Despite progress, Bangladeshi young women still lag far behind
Bangladeshi women have come a long way in terms of economic and social empowerment. Yet beneath these encouraging statistics, we find some unexpected anomalies that call for serious attention. Let us start with some positive statistics. Starting from a very low base in the early 80s,...
Strengthening gender as a component of Research Quality (+)
It was easy to feel inspired in the warmth of Guatemala City (while it was barely reaching above zero back home in Ottawa), surrounded by individuals hailing from five different think tanks from five different countries. Over the course of four days everyone shared honest...
A workshop to remember
My journey with Centre for Population and Environmental Development (CPED) began on Monday December 9th, 2018. This was coincidentally the first day of a three-day capacity building workshop held at Precious Palm Royal Hotel, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. It was held to mark the...
Mainstreaming gender in a research institute
“We are strong on gender and research — we have a dedicated centre working on this”. This was how BRAC Institute for Governance and Development (BIGD), a research and policy institute in Bangladesh, proudly presented itself to the outside world of similar research institutes and...
My experience with gender sensitive research
It all started when I was nominated to join a project research team to enhance the capacity of women in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria....
‘A man marries his housekeeper and that country’s GDP falls’: On becoming a feminist
It was 1995. I had just started working in the United Nations system, as a junior professional officer in the Havana office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). One evening I was reading the latest UNDP Human Development Report (HDR), whose special topic that...
My Journey Through Gender Analysis
Six years ago, when I was 25 years old, I had the chance to start working as a researcher at the center for research and statistics in the Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUSADES)....
The Woman Who Was Born Again
It’s been almost eight years now. The memory is still fresh in my mind. It was a rainy night of July 6, 2011, and my baby boy was only 5 months old. I was in the dining room of my parents’ house, watching the TV news...
The lost voices in the forest – The case of poor indigenous women in Guatemala
Sometimes, in the deep wild forests of Guatemala, weird inaudible noises appear. Noises that can’t be identified as wild birds or falling trees. These recurrent noises are different, they are not natural. Someone could say they resemble voices, but have become so normalized, that people...
Why International Development Needs Storytelling
I’ve always been interested in storytelling. A story is a time-tested way to pass experiences down from one person to another. A story is how wisdom is shared with the next generation, whether a historical text or a bedtime story, and it’s how we as...