women being paid to work in sectors other than farming, and the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament.

Next month we will focus on MDG #4: Reducing Child Mortality. Please send your projects, articles, events, etc. to Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

CONTEXT

1.Fact Sheet: The Tilted Balance - i4d March 2005 Issue - MDG3

"After examining the Internet for the availability of gender related data, it was found that useful gender disaggregated statistics is limited and old." That said...

• There are an estimated 140 million illiterate young people in the world, of whom more than half are young women. If current rates continue, UNESCO projects that in 2015 there will be an estimated 107 million illiterate young people, and again more than half - 67 million - will be young women.
• In 2003, 1.1 billion of the world's 2.8 billion workers, or 40%, were women, representing a worldwide increase of nearly 200 million women in employment in the past 10 years. Women still face higher unemployment rates, receive lower wages than men, and represent 60% of the world's 550 million working poor.
• The level of women's representation in national governments has been improving, but on the whole women are largely absent from parliaments, on average accounting for only about 14% of members in 2002.

2.No Country in the World Treats Its Women as Well as Its Men - Social Watch (March 8 2006)

Social Watch's Gender Equity Index (GEI) classifies 134 countries based on the dimensions of education, economic activity, and participation in political and economic decision-making. Among the findings: In some of the world's wealthiest countries, like France and Japan, women occupy only 10% to 12% of seats in parliament or congress, which is less than the rate of 13% in sub-Saharan Africa. When it comes to economic participation, the greatest inequities are seen in the Middle East, North Africa, and some Latin American countries.

3. Hidden Gendercide

According to UN estimates, the difference between the biological norm of 100 newborn girls to every 103 newborn boys and the number of women actually living leaves millions of women 'missing'. This demographic phenomenon may be due to: selective abortion and infanticide; less food and medical attention, as compared to males; and sexual offenders, 'honour killings', and domestic violence. This sustained 'deficit' of between 100 to 200 million women implies that 1.5 to 3 million women and girls die because of their gender each year.

4.Educate Girls, Fight AIDS

Attending primary school makes young people significantly less likely to contract HIV; when they stay in school through the secondary level, education's protective effect against HIV is even more pronounced. This is especially true for girls who, with each additional year of education, gain greater independence, are better equipped to make decisions affecting their sexual lives, and have higher income earning potential. These impacts can be enhanced when schools create safe and supportive learning environments for girls, such as by instituting policies of zero tolerance of sexual exploitation and implementing clear guidelines for responding to such allegations.

5.Gender Caucus in WSIS - Challenges for Gender Equality

by Heike Jensen

Jensen contends that World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) meetings held in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005) were a "serious challenge" for gender equality advocates. She suggests that media and information and communication technologies (ICTs) can help women overcome isolation; allow them to network and to gain strength as political actors; enable their articulation of human rights; provide effective means to hold governments and other social actors responsible for their conduct; and help to lift them out of poverty and secure a livelihood. According to Jensen, advances for women must include primary and secondary education as well as tools to help them become top-level decision makers in all areas relating to ICTs.

ADVOCACY & ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT TO EDUCATE & EMPOWER

6.Gender Achievements and Prospects in Education: The GAP Report, Part 1

According to this UNICEF report, the first MDG deadline - gender parity in primary and secondary education by 2005 - was missed. To identify the root causes of girls' absences, Uganda has been conducting school mapping, a strategy developed by the Girls' Education Movement (GEM). Children identify the number of girls in each community, those who are not in school, and the obstacles that keep them away; the goal is both to identify problems and generate solutions (e.g., boys volunteering to walk girls on treacherous roads). In the Gambia, Mothers' Clubs have been set up in villages to sensitise parents to the importance of girls' education and to help mitigate traditions that keep daughters out of school. Another strategy involves the use of sport as an advocacy tool: The 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup was dedicated to 'Go Girls! Education for Every Child', and the Asian Cricket Council joined UNICEF in Dhaka, Bangladesh to promote 'Fair Play for Girls'.

