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URBAN SOCIETY | Gender
This section focuses on
gender equality and empowerment. It includes provisions
for the recognition of rights, mothers and child support
schemes; basic service localisation; support for women in
community activist and leadership roles, and innovative
institutional practices mainstreaming gender equity in access
to services and career opportunities.
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local level
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Covenant Centre for Development (CCD) (n.d) - Women's
Eye View - Small Change, Big deals - SSP [pdf]
The Covenant Centre for Development is a voluntary organization
whose mission is to build people's institutions and empower
them to address issues of economic security. CCD operates
in eight blocks in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
This area, otherwise known as Ramnad Plains suffers from
severe drought. As a result small farmers who grow paddy
in the wetlands and groundnuts in the drylands, rarely get
both crops. So mass scale distress migration
to cities1 ill equipped to handle them (usually to Madurai)
takes place. The poor farmers are then confronted with a
new set of problems of marginalisation and survival in the
unfamiliar city environment.This case study represents a
combination of strategies. It addresses income-poverty of
a network of 2,000 poor women; and provides the space for
learning participation with an aim of building of capacities
to sustain the very process of transformation.
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Jaiyebo, Oluremi (2003) -" Women and household sustenance:
changing livelihoods and survival strategies in the peri-urban
areas of Ibadan" - Environment & Urbanization,
Vol 15 No , April 2003 - IIED [pdf]
This paper describes the livelihoods and survival strategies
of low income households in two peri-urban locations in
Ibadan, drawing primarily on interviews with 96 women who
sell goods from makeshift stalls or who live in poorquality
houses. This includes reports of these women’s perceptions
of poverty, their incomes (44 per cent earned less than
US$ 1 per day) and the strategies they used to avoid poverty
(for all, working longer hours; for most, having their children
engage in income-earning activities although, for most,
this was after school or during holidays; and, for some,
working in more than one business). Many had at one time
farmed (mostly using “idle” land), but few now
did so as the availability of land for farming had diminished.
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Patel, Sheela & Burra Sundar (1998) - Making Cities
Safe for Women and Children - SPARC [pdf]
India - The focus of this presentation
is to explore a very simple phase….” What works
for women and children works for society.” If women
and children cutting across class and religion feel safe
in cities, then those cities are safe. This is like a litmus
test. And this is an invaluable foundation because unless
there is safety and a feeling of being secure, there can
be no growth and development that is worthwhile. Safe cities
provide for strong growth and prosperity… and unless
there is internal equity and social justice in cities, there
can be no real safety.
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Patel, Sheela (n.d) - Diary of a Pathbeater: Ensuring
womens leadership in community educational processes
- SPARC [pdf]
India - The central role that poor women
play in the survival strategies of their family and community
has always been very obvious to those who have worked with
poor settlements. Paradoxically welfare agencies have always
treated women as "beneficiaries" or consumers
of welfare, who have to be motivated, trained and changed.
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Senner, Kathrin (2001) - Mukuru Recycling Centre - A
Gender Evaluation - UN-HABITAT [pdf]
Kenya - Mukuru Recycling Centre (MRC)
was established in 1991 with the engagement of two priests
of Kariobangi Catholic Church to work for the improvement
of the scavenging activities in the Dandora dumping ground
t hrough reduction of exploitation by waste dealers operating
around the dumpsite. The other main component of the Mukuru
Recycling Centre consisted of the rehabilitation of the
scavengers. A significant result of the project noted by
this evaluation is the improvement in the development of
livelihood, solidarity and tolerance among the group members
and rehabilitation from alcohol and drug abuse. This result
is largely due to the great work of the Kariobangi Catholic
Church, the provision of technical support and waste management
technologies by UNCHS (Habitat) and the willingness for
change among the MRC members.
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Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) (n.d) - Women's Eye-View:
Grassroots women’s approach to settlements development
- SSP [pdf]
The Huairou Commission partnered with the UNCHS Women and
Habitat Program on a global initiative that seeks to monitor
the implementation of the Habitat Agenda, following the
Istanbul Conference in 1996. Grassroots women’s groups
and networks in three regions, Africa, North America and
Asia, have initiated projects in the last two years. In
Asia, the Women’s Eye-View project was hosted by Swayam
Shikshan Prayog, in India on behalf of the Asian Women and
Shelter Network. The Journey So Far During the preparatory
process leading up to Habitat II Conference, SSP organized
a series of consultations to look at the different forms
of women’s participation in settlements development.
