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Focus US Aid Efforts on Women, Say Experts
WASHINGTON - Experts calling for changes in the U.S. foreign aid system got a sharp reminder Tuesday on Capitol Hill from representatives of half the world's population: put women at the center of efforts to improve lives in developing countries.
A growing consensus around the need to put a new face on Washington's 40-year-old Foreign Assistance Act -- including the creation of a cabinet-level post for Global and Human Development -- has drawn the attention of organizations dedicated to improving the lot of women around the world.
Yolanda Richardson, president of the Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), told Hill staffers and others that implementing policies that recognize the vital role women play in poor communities is the best way to "improve the quality and effectiveness of our global development assistance."
The briefing was co-sponsored by CEDPA and seven Congresswomen, and highlighted the work of women activists in Angola, Egypt, and Nigeria who described how their efforts have changed women's lives and, in so doing, improved the conditions of entire communities.
The three women described a variety of health, conflict resolution, and job training projects in their countries, aimed largely at empowering women in regions of the world where they have traditionally been powerless, both in their homes and in the larger society.
In Nigeria, said Nsekpong Udoh of Community Partners for Development, "until women are empowered economically they can't afford to become involved in politics; they remain invisible. So we provide a lot of microcredit."
In Angola, the focus is on peace-building and conflict resolution following the country's 30-year civil war. Cesaltina Nunda of the group Angola 2000 said women played an instrumental role in finding and handing over weapons after the war.
"Even though the war is over and we have collected many weapons and helped local communities resolve many conflicts, we cannot stop now," Nunda said. "Talking about violence is a process, and it can't be resolved in a year or two."
Humanitarian groups argue that economic and social development, too, is a lengthy process, but the U.S. government's aid efforts have become increasingly intertwined with political and military agendas and timeframes that focus too much on results sought by Washington and too little on the needs of those who receive development aid.
"Development doesn't work that way," said Sam Worthington, president of InterAction. "You have to sit down with people and see what they need. You need time and flexibility" to do the job right. InterAction is an association representing 168 U.S. nonprofit groups focused on the world's poor and most vulnerable people.
CEDPA's Richardson agrees with those calling for a new approach to foreign aid, but is convinced that unless new policies and strategies place a special focus on women, they will fail to address the very basic issue of poverty reduction in developing countries.
When development projects strengthen women's ability to improve their lives, she stressed, they also have a positive impact on children, families, and communities. This is what makes aid effective and sustainable, two of its most important goals.
The work being done by the three organizations represented at the briefing, which all work in partnership with external providers of foreign aid, is a model Richardson would like to see followed.
The issues addressed in each country reflect urgent national and community needs -- for employment opportunities in Egypt, health in Nigeria, and peace-building in Angola -- and in each case women are trained to become decision makers and actors in the development process.
© 2008 One World
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Show AllYes, but what will the women do with all the weapons that constitute so much of America's 'aid' to the world's poor?
With unwanteded guns and unpayable loans destabilization is America's only real goal.
Here is a practical step toward the ideal of ushering in a 'time not our time'. In a world where time is running out hope allows the fullness of time to break in.
Mother and child is the image for this hope, poised between the already and the not-yet. The mother is always eager to let the child go, to become what it was born to be, beyond what is already.
Micro credit can be the salvation of the planet if we do not allow corporate greed to stifle even this 'widow's mite' in its headlong rush to grab every penny that it does not already have.
Of course it will try. It will succeed only if we allow it.
Here is the best hope for an end run around the gods of power and wealth that seem so invincible. God is speaking; a warning, a threat, but also a promise: "Don't fuck this one up".
whatfools - "What would women do with all the weapons....?"
Hopefully they'd keep enough to defend themselves, and melt the rest down and build an impenetrable prison to house all the macho males who think guns make the man, and who try to make more guns and start wars.
This is exactly why women have been suppressed by men throughout world history, the whole world over.... Those few matriarchial systems that do exist, in aboriginal societies, do very well thank you.
Think Mother Nature...
Peace, KCT
This is why places where women are oppressed, such as the middle east and africa, are such complete shitholes.
And religion has been there all along the way...
