Gender and development

This article outlines the authors personal narrative, follows her adolescent development, gender journey, fear of sexuality, experiences with amenorrhea, body image and coming into feminism. 

Argues that gender is key to food insecurity and malnourishment because women and girls are disproportionately disempowered through current processes and politics of food's production, consumption, and distribution.

Provides practical, "how-to" methodologies and tools on gender that are designed to move health practitioners and managers from awareness and commitment to direct application and practice in policy and program design, implementation, research, capacity building and monitoring and evaluation. This is a companion site to the IGWG website ( http://www.igwg.org/ ) which has become a premier site for gender and reproductive health information, publications, and networking. The eToolkit broadens the set of resources available to USAID staff, contractors, gender experts, and other public health specialists and service providers. It provides access to hundreds of tools, to other gender toolkits and databases, and to prominent gender and health websites throughout the world. The eToolkit will be updated continuously to include new, relevant tools as they become available. Offline copies of the toolkit on CD or flash drive are available upon request.

Argues that gender equality is a core development objective in its own right. Also argues that greater gender equality can enhance productivity, improve development outcomes for the next generation, and make institutions more representative.

Focuses on four priority areas for policy going forward: (i) reducing excess female mortality and closing education gaps where they remain, (ii) improving access to economic opportunities for women (iii) increasing women's voice and agency in the household and in society and (iv) limiting the reproduction of gender inequality across generations.

This document identifies areas where gender considerations may have a bearing on work towards the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (numbers 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8). The MDGs acknowledge that gender can have a major impact on development, helping to promote it in some cases while seriously retarding it in others. MDG number 3 is, in fact, specifically about gender equality (and women's empowerment), calling for an end to disparities between boys and girls at all levels of education.

In conflict situations, women and girls are at greatly increased risk of physical and sexual violence. This information sheet presents where and how violence against women and HIV/AIDS intersect in conflict settings and the opportunities to address violence against women and HIV/AIDS in conflict settings.

The high rates of HIV infection in women have brought into sharp focus the problem of violence against women. This information bulletin presents evidence on how intimate partner violence increases girls' and women's risk of HIV infection and undermines AIDS control efforts. It also points out opportunities and multi-sectoral approaches to address intimate partner violence in HIV/AIDS programming.

This policy statement identifies actions needed to address the gender dimensions of equity in access to antiretrovial therapy (ART). Gender-based inequalities often affect women's ability to access ART services and put women and girls at increased risk of acquiring HIV. To adequately address gender issues in the scale up of ART, action is required in four areas: 1. development of a supportive policy environment; 2. strengthening health systems to make them more responsive to the specific needs of women and men; 3. promotion of programmes that overcome obstacles to equitable access; Development of benchmarks and indicators to measure progress.