Resources on the ECONOMY
Section f
"Women’s share of the labour force continues to rise and almost everywhere women are working more outside the household, although there has not been a parallel lightening of responsibility for unremunerated work in the household and community. Women’s income is becoming increasingly necessary to households of all types. Insufficient attention to gender analysis has meant that women’s contributions and concerns remain too often ignored in economic structures."
Beijing Platform for Action.
Websites and Electronic Resources
http://www.accion.org
ACCION International is a non-profit lending organization focusing on providing loans to women in Latin America. This site provides statistics to measure the impact of their micro-lending programme.
http://cipe.org
The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) provides an online information service designed to serve as a primary source of information on efforts to promote economic reform, private enterprise, and democratic institutions. An affiliate of USAID and the US Chamber of Commerce, CIPE has a gender focus providing features such as "E-dialogue for women entrepreneurs"; a Conference on "Africa and America: A Gateway for Women in Business"; "Supporting Women Entrepreneurs" and more. Check out their latest collaborative initiatives with national banks, institutes and governments all over the world! In English, Spanish and Arabic.
http://www.enterweb.org
The Enterprise Development website is an enormous "information gateway" to find information on micro, small and medium enterprise in developing and developed countries. Already assessed and identified, Enterweb catalogues resources by areas of finance, advisory services, policy, cooperatives, and more. In addition, Enterweb has a gender page which is a one stop site on resources for women entrepreneurs. Whether country or region specific, you will be able to cutting edge links and news on micro business development in your area of interest. In English and French.
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/gems
International Labour Organization Gender Promotion Programme aims to create more and better jobs for women through national action plans.
http://www.serrv.org
Sales Exchange for Refugee Rehabilitation Vocation (SERRV) International markets on line, in stores, and by catalogue crafts by low-income artisans in 35 developing countries. SERRV advances as much as 50% of the final price to artisans to purchase raw materials while paying partners fair prices within the context of the local economy. This service provides tens of thousands of artisans with supplemental or total income. For any occasion or gift, we invite you to visit SERRV ‘s website to find hand-made crafts from all corners of the world while making a contribution to artisans’ livelihoods.
http://www.scn.org/ip/cds/cmp
Uganda’s Community Management and Development Programme focuses on community development techniques in rural regions. You will be able download training materials for community workers in the field as well as policy, strategies, methodology, curriculum, management and planning material useful to teams initiating or upgrading any community empowerment programme. This website breaks down useful and practical training guides into the areas of: empowerment, sustainability, democratization, partnerships, participation, and transparency.
http://www.unifem.undp.org/economic.htm
The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has a strengthening women’s economic capacity programme which conducts research, develops programs, and offers resources on the topic of women and the globalized economy. You will be able to find an excellent bibliography on women and trade, women and new technologies, and women and poverty as well as the latest on UNIFEM ‘s economic empowerment initiatives around the globe.
http://www.soc.titech.ac.jp/icm
The Virtual Library on Microcredit is a warehouse of news, information, advice, chat groups, invaluable links, and whatever else your heart may desire to know on informal and micro credit. For anyone interested or involved in micro businesses, this site is indispensable. Highlights include a cybercourse on microbanking, country profiles, and practical advice and tools on giving women access to credit. In Spanish, French, Japanese, and English.
http://www.wedo.org/global/economics.htm
Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) offers information on the Women and Global Economy campaign which includes a fact sheet on economic policies and women’s health and a primer on women and trade.
http://www.wiego.org
Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) is worldwide coalition of institutions and individuals concerned with improving the status of women in the informal sector of the economy through better statistics, research, programmes and policies. The site has the Programme of Action as well as a list of publications.
