News
The streets around the headquarters of the world's leading financial institutions – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – have been transformed into a canvas over the last three days.
Emblazoned with this year's signature slogan of the Bretton Woods Institutions, "Think Equal", the sidewalks in DC are now home to the campaign of the world's biggest bank that has, for the first time this year, placed the issue of gender at the centre of the development debate. "We've just released a World Development Report on gender that proves that 'getting to equal' for women is not just the right thing to do. It's also smart economics," World Bank Group president Robert Zoellick told a press conference here Thursday. "Women are the next big emerging market - how can the world reach its full growth potential if it fails to advance the prospects, energies, and contributions of half the world's population – women and girls?" he asked.
Brothers, husbands, boyfriends and fathers are key actors in the creation of a world where girls enjoy the same rights as boys, and will themselves benefit from greater gender equality, stresses a new report from Plan International released Thursday. Plan International (Plan) is an independent children's development organisation that works in 50 developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas to promote child rights and to end child poverty. The report features the story of Nixon Otieno Odoyo, a teenager living in Nairobi who helped launch a campaign to provide female students with free sanitary napkins.
Boosting women's political participation and decision-making around the world is fundamental for democracy and essential for achieving sustainable development, women leaders taking part in a high-level event at the United Nations declared. "We stress the critical importance of women's political participation in all contexts, including in times of peace, conflict and in all stages of political transition," they said in a joint statement on advancing women's political participation.The event, among a series of meetings being held this week on the margins of the 66th session of the General Assembly, brought together women heads of state and government, including President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago, Roza Otunbaeva of Kyrgyzstan and Finland's Tarja Halonen, as well as numerous government representatives and UN officials.
The President of the General Assembly has urged leaders to promote the use of digital technologies to improve health care, especially in developing countries. "Only five years ago, who would have imagined that today a woman in sub-Saharan Africa could use a mobile phone to access health information on bringing her pregnancy safely to term... or that today, a young person in the Middle East could use a mobile phone to help manage diabetes," said Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, the President of the 66th Session of the General Assembly. Addressing the South-South Awards ceremony on Digital Health for Development -- on the side lines of the General Assembly's High-level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) -- Al Nasser said the rapid expansion in the use of ICTs in developing countries provided them with a crucial tool to prevent and control diseases.
The United Nations must leverage the power of information and communications technology (ICT) to the fullest in its response to political, economic and environmental challenges and to improve the delivery of its services, says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Addressing a meeting at UN Headquarters on public-private partnership for ICT, Mr. Ban stressed that the world body must make the fullest possible use of ICTs in achieving its development goals and other important objectives. “We already do a great deal, but we know we can do more… much more,” he said. The Secretary-General noted that ICTs can help strengthen disaster risk reduction as well as the UN’s response when disasters do happen. Other important activities – from reporting on repression and human rights abuses and monitoring ecosystems to delivering public services, especially in health and education – can all be made more effective through ICTs.
Despite increasing deployment of broadband infrastructure and growth of mobile technology, Africa is the lowest-scoring region in the ICT Development Index (IDI) released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) last week. Despite increasing deployment of broadband infrastructure and growth of mobile technology, Africa is the lowest-scoring region in the ICT Development Index (IDI) released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) last week. The 2011 edition of Measuring the Information Society scores the level of advancement of ICT in 152 countries worldwide, comparing progress made between 2008 and 2010.
Cyber crime is on the increase. Eighty-four percent of adult South Africans who are online report that they have experienced cyber crime in their lifetime. But a massive 74 percent of these victims said they had experienced cyber crime as recently as in the past year. This is according to Norton’s cyber crime report, which surveyed 24 countries. Globally, the total net cost of cyber crime is put at $388 billion (R2.9 trillion). South African cyber crime makes up only R10.9bn of this, which is less than 1 percent. Although the monetary cost of our cyber crime is lower than in other countries, more South Africans are reporting being victims of cyber crime than the global average.
Women’sNet is excited to be part of an innovating conference on September 14th and 15th, under the topic Wired Women Conference: Celebrating and Empowering Women in Tech hosted by Quality Life in Rosebank, Johannesburg. The two day conference will showcase the women thought leader, entrepreneurs and innovators who are shaping the digital economy while empowering delegates with practical strategies on how to use technology for personal and professional advancement.
Cell phones and computer applications can help save the lives of thousands of mothers and children worldwide. This is one of the main conclusions of "Innovating for Every Woman, Every Child", a report by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Innovation Working Group (IWG) published Monday. The report points to changes in health care delivery in some developing countries like India, Tanzania and Zambia. They are rooted less in development aid than in home-grown and self-sustaining solutions, including the use of communicative devices or the supply chains of large companies.
