Resources
Review
Annual and Financial Review 2007-2008
Annual and Financial Review 2006-2007
Related links
Useful organisations working to improve the quality of women’s lives:
- Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign.
- The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) is an international membership organization connecting, informing and mobilizing people and organizations committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women's human rights.
- BRIDGE supports gender advocacy and mainstreaming efforts by bridging the gaps between theory, policy and practice with accessible and diverse gender information in print and online.
- Development Initiatives for Women in a New Era is a network of women scholars and activists from the economic South who engage in feminist research and analysis of the global environment and are committed to working for economic justice, gender justice and democracy.
- The Gender and Development Network is a diverse membership network of over 200 leading practitioners, academics and consultants working on gender and development issues in the U.K. The network enables its members to share information and expertise, to lobby government and international bodies effectively on their development programmes and to provide expert advice and comment on policies and projects.
- The UN International Training & Research Institute for the Advancement of Women produces strategic research, creates synergies for the production and dissemination of knowledge, builds the capacity of organisations working towards gender equality and showcases best practices and lessons learned on gender issues.
- MADRE is an international women’s human rights organisation that works in partnership with women's community-based groups worldwide to address issues of health, economic development and other human rights.
- Newham Asian Women's Project (NAWP) is an organisation that provides advice and support for Asian women and children experiencing domestic violence.
- The Global Fund for Women, an international network of women and men committed to a world of equality and social justice, advocates for and defends women's human rights by making grants to support women's groups around the world.
- UNIFEM is the women’s fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies to foster women’s empowerment and gender equality.
- Womankind helps enable women to voice their concerns and claim their rights, and to work globally for policies and practices which promote equality between men and women.
Key facts
- Every one-percentile growth in female secondary schooling results in a 0.3 percent growth in the economy, yet many women have been denied the opportunity for education (UN, 2002).
- The majority of the world's 1.3 billion absolute poor are women (UN, 2002).
- On average, women receive between 30 and 40 per cent less pay than men earn for the same work (UN, 2002).
- Women continue to be victims of violence, with rape and domestic violence listed as significant causes of disability and death among women of reproductive age worldwide (UN, 2002).
- Only 24 women have been elected heads of state or government in this century. In 1995 there were 10 women heads of state. Although women's representation at the highest level of government is generally weakest in Asia, four of these 10 held office in this region (UN, 2002).
- Only 14.1 percent of representatives elected to Parliaments around the world are women, up from 11.7 in 1997. The percentage of female cabinet ministers worldwide has risen from 3 in 1987 to 6.2 percent in 1996. In early 1995, Sweden formed the world's first cabinet to have equal numbers of men and women (UN, 2002).
- Of the 189 highest ranking diplomats to the United Nations, only eleven are women (UN, 2002).
- Almost no women served on the military staff of UN peace keeping between 1957 and 1979. In 1993, 2 percent of the military contingent of peace-keeping were women. Throughout the history of UN peace-keeping, there have been only 2 women in top decision-making positions (UN, 2002).
- Women made up 41 percent of adults living with HIV in 1998. Today nearly 50 percent of adults living with HIV are women — close to 60 percent in sub-Saharan Africa (UNAIDS, 2004).