In so many places, women’s mental health has been neglected for too long. Here’s how we’re working with communities to change that

Julian Kosh Gender, Health, Innovation

In a blog for World Mental Health Day, Julian Kosh looks at a pilot project to support survivors of abuse, trauma and cancer in Kenya and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. At its core is a ‘flexible funding’ approach that gives women’s rights organisations the freedom to test new approaches to mental health in the ways they think best

Fighting for invisible women in Kenya: a story and podcast of an extraordinary changemaker in the pandemic

Filippo Artuso Gender, Innovation, Research

“I am a reflection of how a widow can  thrive. I am a reflection of how widows can remain invisible…” Roseline Orwa, advocate for Kenyan widows, is star of the first episode of a new podcast series telling four stories of changemakers in a time of Covid. Oxfam’s Filippo Artuso and the LSE’s Barbara van Paassen tell us more about the series – and the research that informs it

Using technology to enhance youth employment in the Middle East and North Africa

Ahmed Elassal Youth employment, Youth Participation

Challenges in context According to an Oxfam report, half a billion people could be pushed into poverty by COVID-19. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), warned that the crisis is expected to wipe out 6.7%  of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020. The situation has directly hit the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region. Export, travel, transportation …

Podcast: The challenges of measuring women’s empowerment

Marina Torre Gender, Real Geek

[buzzsprout episode=’2559187′ player=’true’] In this episode we share Oxfam’s journey in measuring women’s empowerment in our impact evaluations. Our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Lead, Marina Torre, speaks to Simone Lombardini, Impact Evaluation Lead, who has been working in this area of work. Simone delves into the details on what methodologies have been used, the challenges the team has faced and …

How to measure women’s empowerment so that it reflects the views and opinions of all women interviewed in a study

Simone Lombardini Gender, General, Real Geek

Ensuring all voices are heard in evaluation processes is challenging but essential. Natalie Naïri Quinn from Oxford University and Oxfam’s Simone Lombardini present their analysis from a discrete choice experiment conducted in Tunisia. Measuring women’s empowerment has become more and more important for assessing development projects aimed at supporting women. Different measurement tools are available; but while most of them …

Technical learning from the meta-analysis of women’s empowerment projects

Kristen McCollum Gender, Methodology, Real Geek

Kristen McCollum, consultant at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), shares with us the learning from Oxfam’s meta-analyses on women’s empowerment. When we first decided to conduct a meta-analysis on women’s empowerment Effectiveness Reviews (ERs), the idea was to go where no impact evaluation had gone before. While the Effectiveness Reviews give us a rigorous measurement of the impact …