In January 1995, for the first time a group of practitioners
and researchers, representing different sectors came together
to look at settlements development in a holistic manner.
They asserted that settlements development must be seen
as more than housing and land issues. A settlements perspective
should encompass the range of issues that affect the survival
of communities. Participants also expressed the need to
create learning fora to promote inter-sectional exchanges
of ideas.
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UN-Habitat (2002) - Best Practice - Mother Centre International
Network /AG International, Stuttgart - [pdf]
Germany - The Mother Centres International
Network' initiative was started by grassroots women's movement
in Germany as a consequence of a research project at the
German Youth Institute in Munich. The first three model
Mother Centres were funded by the German Government Department
for Family Affairs. After publication of the Book, "Mothers
in the Center - Mother Centres" in 1985, the mother
Centres spread "like a virus" due to peer visits
and exchanges throughout Germany and neighbouring countries.
Following the transition in Central and Eastern Europe Mother
Centres were created using bottom up approach, as self-help
initiatives in the Czech and Slovak Republics, in Bulgaria,
Russia, Georgia and Bosnia Herzegowina. Worldwide there
are now 700 mother centres including those in Africa and
North America.
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UN-Habitat (2002) - Best Practice - Information Centres
as New Social Institutes, Moscow [pdf]
Russia - Information Centre of the Independent
Women's Forum (ICIWF) is a non-profit women's organization
created in 1994. ICIWF is one of the very few organizations
in Russia that successfully combines information and publishing
of educational projects, supports regional and grassroots
initiatives of women, develops partnership, promotes engendering
urban, municipal and local policy, and involves women in
local self-governance.
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UTTHAN MAHITI - Women's Eye View - Women, Water and
Communities - SSP [pdf]
India - Traveling long distances to fetch
water is part of many a woman’s daily survival activities
in the Bhal region in rural Gujarat. One of the most grim
battles for overcoming the acute scarcity of water is waged
on a daily basis. The entire responsibility for finding
water for the communities’ needs devolves on women.
The seriousness of the issue can be understood from the
fact that in summer, violent fights over water shortages
are quite common. It is equally common to see groups of
women in search of water. When they fail to find any, entire
villages have to make do with drinking saline water which
is non-potable or simply wait for infrequent supplies from
tankers.
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city level
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Beall, Jo (1996) - Urban Governance: Why Gender Matters
- UNDP [pdf]
Urban governance must be gender-sensitive if it is to be
equitable,
sustainable and effective. Participation and civic engagement
are critical determinants of good governance, a concept
which addresses issues of social equity and political legitimacy
and not merely the efficient management of infrastructure
and services. The different ways in which women and men
participate in and benefit from urban governance are significantly
shaped by prevailing constructions of gender, whose norms,
expectations and institutional expressions constrain women's
access to the social and economic, and thus political, resources
of the city. Most societies ascribe roles and responsibilities
to women and men differentially but fail to value, or even
account for, the crucial contributions women's labour makes
to household and community maintenance. Ironically, such
social reproduction allows little time (or, in some cases,
permission) for women to participate in civic life in ways
which help them to determine their own lives.
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Ruel, Marie T., Bénédicte de la Brière,
Kelly Hallman,
Agnes Quisumbing, and Nora Coj (2002) - Does Subsidized
Childcare Help Poor Working Women in Urban Areas? Evaluation
of a Government - Sponsored Program in Guatemala City- IFPRI
[pdf]
Guatemala - High urbanization rates in
Latin America are accompanied by an increase in women’s
participation in the labor force and the number of households
headed by single mothers. Reliable and affordable childcare
alternatives are thus becoming increasingly important in
urban areas. The Hogares Comunitarios Program (HCP), established
in Guatemala City in 1991, was a direct response to the
increasing need of poor urban dwellers for substitute childcare.
This government-sponsored pilot program was designed as
a strategy to alleviate poverty by providing working parents
with low-cost, quality childcare within their community.
This paper presents preliminary findings from an evaluation
of the HCP carried out in 1998 in urban slums of Guatemala
City.
