Empowerment

A new group running for municipal elections in Hebron is offering residents an alternative to politics as usual in the conservative West Bank city: Women at the helm, instead of men. The all-female list, which is called “By Participating, We Can,” is gearing up for next month’s vote with a campaign that aims both to win at the polls and to convince voters that women can lead just as well as men. 

Somalia has recently selected its parliament on Somali soil for the first time since the civil war of the late 1980s. This is a significant achievement since regional power brokers such as Ethiopia and Kenya, with the financial and logistical backing of the European Union, the United States and the United Nations, concocted Somali governments in neighbouring countries. 

FEEDING people isn't easy. Asia saw food riots in 2008 and 2011 when rice prices spiked, and left many in hunger. Globally food prices grew three times as fast as inflation over the past decade. 

A new index on food security released this week by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), commissioned by DuPont, a large chemicals and materials firm, uncovers a few fascinating findings. The most interesting is a strong correlation between women's economic opportunity and access to affordable, safe food. The Global Food Security Index shows a hefty 0.93 correlation with the EIU's Women’s Economic Opportunity Index, which measures female economic participation (scattergraph below). 

This document is the concerted effort of the Coordination Francaise pour le Lobby Europeen des Femmes, femix Sports, Regards de femmes, European Women’s Lobby, One Law for All, Conseil National des Femmes Francaise, Federation of GAY GAMES. Directed mainly at the Olympic movement in hope that London would mark the turning point, the demand is to end all gender-based discrimination and stereotypes!