Women are the answer
- 27 Jan 07, 08:20 AM
A theme emerged in Bill and Melinda Gates discussion of the work of their Foundation. Melinda Gates said it was clear that solutions had to be placed in the hands of women in developing countries. "A lot of the tragedy falls on women", said Bill, and Melinda pointed out that 60% of those who are HIV positive in Africa are women. Their experience was that providing tools and potential solutions to women was more effective than working with men in the poorest areas.
This chimes with the work of the Barefoot College which I wrote about earlier in the week. The college only works with women, teaching them to become solar engineers in 6 months and sending them back to provide power to their villages. They too believe women are more effective in providing solutions.
And even the off-centre psychotherapy session with Dagmar O'Connor suggested that an individual's relationship with their mother can have a profound impact on their future life. But we all knew that already, didnt we?
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Tim Weber is the business editor for the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News website. |
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Bill Gates: Aid does work (9)
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The business of poverty (13)
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Junket? You decide (27)
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Women are the answer (4)
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The Little Britain show (3)
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China, China, China (22)
Comments Post your comment
Re: women can make more effective use of aid.
Read Marilyn Waring, "Counting for Nothing". Ms Waring is a new zealander and former UN official and former New Zealand parliamentarian. She identified how, much UN aid to poor nations assumed patriliniar traditions, when the traditions were matriliniar, thus, aid given to men is not understood as being for men, women, and children, and quickly was misused, while women's land holdings are removed from them and given to men who had no interest or traditional skills to farm. Thus, the aid destroyed what ability there was for self sufficency, and gave women and children nothing in return for their very survival.
Please give M. Waring the recognition she deserves for being the person who identified this problem, not the new-to-the-field computer wealthies. Ms. Waring has been speaking of this problem for years.
Janet E. Smith
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Without knowing Marilyn Waring's work, I thought that the fact of women being the dependable users of aid - and empowerers of community - was a long-known fact among informed development workers. I'm sure I learned about this some 18 years ago.
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Agree with Gill Poole. That empowered women are powerful drivers of change has been common knowledge for a long time. Coversely, countries where women have low staus and disempowered through illitereacy and 'so called culture' continue to laguish. Between the Gates and CSR investments misogyny and gender discrimination may crumble a bit more but they did not discover women's role in development - just woke up to it!!
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As the posters have pointed out. This isn't new. It's just a formalization of existing policy.
Existing FAILED policy.
We give the food and resources to the women and children...the men with guns take it away.
Disenfranchising African men has only fueled the fire.
We should empower African men to rebuild their society within their own cultural context. Forcing western ideas on them is both naive and counterproductive.
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