7.Gender Equality in Schools

Published by Oxfam in Dec. 2005, this paper emphasises the centrality of communication and advocacy in achieving global goals such as Education for All (EFA), as well as in ensuring that girls and women draw on education to ensure their full and equal participation in society. The paper presents school assessment questions to guide a vision of a "girl-friendly" school, which would encourage active challenging and questioning of the culture of the school, the curriculum, and narrow-minded concepts and prejudices. Specific strategies for fostering gender-equitable education are discussed, including teacher education as a tool for fostering confidence to encourage participation from pupils and the local community in shaping a vision for gender equity (such as by providing venues and forums where strong gender-equality messages can be explored and reinforced). Teachers can also engage in a process of addressing how they live out the gender messages they teach - a process that may involve "changing personal behaviour and challenging some of the deeply held assumptions that perpetuate inequalities."

8.25 by 2005 Campaign (Girls' Education Initiative) - Global

Carried out in 25 countries worldwide, this UNICEF campaign focused on districts where girls' education is in a critical situation in an effort to raise awareness, generate public support, and mobilise resources. A key strategy involved engaging governments, civil society, teachers, families and children in actions to call attention to the right of every child to an education, as well as to advance strategies. For example, in June 2004 the Forum of African Women Educationalists held an International Conference on Girls' Education to bring together representatives from UN agencies, donors, and international non-governmental organisations from sub-Saharan Africa. Participants in the Kenya gathering reviewed good practices regarding girls' education. UNICEF also worked to involve children in advocacy for girls' education through a global Child-to-Child Survey that was launched on June 16 2004 (the Day of the African Child). Implemented first in Ethiopia, this survey process aimed at putting names and faces to the 121 million out-of-school children, in the hope that they would become "more than statistics and come alive as someone's sibling, cousin, friend or community member."

Contact Kate Donovan kdonovan@unicef.org

9.Empowering Women, Developing Society: Female Education in the Middle East & North Africa [MENA]

by Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi & Valentine M. Moghadam

"Education helps women take advantage of opportunities that could benefit them and their families, preparing women for the labor force and helping them understand their legal and reproductive rights." Based on this observation, the authors recommend that "efforts to improve female education in MENA countries need to go beyond rhetoric and should involve policies and programmes with measurable results. Governments can start by making the MDGs part of national development plans and monitoring progress toward those goals. Governments also need to make an extra effort to ensure that education is more accessible to low-income families and rural populations, with special attention to the quality of the education provided and the need for girls to complete school."

10.Action for Slum Dwellers' Reproductive Health, Allahabad (ASRHA) - Uttar Pradesh, India

This programme for girls aged 14-19 provided reproductive health information, vocational counselling and training, and assistance with opening savings accounts in slum areas of Allahabad. Literate girls were trained to become more effective communicators and facilitators for group discussions; each peer educator then hosted a small group of girls at her home once a week. Vocational counselling was then provided, which emphasised the importance of paid work and savings. Using flip books that contained flash cards, counsellors provided detailed information about short-term, nonformal training courses available in the vicinity, such as tailoring (requiring basic literacy skills that some girls did not possess), mehndi (painting of hands or feet), dhari (rug weaving), and so on. Counselling and assistance were also provided for creating savings accounts.

Contact PRDWP@popcouncil.org

11. Girls International Forum (GIF)

The USA-based GIF conducts community-based advocacy and national and international forums to stimulate public policies and programmes that advance girls' voices - with a particular focus on education, health, human rights, violence, and economic empowerment. Girls are considered equal partners in leadership and decision-making.

12.Discovering Literacy: Access Routes to Written Culture for a Group of Women in Mexico

by Judy Kalman

This book examines how a group of women in Mixquic, a semi-rural district of Mexico City, helped each other learn to read and write through collaborative processes such as reading books aloud together. Highlighting the success that a self-directed study group can have when given tailor-made support, the author proposes that learning opportunities are most successful when based on local communicative and literacy practices, and shows that the "contact between generations, the ways mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters share and spend time together is an important form of social organization that can and should be taken advantage of in educational programs."

