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Welcome to the archives of Women’s Advancement Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on November 15, 2018, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on women’s economic advancement. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
Kathryn Karol Chairman of the Caterpillar Foundation Board
Access to clean water is more than just a health issue – it’s the key to gender equality and female empowerment in the world’s least developed countries, says Kathryn Karol of the Caterpillar Foundation Board.
Marni Sommer
November 19 is World Toilet Day – and a chance to highlight the role of toilets in gender inequality. Global health expert Marni Sommer says a lack of female-friendly toilets holds women and girls back, and calls on engineers to design spaces more suited to their needs.
Educating India’s girls about menstruation and ending the existing culture of shame requires a multifaceted approach: The Indian government’s flagship toilet-building initiative is one step; another is getting people talking and tackling period-based taboos.
In Liberia, the Ebola outbreak drove steps to restore water pipes devastated during 14 years of civil war. As well as improving public health and productivity, access to clean, running water will, locals say, help keep girls in education.
Michele Sullivan
Michele Sullivan, president of the Caterpillar Foundation, makes the case that the rehabilitation of riverbanks and wetlands creates a profound and positive impact on rivers, wildlife, farms and communities around the world. The Foundation’s Great Rivers Partnership with The Nature Conservancy, she says, is improving some of the world’s most impressive rivers and changing lives.
Women with disabilities often encounter ‘double discrimination’ in Turkey – faced with unemployment or lower-grade jobs on account of their gender and their disability. Government work quotas are not solving the issue, so Turkey’s women are taking matters into their own hands.
From small beginnings, a group of Kenyan women in a slum area have developed a thriving savings group that has brought a measure of financial independence and stability to their lives.
In Part 2 of a two-part report on the informal banks that help women secure financial stability, we look at the safeguards the women have put in place to protect their pooled resources.
Lara Setrakian talks to Cynthia Nimmo, president and CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, now a growing community of more than 100 women’s funds and foundations spanning 14 countries that invests more than $400 million a year in programs related to women’s issues.
Technology solutions to address water, sanitation and hygiene issues have had a litany of failures, but a few responses seem to be breaking the mold. One of the most exciting is the idea of decentralized systems.
In Part 1 of a two-part report on the informal banks that help women secure financial stability, we look at a savings group in Kenya that grants independence to the women who join it.
A little over a year after the Nepalese government outlawed the chhaupadi tradition that places restrictions on menstruating women, little has changed in practice. Activists say the beliefs underlying gender-based discrimination need to be addressed.
A campaign started by the women of Beechaganahalli village in Karnataka, India, has transformed lives. Their efforts resulted in the building of a treatment plant to remove arsenic and fluoride from local groundwater – and now local people have clean water to drink.
Dar Es Salaam is slowly overcoming the sexism that pervades the field of engineering, drawing on the skills of its women engineers in an effort to tackle the city’s sanitation challenges.
A factory in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, is helping keep girls in school by producing cheap, reusable sanitary pads. By teaming up with NGOs, they’ve been able to distribute them to thousands of girls.
In our August episode of Deeply Talks, experts joined us to discuss our new long-form investigation, on the rights of migrant domestic workers in the Gulf.
Shipra Deo
On the U.N.’s International Day of Rural Women, Shipra Deo of land rights organization Landesa looks at two women who embody the tenacious spirit found in India’s rural communities and explains how overturning gender inequality is central to achieving the SDGs.
Tensions are running high in India’s Khasi community, one of the world’s few remaining matrilineal societies, as a new bill seeks to prevent women from marrying non-tribal members.
A new study of women in lower socioeconomic circumstances in British Columbia found midwifery care to be an effective model of prenatal care, significantly lowering the likelihood of preterm births, and small and low birth-weight babies.
In part 2 of our report on the low-income food sellers of Nairobi, we examine the threats facing the women who provide this vital link in the food-security chain – and what the future may hold for them.
Kenyan women operate low-cost food kiosks that fulfill an essential function: providing hot food to people too poor to buy fuel to cook their own meals. But they often struggle to make ends meet, not least because some of their clients are unable to pay.
The thousands of women who volunteer in low-income countries’ healthcare systems deserve proper training, appropriate remuneration and the chance to be heard in decision-making, argue Maisam Najafizada and Jill Allison of Memorial University, Newfoundland.
Jamille Bigio
Nigeria’s working women deserve better legal protection – just as across the world laws making it harder for women to work than men are holding back economic progress. Yet companies will profit from promoting legal reforms to boost women’s participation in the economy.
In Dar es Salaam, a local charity is raising women traders’ awareness of their rights and helping survivors of abuse and assault bring the perpetrators to justice. Founder Jane Magigita says the scheme has led to a large decline in sexual violence in the city’s markets.
Women in Chhattisgarh state have branched out on their own as farmers rearing Kadaknath chickens, which are in great demand for their high-protein meat. A local enterprise scheme is boosting the women’s independence and has saved the birds from the edge of extinction.
Emily Courey Pryor Executive Director of Data2X
A new index brings us one step closer to measuring progress toward gender equality under the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, but ultimate success is hampered by a persistent problem: gaps in the relevant data.
The Women’s Funding Network embraces a ground-up philosophy that empowers women to work together in planning and raising money for community projects. Key to its success, says CEO Cynthia Nimmo, is the fact that WFN takes a long-term view of project impacts.
As Tanzania seeks to decongest Africa’s fastest growing city, more women are stepping up to become registered as professional engineers.
Many Russian women find it difficult to get back into work after having children, but coworking centers with free childcare – the brainchild of P.R. specialist Olesya Kashaeva – are helping many in Moscow. This year Kashaeva is opening centers in 35 Russian cities.
Nursing assistant Bosco pushes himself to his physical limit to help the mothers and infants of Kapoeta, South Sudan, in the face of a brutal conflict and shortages of supplies. Talking to Sam Mednick, he shares his pride in his work and his commitment to his community.
With limited access to public services, Israel’s Bedouin are recognized as the country’s most disadvantaged community. Today, a growing band of Bedouin businesswomen are showing that women can attain financial independence in this male-dominated society.
BuildPalestine’s CEO and cofounder, Besan Abu-Joudeh, talks about the Ramallah-based platform’s newest goal – building a ‘TripAdvisor for nonprofits’ – and discusses the problems and the impact of the projects already implemented.
The oil-rich Gulf States depend on the migrant labor of millions of domestic workers to cook, clean and care for children across the region. For those workers, the chance of a better life for their own families comes with the risk of exploitation, abuse, even slavery.
When the government bought their land to make way for a new railway line, the residents of Kangawa village were promised compensation. Two years on, the women of the village are staging a sit-in protest, demanding fair pay for the loss of their land and livelihoods.
Gujarat chooses to grow maize and wheat, despite being drought-prone, which leaves these crops failing and farmers hungry. But one woman’s secret mission to plant hardy millet has turned fortunes around.
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