http://www.wicej.org
WICEJ - Women's International Coalition for Economic Justice, is an international coalition representing 32 organizations from all regions of the globe. WICEJ works to link gender and macro-economic policy in international inter-governmental policy-making arenas. They utilize an integrated feminist analysis which links the multiplicity of systems that oppress women and recognizes the diversity of women’s experience by race, ethnicity, class, national origin, citizenship status and other factors. The website features WICEJ's Declaration for Economic Justice and Women's Empowerment and activities related to Beijing+5. Updates will include links to WICEJ organizations and WICEJ contributions to the World Conference Against Racism, Financing for Development, and the Commission on the Status of Women 2001.
http://www.opportunity.org/wof/default.htm
Women’s Opportunity Fund provides loans and training to poor women in developing countries designed to aid them in starting micro-businesses. The website shares client stories as well as information on how to apply.
http://www.womensworldbanking.org
Women’s World Banking (WWB) is a women-led global network that was organized in 1975 with the vision of providing economic access through credit to poor women. WWB network members currently provide microfinance to over 10 million poor women. A network of over 50 affiliate organizations spreading over 40 countries provides women access to financing, information and markets. WWB accomplishes this goal through education and training programmes, networking clients with available resources, and conducting research/publications of best practices. In English and Spanish.
http://www.woccu.org
The World Council of Credit Union, Inc. (WOCCU) operates a worldwide representative organization of credit unions and similar financial institutions. WOCCU’s mission is to expand, promote, strengthen and unite the worldwide credit union movement for the economic and social development of all people. This website will network you and/or your organization to each country’s credit union, and it will keep you posted on WOCCU’s latest news, publications, and meetings.
Selected Books
Many of these publications can be ordered online at http://www.womenink.org
1999 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development, Globalization, Gender and Work United Nations Produced every 5 years, the current world survey explores the positive and negative economic effects of globalization. Three trends that it describes are: trade liberalization and expansion; the spread of production capacity through direct investment by multinationals; and the increased international mobility of capital. These have led not only to what it describes as the global reality of the increased participation of women in paid work, but also to the parallel outcome of increased economic volatility, job insecurity and loss of livelihood.
1999. 76 pages. ISBN: 92-1-130200-5. WE488W. US$14.95
A Gender Agenda for the World Trade Organization
A WEDO Primer on Women and Trade
Women’s Environmental and Development Organization
Trade is not gender neutral. Women worldwide bear the brunt of economic and financial transition and crisis caused by market forces and globalization. This primer gives a brief introduction to the World Trade Organization and outlines guidelines for advocacy in decision-making and governance, economic equity, health and safety and indigenous knowledge.
1999. Order from WEDO or download from www.wedo.org/global.wedo_ primer.htm
Changing Women's Lives and Work
An Analysis of the Impact of Eight Microenterprise Projects
Lucy Creevey
Using a simple analytical framework, Creevey analyzes eight micro-enterprise projects in Asia, Latin America and Africa by organizations specializing in technology-driven solutions and community-development approaches. Each project is described in detail. Methodology and statistical results are provided in an appendix.
1995. 300 pages. ISBN 1-85339-319-3. US$30.00
Counting for Nothing
What Men Value and What Women are Worth
Marilyn Waring
This classic feminist analysis of women's place in the world economy has been brought up to date with a sizeable new introduction. Waring mounts a sustained challenge to the idea that 'work', 'labour' and 'economic activity' are interchangeable. She argues that monetary value needs to be attributed to unpaid work productive and reproductive in order to make this work visible, influence policies and concepts, and question values. The book concludes with a call for action and a strategy for change. Bibliography.
1999 (second edition). 310 pages. ISBN 0-8020-8260-2. US$21.95.
Gender and Jobs
Sex Segregation of Occupations in the World
Richard Anker
The segregation of men and women into different occupations is one of the most important and enduring aspects of labour markets around the world. Based on unusually detailed ILO data and covering a large number--as well as a broad range--of countries, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the current situation.
1998. 444 pages. ISBN 92-2-109524-X. US$40.00
No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade and the Rights of Garment Workers
Andrew Ross (Ed.)
