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‘Investing’ in Women’s Rights: Challenges and new trends

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Abstract

Women's rights activists and advocates are not the only ones talking about the importance of inclusion of women and girls in the development processes. From the World Bank to corporations, investing in women and girls trend has picked up over the past years. At the same time, AWID's Where is the Money for Women's Rights? 2011 survey results demonstrate very little benefit for women's organizations coming from corporations. Angelika Arutyunova argues that inclusion of women's organizations in finding solutions for women's and girls problems is essential and not only as beneficiaries but as agents of change.

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Notes

  1. It is difficult to claim a ‘representative’ sample, given the diversity and spread of women's organizations and movements. However the survey attempted to reach as broadly as possible (in five languages). To understand the profile of survey respondents, they primarily included organizations working at the national (55 percent) and local (52 percent) levels, with about one third working regionally (19 percent) or internationally (12 percent). Respondents were based in sub-Saharan Africa (37 percent), Latin America (15 percent), South and Southeast Asia (11 percent), Southern and Central Europe (9 percent), the Caucasus and Central Asia (7 percent) and the Middle East and North Africa (7 percent). Less than five percent of respondents per region were located in Eastern Asia, the Pacific, North America and Western Europe.

  2. Coca-Cola Company (2011).

  3. Nike Foundation (2008). For more information, see Nike Foundation (2012).

  4. Goldman Sachs (2012).

  5. http://www.omidyar.com/approach Also, the Business Model of Social Change http://www.hbr.org/2011/09/ebays-founder-on-innovating-the-business-model-off-social-change/ar/1. ‘By the early 2000s, I’d realized what a profound social impact eBay was having as part of its business. It had about 100 million users, and it was teaching people that they could trust a complete stranger over the internet – at least, trust him or her enough to make a transaction. It was providing people with new careers and livelihoods. This was large-scale impact. I began to wonder: If I had created a non-profit organization and set a ten-year goal to build a trusted network of 100 million people, with a start-up grant of $10,000 and no additional grants, would it have succeeded? Probably not. But somehow a business had been able to reach this level of social impact in less time, using less outside capital’.

  6. For example, the Nirantar survey of micro-credit groups and poverty reduction in India has found that micro-credit programmes, instead of increasing women’s agency and empowerment, can reinforce traditional gender roles, and does not challenge the roots of existing inequalities. ‘… The new construction of the good woman, who saves regularly, repays faithfully in the service of the family, while bearing a greater burden of work, is also epitomised as the progressive woman, with all the symbols of outward and upward mobility, as well as the responsibility to keep those symbols intact’ (Nirantar, 2007).

  7. See ‘Key Demands From Women's Rights Organizations And Gender Equality Advocates To The Fourth High Level Forum On Aid Effectiveness (Busan, Korea, 2011) and the Development Cooperation Forum (2012)’, October 2011. Accessed 19 June 2012. http://www.awid.org/Library/Key-Demands-from-Women-s-Rights-Organizations-and-Gender-Equality-Advocates-To-the-Fourth-High-Level-Forum-on-Aid-Effectiveness-Busan-Korea-2011-and-the-Development-Cooperation-Forum-2012.

  8. A recent critique by Ofra Koffman (2012) challenges ‘Nike's Girl Effect’ and the UN 2010 taskforce data that suggests women that ‘marry later, delay childbearing, have healthier children, and earn better incomes that will benefit themselves, their families, communities and nations’. Koffman argues instead that the relationships between early marriage and fertility is much more complex and context-specific (Koffman, 2012).

  9. See WorldPulse. GAIN discussion group. N.p. 8 May 2012, accessed 19 June, http://www.worldpulse.com/node/48357.

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Looks at where the money is for women's rights defenders

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Arutyunova, A. ‘Investing’ in Women’s Rights: Challenges and new trends. Development 55, 305–310 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2012.50

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