"Many of the ideas have come up from local entrepreneurs," Dr. Tore Godal, special advisor to the Norwegian prime minister and co- author of the report, told IPS. "A large number of innovations are based on public and private sector cooperation, creating a potential for reducing maternal and child mortality." An example for an initiative highlighted by the report is the South African project Cell-Life. In this programme, short messages are used to remind HIV-positive mothers to keep appointments and bring infants for HIV testing or treatment. Eight out of 10 of South Africans have access to mobile phones. Forty percent of the deaths of children under five in South Africa are due to AIDS-related illnesses – many because mothers are not able to bring their infants for treatment or drop out of programmes.
Crime statistics tell us nothing about domestic violence, hate crimes, and human trafficking, writes Chandre Gould. While we celebrate the significant reduction of many types of crime in South Africa, it is worth asking what this means, if anything, for gender-based violence. Every year, public attention focuses on crimes that grab the headlines, yet there are significant crimes that don't feature in the annual police statistics. Since nearly eight males are murdered in South Africa for every female murder victim, a reduction in the murder rate doesn't tell us much about whether women are any safer now than they were a year ago.
As part of the awareness and mobilization for the COP17 the province will be hosting Gauteng pre COP 17 Provincial Summit linked with Gauteng water Sector Forum on 08 and 09 September 2011
We, the delegates of women drawn from the media and environment, also joined by women in the public sector, academia and Non-Governmental Organisations, attending the first “Women in Media and Environment” conference in Pretoria on 03 and 04 September 2011,
Supportive of South Africa’s hosting of the 17th Conference of Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Durban from 28 November to 09 December 2011
Recognising that climate change is a reality that will have devastating impacts on the environment and people of the world if no concrete action is taken urgently
Determined to play a role in educating ourselves and broader society on matters relating to environmental health and climate change
Concerned about the lack of public awareness on the subject of climate change,
Concerned that women will bear the brunt of environmental degradation as a result of climate change, and consequently subjecting poor households threats to food security and price volatility in the market
Imploring world governments and all delegates to the COP17/CMP7 to act decisively and with requisite urgency to restore the integrity of international climate change negotiations
Recognising that our continent, Africa, is already experiencing dire consequences of climate change and that the continent is likely to suffer the most from these consequences
Calling on women and society at large to take greater interest in matters relating to environmental health and climate change
We, the delegates of women drawn from the media and environment, also joined by women in the public sector, academia and Non-Governmental Organisations, attending the first “Women in Media and Environment” conference in Pretoria on 03 and 04 September 2011,
Supportive of South Africa’s hosting of the 17th Conference of Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Durban from 28 November to 09 December 2011
Recognising that climate change is a reality that will have devastating impacts on the environment and people of the world if no concrete action is taken urgently
Determined to play a role in educating ourselves and broader society on matters relating to environmental health and climate change
Concerned about the lack of public awareness on the subject of climate change,
Concerned that women will bear the brunt of environmental degradation as a result of climate change, and consequently subjecting poor households threats to food security and price volatility in the market
Imploring world governments and all delegates to the COP17/CMP7 to act decisively and with requisite urgency to restore the integrity of international climate change negotiations
Recognising that our continent, Africa, is already experiencing dire consequences of climate change and that the continent is likely to suffer the most from these consequences
Calling on women and society at large to take greater interest in matters relating to environmental health and climate change
"Women have more opportunities nowadays to participate in the economic, social and political development of the country, but this has still not improved the quality of their lives," said Laura Reyes, one of the three women candidates for vice president of Guatemala. "Many women have done a good job, but others have taken advantage of power to serve their own personal interests," Reyes, a lawyer belonging to the Cakchiquel Maya indigenous group, told IPS ahead of Sunday's general elections. An unprecedented number of women are standing in the elections. Three women are running for president, and three more for the vice presidency, out of a total of 10 presidential and vice presidential tickets. In contrast, in 2003 there was only one woman vice presidential candidate.
While advocacy groups say the national increase in rape statistics shows more people are reporting the crime, it's feared that the figure is actually much higher. It was revealed yesterday that rape is one of the few crimes showing an increase following the release of South Africa's crime statistics for last financial year. The number of reported rapes nationally rose from just over 55 000 in 2009/2010 to more than 56 200 in the last financial year. Cookie Edwards from KZN Network on Violence Against Women says the statistics show that more people are coming forward to report rape.