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international level
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Drage, Jean (2001) - Women in Local Government in Asia
and the Pacific: A comparative analysis of thirteen countries
- UN-ESCAP [pdf]
Women are underrepresented in local government in the Asia
and Pacific region. Statistics show the percentage of women
in local government seats range from a high of 33 percent
to a low of 2 percent. There are even fewer women in management
positions in local government. Women in South Asia and the
East Asia and Pacific sub-regions have had more electoral
success overall than those in South-East Asia. In South
Asia this success is directly related to a quota of reserved
seats being allocated for women, a measure that, when introduced,
instantly changed the level of women’s involvement.
In East Asia and the Pacific the numbers reflect the length
of time women have been able to vote and stand for election;
the overall level of development in most of these countries
and the social and economic circumstances within which women
live, and the long campaigns for changes to increase the
numbers.
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Levy, Caren (1996) - The Process of Institutionalising
Gender in Policy and Planning: The Web of Institutionalisation
- Working Paper N° 74 - DPU [pdf]
Events like the Fourth UN Conference for Women which was
held in Beijing in September 1995 help to focus the mind
on issues like `how far have we come?' and `where are we
going to?' Thus, while many are working towards setting
and implementing new agendas for the millennium, the experience
gained since the first formal national and international
commitment to Women in Development in 1975 is also being
reviewed. Despite 20 years of international, national and
local activities on behalf of women, it is clear that most
development activities continue without explicitly considering
half the population as active participants in development
- even when empirical evidence has shown that women are
key actors in all development spheres, on their own, collectively
with other women or with men.
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Smaoun, Soraya - Violence Against Women in Urban Areas:
An Analysis of the Problem from a Gender Perspective
- UMP Working Paper Series 17, UN-HABITAT [pdf]
Although women’s contribution in today’s societies
is essential and indisputable, nowhere is their status on
a par with men’s. Women are a vulnerable group in
all areas. With respect to violence, the evidence is revealing
and irrevocable: not only are women particularly affected
by many forms of violence, but most often these happen inside
what
should be the most secure of environments; their own homes.
As the United Nations Development Programme’s annual
Human Development Report (1995) commented: “In no
society are women secure or treated as equal to men. Personal
insecurity shadows them from cradle to grave… From
childhood through adulthood, they are abused because of
their gender”. Moreover, the social context would
generally appear to encourage violence against women. Images
which devalue and undermine women are widespread, and legitimise
violence against them. Cultural practices and the patriarchal
system governing modern societies, define women’s
needs in accordance to men’s and are subordinate to
them.
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UNESCO-MOST (n.d) - Urban Basic Service for Mothers
and Children in Peri-urban Neighborhoods Turkey - UNESCO-MOST
[pdf]
High rates of urbanization and a rapidly increasing mass
of urban poor justified an Urban Basic Services (UBS) programme
in Turkey. The Ahatli Project on UBS started in mid 1989,
in a pilot area of Antalya City. The rationale in which
the project was based was an ever-increasing concentration
of children and mothers in urban areas, with low-quality
of life indicators. Drawbacks in the development policies,
traditionally emphasizing the rural setting and building
of massive engineering projects led to single out as a prime
goal of this project, a self-sustaining model of participatory
development, sustained by intersectoral collaboration. The
mother and child health and establishment of a social infrastructure
for participation were the initial components which evolved
in 1990 into a multifocal project, with additional components
of environmental upgrading and income generation. Antalya
project officially finalized in 1994. After five years of
implementation the project is matured to serve as a model
for urban area based projects in Turkey and being followed
by Ankara project which is still being implementing in the
squatter areas of Ankara Turkey.
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Hainard, François; Christine Verschuur & Malika
Wyss M’Zali (2001) - Women and urban crises Gender
sensitive strategies for managing critical urban environments
in the South and in Eastern Europe - UNESCO-MOST [pdf]
More than half the world’s population will be living
in cities by the year
2005. The increasing urbanization of populations in the
South is triggering rapid changes in living conditions and
social relations, especially between the genders. Disadvantaged
urban women bear much of the brunt of the problems stemming
from the current thrust of development: environmental degradation
and feminization of poverty are parallel yet interrelated
processes. Given that they are already struggling with city
management and governance, how are the countries of the
South going to cope with an urban population that is set
to triple over the coming thirty years? Can analysis of
present-day situations serve as a source of the ideas and
inspiration needed to restore cities to their erstwhile
role as catalysts of progress, prosperity and fulfilment?