13.Nurturing Young Men's Partnerships with Women - India

Working in partnership with young people of both sexes in 20 villages in Uttaranchal, Society for Integrated Development of the Himalayas (SIDH) has developed a comprehensive, gender-sensitive, non-formal educational curriculum - at the heart of which is a 4-day training module that draws on interactive, participatory processes. SIDH trained a team of 17- to 24-year old villagers to work as teachers in the non-formal schools and as youth leaders involved in a range of social issues, including women's health, agriculture, energy, and village economy. It also formed education committees at the village level, set up literacy classes for women, and established libraries and youth groups. Related activities included forming women's groups and training women to participate in the political process by taking advantage of provisions in the amendment of the Panchayati Raj Act of 1993, which legitimises village government and expands the role of women, lower castes, and tribal members.

Contact Pawan Gupta sidhsri@sancharnet.in

14.Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics (CAPWIP) - Asia-Pacific

CAPWIP draws on networking and advocacy - as well as research, documentation, and publication - to promote equal participation of women in politics and decision-making in the Asia-Pacific region. CAPWIP's Plan of Action was formulated by and for Asia-Pacific women as a guide to achieving women's political empowerment and advancement by a) getting more women into leadership positions at all levels (e.g., at least 1/3 representation in appointive, elected and decision-making bodies) and b) developing an effective and responsible women electorate (e.g., through increased funding for political education and skills development of women in politics). CAPWIP helps promote the legal and political literacy of women in politics through face-to-face training. CAPWIP also seeks to "educate for equality" by seeking equal political socialisation for girls and boys from early childhood through formal and informal education, including leadership development.

Contact capwip@capwip.org OR capwip@gmail.com

TECHNOLOGY-BASED STRATEGIES FOR EDUCATIONAL & ECONOMIC ADVANCEMENT

Radio:

15.Meri Awaz Suno (Hear My Voice) - Pakistan

According to the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, only 3% of Pakistan's journalists are women. Launched in connection with International Women's Day (March 7), "Meri Awaz Suno" is an Urdu-language radio programme produced by Pakistani women journalists to raise issues affecting both women and children. Produced entirely by a team of 5 young women, the magazine-style programme covers a diverse range of issues, including women parliamentarians, women in sports, honour killing, child labour, HIV/AIDS, girls' education, and daycare for working mothers. High-profile women such as Pakistan's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, have appeared on the programme.

Contact Sara Farid sara@meriawazsuno.org OR Lisa Upton lisa@internews.org OR Adnan Rehmat
adnan@internews.org

16.femTALK Mobile Women's Community Radio Initiative - Fiji

In May 2004, fem'LINKpacific: Media Initiatives for Women launched a mobile women's community radio initiative with the participation of a team of student broadcasters from St Joseph's Secondary School. The project involves taking suitcase radio to women living in Fiji's rural and semi-urban communities. As part of one effort to connect with local women, fem'LINKpacific staged a consultation and training with women in Suva which resulted in a special broadcast to commemorate the global Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign. "At this consultation, through our existing partners network...we brought in women from the North and West to serve as (for now our volunteer) focal points"; femTALK provided recording kits to enable these women to record stories in their local communities.

Contact Sharon Bhagwan Rolls femlinkpac@connect.com.fj OR Tarja Virtanen t.virtanen@unesco.org

17.Impact Data - Taru

Population Communications International's Hindi radio serial drama Taru covered some of the most poverty-stricken states in northern India. It is estimated that the serial, which is a story about a 21-year-old woman who resists cultural norms and pursues further education, had a listenership of between 20 and 25 million people. Respondents in the sentinel site area 1 year after the broadcast had significantly stronger beliefs about gender equity and perceived reduced barriers to gender equity.

Television:

18.Case Study: Movimiento Manuela Ramos

by Ana Maria Yanez

Initiated in 1978 by a core group of 7 women involved in politics and organised labour, Movimiento Manuela Ramos (MMR) is an organisation advocating for gender equity for Peru's women. Strategies for empowering women include participation and interpersonal communication, alliance-building, and mass media. As an example of the latter, MMR helped promote a female candidate to the Republic's Congress in 2000 by producing the television programme "Palabra de Mujer" [Woman's Word]. When the election ended, MMR renamed the show "Barra de Mujeres" [Women's Forum], with the goal of helping shape opinions on women's rights and establishing a platform to denounce attempts to curtail women's rights.

