Women: Access and Equality

·         The Changing Racial Dynamics of Women's Incarceration is a May, 2013 report discussing the decline in the racial disparities in incarcerated women from a 6:1 to a 3:1 African-American to white ratio.

·         The World Survey on the role of women in development 2014: Gender equality and sustainable development is a UN report published every 5 years.  " The 2014 report focuses on gender equality and sustainable development, with chapters on the green economy and care work, food security, population dynamics, and investments for gender-responsive sustainable development." The report is available in PDF version here.

·         The Association for Women's Rights  in Development produced this  AWID Think Piece on Fiscal Policy, Women’s Rights and Gender Equality as a contribution to a September 2013 conference on fiscal policy and human rights in Geneva.  The report is linked directly here.

·         Getting at the roots: Reintegrating human rights & gender equality in post-2015 development agenda is an April 2013 report by the Association for Women's Rights in Development.  The report is available in PDF format here.

·         An AWID in-depth analysis of the Post-2015 High Level Panel Report and recommendations moving forward offers analysis of the post-2015 development agenda vis-a-vis women's rights and goals internationally in a September 2013 report.  The report may also be accessed directly here.

·         Fact and Fiction: Examining Microcredit/Microfinance from a Feminist Perspective is a March 2012 report looking at the benefits and harms of the microfinance craze, particularly in the global south.  This report by Soma K. Parthasarathy "situates microcredit both historically and within present debates on development and economics, and discusses its impact on particular groups of women."  The report is available in PDF format also here.

·         The Association for Women's Rights in Development's January 2011 List of Materials and Resources for Women Human Rights Defenders is a reference tool for practitioners and scholars of human rights for women.

Notes from the Field: Silence Kills! Women and the Transitional Justice Process in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia  (Doris H. Gray and Terry Coonan,  International Journal of Transitional Justice (2013) 7 (2): 348-357) is a look at the Arab Spring revolution in Tunisia and involves analysis of a "collection of testimonies of female former political prisoners in Tunisia .... aimed at contributing to an authentic Tunisian process of transitional justice that takes cultural, religious and gender-based norms into consideration. To date, the voices of conservative Islamist women detained under the Tunisian dictatorship have been significantly absent from the national discourse on transitional justice."

·         Recommendations to Enhance the Protection and Security of WHRDs is a December 2013 "set of recommendations seek[ing] to address the need for an integrated concept of security that goes beyond just the physical protection of the individual. Integrated security affirms the importance of the development of prevention measures and takes into account the need for WHRDs to feel safe at home, at work and on the street.  Integrated security integrates the physical and psychological well-being of WHRDs, their organisations and their families."  The report is available in English and Arabic.

·         Our Right to Safety: Women Human Rights Defenders' Holistic Approach to Protection is a March 2014 report by AWID and the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRD-IC) , available in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.

·         Strengthening Monitoring and Evaluation for Women’s Rights: Thirteen Insights for Women’s Organizations is an August 2011 report on effective M&E for NGOs and Human rights Organizations to enhance effectiveness and accountability to donors and clients.

·         Strengthening Monitoring and Evaluation for Women’s Rights: Twelve Insights for Donors is a February 2011 report on addressing M&E challenges in assessing women's rights work and its progress.

·         Conditionalities undermine the right to development: An analysis based on a Women’s and Human Rights Perspective  is an October 2008 "analysis of the position against economic policy conditionalities based on a women's and human rights perspective."

·         The Development Cooperation and Women's Rights Series is a January 2013 set of primers on aid effectiveness: "The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is the most recent agreement by donor and recipient countries to reform the delivery and management of aid monies in order to strengthen its impact and effectiveness. The Aid Effectiveness and Women’s Rights Series Primers shares information, analysis and proposals needed to support women’s right activists in contributing to a comprehensive, balanced, and inclusive approach to reforming aid so that it reaches the people who need it most."

       Increasing Women's Access to Justice in Post-Conflict Societies, UN Chronicle, discusses how the rule of law still outrules women and suggests concrete interventions to promote access for women and gender equality in postconflict spaces.

·         We, the Women. The United Nations, Feminism and Economic Justice is a November 2004 report discussing mounting evidence that development and human rights goals and metrics are not being achieved as mounting "conference fatigue" overtakes and clouds the discourse.

·         Intersectionality: A Tool for Gender and Economic Justice is a March 2009 report attempting to inject considerations of diversity, difference and cultural competence in gender analysis. "Intersectionality is a tool for analysis, advocacy and policy development that addresses multiple discriminations and helps us understand how different sets of identities impact on access to rights and opportunities."

·         Civil Society, Community Participation and Empowerment in the Era of Globalisation is a March 2009 report on "second wave feminism" and community participatory development.

·         The Handbook on Effective Prosecution Responses to Violence against Women and Girls is a December 9, 2014 UNWomen report on implementation of laws on eliminating violence against women and effective prosecutions in this context internationally. The United Nations General Assembly's 2014 adoption of updated Model Strategies and Practical Measures on the Elimination of Violence against Women in the Field of Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (General Assembly resolution 65/228, annex) offer a comprehensive policy framework to assist States in developing responses and carrying out actions to eliminate violence against women and to promote gender equality within the criminal justice system. 

·         Extracting Equality — A Guide is a November 3, 2014 "practical tool which assists individuals and organizations involved in the extractive industries in integrating gender into each stage of the extractive value chain. At each step, the toolkit offers a clear picture of the specific considerations to make and questions to ask in order to ensure women are not left out of natural resource governance. 

·         Why those working on Gender Equality should know about tax law issues is a March 2009 report on gender equality vis-a-vis governmental tax and regulatory schemes."In many countries around the world, the majority of the population - and a majority of women - are poor, and adequate financing of public services is a pressing issue. Moreover, since taxes are governments’ principal own-source revenues, tax policy is at the heart of the public debate on what services government should provide and who should pay for them, including the share paid by women and men as consumers, workers, and employers."

·         A Rights-Based Approach to Development is a February 2009 analysis discussing an approach to development that "builds on the experiences and expertise of two significant branches of the women's movement: development and human rights. This primer describes the approach, presents its benefits to the development community, and suggests some ways that it can be used."

“Double Jeopardy: Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science,” is a report by the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California that surveyed 500 female scientists and conducted in-depth interviews with 60 more and looked at how gender and racial bias impacts women’s mental health and careers, revealing among other things that almost half of Black and Latina women working as scientists have been mistaken for a janitor or administrator their offices.