What inputs can analysis of urban grass-roots movements,
most of whose active members are women, offer urban policy-makers
and managers?
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United Nations (1999) - World Survey on the Role of
Women in Development: Globalization, Gender and Work
- UN [pdf]
Today, gender is finally at the centre of development policies,
after three decades of struggle. Since 1975, when the World
Conference of the International Women’s Year was held
at Mexico City, the discourse on women’s advancement
and its relation with the development process has evolved.
Essentially, it has shifted in focus from the intellectual
and political approach of “women in development”
(WID) to the new approach of “gender and development”
(GAD).
More recently “gender mainstreaming” has emerged
as a strategy to promote gender equality.
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UNDP (2000) - Women's Political Participation and Good
Governance: 21st Century Challenges - UNDP [pdf]
Gender equality and the empowerment of women are critical
dimensions of the United Nations Development Programme’s
efforts to help meet the overarching goal of halving world
poverty by 2015. The launch of this publication during the
General Assembly Special Session on Beijing +5 testifies
to UNDP’s commitment to keeping these issues among
its top priorities. The studies it contains clearly show
how, despite substantial obstacles, women decision makers
in developing countries have already begun to put a distinctive
stamp on governance mechanisms, institutions and broader
political debates. But it also draws attention to the fact
that much more still needs to be done.
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UN-Habitat (2000) - Policy Paper on Women and Urban
Governance [pdf]
Because women and men experience cities differently due
to their different roles and activities, and women’s
needs are seldom represented in policy or planning, it is
essential that these interests are now actively advanced
(Beall, 1996: 2). UNCHS has selected the following areas
for strategic attention: basic services, human rights, economic
capacity, transport, violence and security of tenure. Issues
that affect women are not static, as the roles of women
and men in
different societies around the world are constantly shifting,
especially recently as a result of economic globalisation.
The, policy paper pays specific attention to the issues
affecting urban poor women developing countries.
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web
sites
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U-N Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action - The Fourth World Conference
on Women - September 1995 [pdf]
U-N General Assembly
- June 2000: We the Governments participating in the special
session of the General
Assembly;
1. Reaffirm our commitment to the goals and objectives contained
in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted
in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women, and the
Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of
Women to the year 2000 as the culmination of the United
Nations Decade for Women, 1976 to 1985 [pdf]
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Documents highlighting DFID's published
work in support of health and education in urban areas: |
"Gender
and Transport Planning in Pamplona" - Wakely,
Patrick; Nicholas You (2001) – Implementing
the Habitat Agenda: In Search of Urban Sustainability
- DPU [pdf]
Spain - The introduction of gender
considerations in the planning of the regional transport
system is vital to ensure that transport services
meet the needs of all users. The processes of addressing
the particular transportation needs of women can also
lead to a growing awareness and sensitivity of women's
participation in town planning processes.
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"Women's
Empowerment Programme" - Ibid. [pdf]
Nepal - The Women's Empowerment
Programme (WEP), initiated in 1998, addresses three
fundamental human rights: basic literacy, economic
participation
and the exercise of legal rights. The programme works
to empower women through an innovative programme integrating
literacy, micro -finance and micro-enterprise training,
and an understanding of legal rights and advocacy.
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"Women's
Right To Land in Dar es Salaam" - Ibid. [pdf]
Tanzania - The Women Advancement
Trust (WAT) was founded in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,
in 1989, to promote the interests of women through
education, training and information sharing. The first
major campaign was to influence the new land laws,
which discriminated against women. This was successful
in 1999 when new, gender-sensitive Land Acts were
passed.
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"Working Women's Independence in Ahmedabad
City" - Ibid. [pdf]
India - Poor, self-employed women
in the informal sector frequently find it almost impossible
to access credit to invest in, and improve, their
livelihood activities. NGOs can serve a vital function
in tailoring credit systems to meet the needs of such
women. SEWA, the Self Employed Women's Association,
was formed in 1972 and registered as a trade union
in Gujarat, with the main objective of strengthening
its members bargaining power to improve income, employment
and access to social security.
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