No Sweat includes contributions from workers, activists, labour lawyers, trade unionists, industry executives, journalists and academics who are challenging the inequities of the new global economy. It puts the issue of labour squarely alongside the issue of style by looking, for example, at the connections between child labour in Bangladesh and runway couture in Milan, Paris and New York. 1997. 314 pages. ISBN 1-85984-172-4. US$20.00
Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale
Women in the International Division of Labour
Maria Mies
In this now classic book, Mies argues that feminists must recognize and challenge the fact that partiarchy and accumulation on a world scale constitute the structural and ideological framework within which we live, along with the sexual and international divisions of labour that are bound up in it. In a substantial new introduction, the author both applies her theory to the new globalized world and answers her critics. Bibliography.
1998 (second edition). 251 pages. ISBN 1-85649-735-6. US$22.50
Rural Women in Micro-enterprise Development
A Training Manual for Extension Workers
This excellent resource provides guidelines and materials for workshops (3-5 days each), supplemented with fieldwork to provide practical skills for microenterprise development and management. These include: environmental scanning, group dynamics, planning and management; marketing management; financial management; and feasibility studies.
1996. 367 pages. WE330Z. US$54.00
Woman's Role in Economic Development
Ester Boserup
Boserup analyzes how women have been affected by the breakdown in village-based production and by male migration to cities, and proposes new forms of education for women to ensure their participation in the modern labour force. This new edition of her classic work is superb background for all those concerned with women's role in the development process.
1989. 288 pages. ISBN 1-853-83-0402. US$22.00
Women, Employment and Exclusion
Caroline Sweetman (Ed.)
This collection examines the main concerns about the employment of women worldwide, including: the increase in women's participation in the paid work-force; the implications of the deregulation of markets and 'flexible' working conditions; and the fact that women are still concentrated in low-skilled jobs and over-represented in 'informal' occupations which are the most precarious and worst paid. List of resources; bibliography.
1996. 64 pages. ISBN 0-85598-364-7. US$12.95
Women, Men and Economics
The Gender-Differentiated Impact of Macroeconomics
Lorraine Corner
This monograph is especially concerned with the gender-differentiated consequences of the sometimes unrecognized impact of macroeconomic policy on individual women and men in developing countries. It argues that the lack of gender-awareness which characterizes the economics profession and its activities is partly a consequence of certain defects and deficiencies in its methodological apparatus.
1997. 82 pages. ISBN 0-912917-47-4. US$9.95
The Women’s Budget Series
Debbie Budlender (Ed.)
This series by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, is the first serious local attempt to examine the gender impact of key aspects of the budget by examining all programmes, policies and allocated funds in the national budget for their impact on women. Each book analyses the budget votes of government bodies and ministries. The understanding this series offers of budget processes can be applied to similar deliberations in societies around the world.
The Women’s Budget
1996. 259 pages. WE 518V
ISBN 1-874864-32-2. US$8.95
The Second Women’s Budget
1997. 318 pages. WE 520V
ISBN 1-874864-54-3. US$9.95
The Third Women’s Budget
1998. 305 pages. WE 521V.
ISBN 1-874864-76-4. US$9.95
The Fourth Women’s Budget
1999. 371 pages. WE 522V.
ISBN 1-874864-96-9. US$11.00
MONEY MATTERS
Karen Hurt and Debbie Budlender (Eds.)
Content is based on chapters from The Women’s Budget and The Second Women’s Budget. It serves as a summary and brief analysis.
1998. 108 pages. WE 523V.
ISBN 1-874864-79-9. US$7.95
Working Towards a More Gender-Equitable Macro-economic Agenda
UNRISD
This highly useful report offers a simple overview of the conceptual basis, politics and direction for a feminist macro-economic agenda. Coming out of a workshop of the same name held in Bangladesh in 1996, the report also includes the findings presented by five national research teams: Bangladesh, Jamaica, Morocco, Uganda and Vietnam. List of references.
1997. 59 pages. ISSN 1020-1092. US$8.00
Many of these publications can be ordered online at http://www.womenink.org