Computers:

19.E-Chutney Project - Fiji

Launched by the Fiji government's Information Technology & Communications (ITC) Department, E-Chutney is designed to empower women in Navua, a small agricultural centre in Fiji, who have for years made a few extra dollars on the weekends producing and selling tamarind chutney on the local market. By enabling these women to use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to reach customers in the country's largest market (the capital, Suva), this initiative aims to increase their income - and their self-esteem. Organisers note that the project has allowed the women to pay off debts and purchase farm supplies. More are sending their children to school because they can afford fees, uniforms and books. Other women's groups in Fiji are also reaping the benefits: The Navua women cannot grow enough mangoes to meet demand, so they are buying from other cooperatives.

Contact Abel Caine abel@unesco.org.ws OR David H. Mould, Ph.D. mould@ohio.edu

20.Putting ICTs in the Hands of Women - India

In collaboration with infoDev, Datamation Foundation Trust is working with the women of Kanpur and "chikan" embroidery workers of Lucknow to establish community multi-media (CMC) centres in several economically poor communities in the Lucknow/Kanpur area (70.71% Kanpur women and 70% Lucknow women had never used a computer before joining the CMC). Marketing goods through skills-based ICT use is only one component of the project; the women are also using ICTs to develop a "voice" to meet their information and communication needs, such as by searching English newspaper websites - a reflection of what organisers call "a keen desire amongst the women to learn English....[Furthermore,] the women have been expressing themselves in Hindi and Urdu by writing in Roman letters." They have been using their newfound technology skills to access educational content online, such as through distance learning websites. Approximately 22% women of Kanpur reported some increase in their income after completing their vocational courses. Organisers also describe "a wide change in the attitude of the women. They have developed self confidence and now they are more confident about their future..."

Contact Chetan Sharma csharma@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in

Telephone:

21.Pallitathya Help-Line Center - Bangladesh

Launched by Development through Access to Network Resources (D.Net), Pallitathya employs "Mobile Operator Ladies" to move from door-to-door with mobile phone in hand, enabling villagers to ask questions related to livelihood, agriculture, health, legal rights, and so on. The premise is that, by bringing an actual mobile phone door-to-door, women can play central roles in bridging the gap between information providers and isolated rural citizens (especially women) who are living in poverty. Women help-desk operators at D.Net's headquarters in Dhaka are equipped with an ICT-based system to respond to specific queries quickly through use of a database-driven software application and the internet. Women were consciously given a crucial role as "infomediaries" in an effort to increase their self-worth, their potential to earn, and their knowledge about various issues. In addition, women who avail of the help-line service can hopefully realise their potential and worth in society, increase their incomes through current information, and enhance their authority over spending decisions.

Contact info@dnet-bangladesh.org

Film/Video:

22.Snapshots of Change - Global

Launched in 2005, this series consists of 32 five-minute films produced in 31 countries around the world by the Broadcasting for Change Network. Several of the films explore basic human rights, such as the right to education, through the stories of girls and women who have been denied those rights. For instance, Sierra Leone's "The Sky is the Limit" introduces the viewer to Fatima Kainesse, who was captured by rebels during the civil war and used for sex. She escaped to Freetown and returned to school as an adult student. (Before the war in Sierra Leone, only one in four girls attended school: today, it's one in two). Other stories are meant to inspire the viewer by showing examples of women who have fought the odds to protect their own rights, sometimes challenging stereotypes or deep-seated traditions in the process. In "Women in Power", Ivana of the Czech Republic leads an all-women's party to contest traditionally male dominated seats in the local town election. Despite early ridicule, the women won. Now, as Deputy Mayor, Ivana channels funds in new directions, and increases opportunities for women and their families.

Contact Jenny Richards jenny.richards@tve.org.uk OR Juliet Little juliet.little@tve.org.uk

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This issue was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.

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