Yes, but even as a woman sometimes I disagree. Not all women leaders are all wonderful. Look at Hillary and Thatcher as examples.
I don't think they're talking about women political leaders, as in Thatcher, Bhutto, etc. They're talking about the grassroots. I read once that the single most important statistic in determining quality of life in a society is the freedom afforded women: the countries with the most freedom for women invariably have a higher quality of life over all.
If you're interested in advancing microlending and women's empowerment in developing countries, here are a few NGOs I contribute to because they specialize in this approach (just Google them to get the addresses):
TechnoServe (serves small entrepreneurs worldwide)
Solar Cookers Intl. (from Tibet to Uganda: avoids backbreaking labor of women/children, saves local forests by substituting solar for wood-fire cooking)
Population Communications Intl (PCI) -- amazing group that produces TV/radio soap operas with local writers and actors; credited with reducing population growth in Mexico and elsewhere using the "soft sell" approach re birth control.
New Forests Project (reforestation, often done by women); they're now focusing on Haiti ...
And of course there's Heifer Intl., despite the utterly unfair hatchet job on them that appeared here last week.
Make a difference, and it'll make you feel good!
The history of humanity has been marked by the Patriarchy's attempts to take power from the Matriarchy. The failures are too numerous to list here, and the successes are illusory and short lived.
All of the Great Religions have in one form or another, some more extreme than others been "invented" by the Patriarchy to usurp the Matriarchy.
Most of the precontact Native American societies, were societies with power between the Matrons and the Patrons most often shared equally. The ones who have survived are unfortunately unnoticeable in their present form, from the precontact form.
Humanity is doomed to making mistakes, but should be committed to learning from them, and avoiding repetition. The mistake that has take over the world now is that not enough women are in positions of power, and the ones who are often do not use it effectively.
Returning the rightful power to the rightful owners should be every male human beings ambition, it is and has been mine, and I can use the inheritance of my own Tribal heritage as an example.
Creation "myths" are important to a society in many ways, and their composition is usually a direct indicator as to the attitudes of the members toward the distribution of power within the society.
My own tribal heritage has the creation story as I will share here, with a footnote attached.
" The first Human Being was created by the Great Spirit in the form of a Pregnant Female.
She was required to go through several trials
before she was allowed to walk upon the Earth, and become the first mother. She was pregnant with a male and female baby that were not related."
Now taking this story at face value it is for the modern mind an unbelievable story. Yet, the majority of the members of the planet, being believers in the Judean, Christian, Islamic traditions, collectively out number the people who have different religious beliefs about "human creation"---which summarized would be : "God Created all of the animals male and female except the First Man (human). He created the first man, alone and gave him a Garden to live in. But soon realized that he was "incomplete" alone and took a rib from him and made a woman for the man".
So God forgot the "recipe for humans" and "took a rib" from the original so as to make a female who was different from the male, and they reproduced the rest of human kind.
If one were to examine the believability of the two stories told here both would seem somewhat "unbelievable" to one with an education or information about human reproduction.
(footnote) Several years ago, in Houston Texas, (I kept the news paper story for this very reason) a young man was the loving father of twin boys, "fraternal twins". As time went by he began to see differences in one of the boys that stood out from the other boy. It weighted on his mind to the point that he went to the family Doctor and told HER about his thoughts. Perhaps one of the boys had been another couples twin and accidentally placed into the wrong family, "switched". Several weeks later and DNA tests results were returned, it was revealed that the boy in question did not belong to the fathers blood lines, but they did to the mother's. After much anguish the mother revealed that she had been having an affair with the best friend of her husband, and it appears that she conceived of both men on the same day, so the boys were "twin half brothers", rare I am sure, but plausible.
Now taking into consideration the facts of this story, compared to the two "creation myths" mentioned above; it would appear that the "creation story" of my tribe is closer to reality than that of the three religions listed above.
The fact remains that without WOMEN there would be NO HUMAN BEINGS; and that is TRUE POWER.
Power that all men should move to return to women after the many mistakes of several thousand years of "experimentation".
After all how much more could the Women screw things up, than the Men have already; and I believe that they have the power to make this a very good planet to be a human being on, FOR ALL HUMAN BEINGS; and that would spill over to the rest of the life forms as well.
