For International Youth Day Sharon Settecasse looks at what lessons the development sector, and especially those working with young women, could take from the popular children’s book, ‘Room on the Broom’. Room on the Broom is a children’s book packed with lessons for children, and, as it turns out, for the development sector. It is story of a witch who, …
A feminist approach to monitoring and evaluation
Irene Muñoz introduces our discussion paper on how to apply feminist principles to program monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning. Some time ago Oxfam’s staff, partners and external experts came together to reflect about the relevance for women’s rights of being able to capture, measure and perceive transformational change. They came up with a declaration about the feminist principles that should …
New Delhi: a city of men?
What does it mean to be a man? Prescriptive gender norms limit the lives of both men and women. Earlier this week Neha Kagal described how women’s empowerment in wastepicker communities in India has had a transformative impact on gender relations. Here Shannon Philip looks at how men and women in New Delhi are affected by ideas of masculinity and …
A man’s path to gender equality?
What happens to the gender dynamics in a community when women become socially and economically empowered? Neha Kagal conducted research among Dalit communities in India which found pathways to gender equality are far from straight forward. The feminist trade-union of women wastepickers in India, has 8,000 members all of whom belong to the ‘lower’ Dalit caste. Established in the early …
A human economy for women and men
How can we build an economy that works for everyone? Fenella Porter explains why in order to conceptualise a truly ‘human’ economy we need to look at inequalities of gender as much as inequalities of wealth. If the world turned upside down and we replaced all the women with men, and all the men with women, we still wouldn’t have …
Taking a toilet break: on the railway line
Having unmet needs for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) not only endangers life, it can negatively affect all aspects of daily existence, and women and girls suffer the most. Editor, Caroline Sweetman, introduces the WASH issue of the Gender & Development journal. Imagine you’re a teenage girl, dying to go to the loo – but you can’t, until your mother …
Testing the gender handbook for emergencies
Oxfam is working with UN women and a host of other NGOs on an ECHO funded project to revise the 2006 Gender Handbook for Humanitarian Action. We tested the latest version with frontline staff in Ethiopia and Afghanistan, Jack Jennings explains what they found. The revision of the IASC Gender Handbook is an important and incredibly ambitious project in its …
A holistic approach to women’s economic empowerment
What does economic empowerment look like and how can it be achieved? Vincent Trousseau looks at examples from Oxfam’s programmes in Zambia and Morocco and introduces our new conceptual framework. What is women’s economic empowerment? Oxfam believes that effective economic empowerment for women (WEE) occurs when women enjoy their rights to control and benefit from resources, assets, income and their …
‘I am human and I have hope’: Working with women in Oxfam’s shops
The Future Skills programme is empowering marginalised women in the UK to grow in confidence and pursue their goals through shop work experience. Nikki van der Gaag recently visited Oxfam’s Manchester Emporium shop and was inspired by the women who are participating in the programme. The Oxfam shop on Oldham Street in Manchester is rightly named the Emporium. Spacious and …
How do we measure women’s empowerment?
Empowering women and supporting gender equality is the stated aim of many development projects. Often these projects are asked to monitor and evaluate the extent to which their work is contributing to achieving greater empowerment, but there is little guidance on how to do it. In this blog Simone Lombardini presents a new guide to measuring women’s empowerment in Oxfam …