Hmmm... dunno if I will get into the "women will do it better" thing. I don't know if I believe that. I think the need to dominate (which to me is the universal lcd for the world's evil comes from the inability to see the interconnectivity of all things. (ie: grey, coexist etc... ) which is a very yin concept. From the taoist perspective the world should be moving back into a more yin cycle, but it is a way over simplification to say that this is purely a woman's thing. Both men and women have yin and yang. I think it is dangerous to make broad assumptions and overromanticizations instead of looking at the true dynamics of the situation which usually are due to money, power and status.
From a development standpoint it makes the most sense because women put 70% of their wealth back into the community versus men who put something like 10? I may not have those numbers exactly right but it is something like that.
A really cool organization that is doing some pretty progressive programs and has been focused on women for a while is CARE. (care.org) I really like their appropriate development strategies.
Women who hold power are often more dangerous than men, because they can hide behind their gender, and they generally operate through bodies other than their own, allowing their actions to remain hidden.
When Dubya was asked about his reaction when learning about the World Trade Centers (911) in the famous clip where he says he 'saw the plane fly into the first tower and thought, that's one awful pilot' or words to that effect, the REALLY important information is what he says right before that . . . he is dissembling, in order to pull his thoughts together, and says, "well, i was in florida to check on my little brother, you know, it's the mother in me . . ."
Read that again. "It's the mother in me . . ."
Women do the work of the world. They also have to put up with all the unwanted children. They are high on the misery index. Give it to them.
Any lessening of misery is a slap in the face of the crooked Republicans.
Flexibility is important. Simplistic thinking does not help. Taking gender feminist positions isn't much of an answer, as taking sides always excludes (one evil to replace another). From my experience with women, their sh-t smells as bad as men's. If there are certain situations where special consideration is given to women vs. men, it should be situational, not as some fairy tale based generality derived from a manufactured "story" of history/how the world works.
countcoup--- I know your tribe from the creation myth you revealed (its safe with me)
----and you are on target.
You should take pride in defending a tradition
that has survived everything the "Patriarch" has thrown at it----well mostly. And the important thing for all of us, Nat. American or "others" is there IS no valid society that can hope to survive very long where the power between the men and the women is NOT shared, equally---which is what you were saying. The opposite is a myth the Europeans brought with them ----along with many many others--- and it did not work for them either.
Anyway, it reminds me of the "joke" about the Reservation Policeman who called in for road side assistance for a multiple car crash of Anglos visiting the Rez. It being late at night, they were short handed, and the Police Sgt in charge wanted to get the injured into the dispensary he told the young officer on the scene to bury the dead and they can be retrieved later---this would keep the Coyotes from disturbing the bodies. And bring the injured into the dispensary.
A short while later the Sgt saw the young officer at the Dispensary and asked he how many made it in . The young man said "awh we went ahead a buried all six of them on the side of the road ". The Sgt was terribly distressed that six white folks had been killed on the Rez and the young man seeing this tried to make him feel better when he said "well Sarg now that you mention it five of them said they weren't dead, but we buried them anyway, you know they've been lying for so long, we can't tell who is telling the truth anymore."
Thank folks.......
Read Riane Eisler's book "Real Wealth of Nations: creating a caring economy".....
It shows how we can transition capitalism/consumption to Partnerism/caring through the process of confronting the "dominator story value system" that set up the men over women, rich over poor etc. story that over rides every choice we make today.
Her earlier book, The Chalice and the Blade is a 30,000 year history of the tranformation of egalitarian cultures to dominator cultures--where we are today. This international bestseller (1987) will change your view forever--and as NativeSon writes....there IS no valid society that can hope to survive very long where the power between the men and the women is NOT shared, equally.
www.realwealtheconomy.com
www.partnershipway.org
Who will aid US women?
Yes, but what will the women do with all the weapons that constitute so much of America's 'aid' to the world's poor?
MELT THEM DOWN...TURN THEM INTO GARDENING TOOLS...AND THE TROOPS CAN HELP PLANT MUCH NEEDED TREES WORLD WIDE....
When we don't care about impoverished women in children in the US, and don't tolerate programs or policies that empower them, why would we care about those in foreign lands?