The Global Gender Program comprises faculty and students in the Elliott School who are dedicated to improving the health, education, rights and security (HERS) of women and girls internationally and to reducing gender-based exclusion, violence, and discrimination in these four areas. Founded in 2010, the Global Gender Program pursues its mission through teaching, research, and policy engagement.

Updates

GW Alumni gives TEDx talk on girls and education in Ghana

GW BA alumna and member of the Global Women's Task Force at GW, Sally Nuamah, now a doctoral candidate in political science at Northwestern University, will give a TEDx talk in Chicago, streamed live, on Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:20pm EDT.

GGP's Ariana Leon Rabindranath participated at the 3rd Annual European Conference on Politics and Gender

On March 21-23, the European Standing Group on Politics and Gender convened the 3rd Annual European Conference on Politics and Gender at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. GGP Associate Director Ariana Leon Rabindranath participated in the conference and presented her paper, "Finding a Voice: Pathways Women Take to Politics in the Asia-Pacific Region", in a panel discussion entitled "Access to Political Power: Women's Ambition and Routes to Office." The conference was attended by 500 academics and practitioners from Europe and abroad.

GGP hosted two major events in March

GGP held its first-year Spring Roundtable panel devoted to gender issues in migration and international development called "Migrant Care Work from Two Sides: Care Work in the U.S. and Families Care Workers Leave Behind." Our event for International Women's Day focused on ending violence against women. It included a keynote lecture by Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams. For more information on this event view our blog post "Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict" or the Elliott School's March Briefing. A video of this event can be found here.

Two additional working papers now online

"Explaining the Variation in Gender Composition of Personnel Contributions to UN Peacekeeping Operations" (by Kerry F. Crawford, James H. Lebovic, Julia M. Macdonald) examines how we account for the dearth of female contributions to UN peace operations.

"Defying Strategy: United States Non-Strategic Recognition of Wartime Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo" (by Kerry F. Crawford) poses the following question: Do states devote valuable material resources and political capital to condemning atrocities when armed intervention is not imminent or when the perpetrator is not an adversary?

GGP's Second Occasional Report available now

We are happy to report that the Global Gender Program's second occasional paper is now live here. The paper, prepared by Milad Pournik, Jaeeun Chung, and Barbara Miller, offers a review of the concept of social resilience (particularly how it relates to women and girls), provides a summary of a conference that took place marking the United Nations International Day for Disaster Reduction and its 2012 theme, Women & Girls: The inVisible Source of Resilience, and summarizes how social resilience can create more secure societies in a changing world.

Congratulations to Casey McHugh

Casey McHugh (MA in Anthropology and International Development, GW, 2011), has been appointed as Education Program Support Specialist at USAID/Liberia. She will provide support on the conceptualization, design, documentation, and management of USAID education assistance projects in Liberia. Casey worked with IGIS's Global Gender Program as a research assistant for its Working Papers on Women, Security, and Development in 2011.

Cait O'Donnell, GGP
program coordinator,
at a USIP event.

GGP at a USIP event celebrating the anniversary of the U.S. National Action Plan

The Global Gender Program of IGIS is a member of the U.S. Civil Society Working Group, convened by Kathleen Kuehnast of the United States Institute for Peace (USIP). The Working Group has been a strong advocate for a US National Action Plan in support of UNSCR 1325 and its implementation. On Wednesday January 30 USIP hosted a panel discussion, featuring Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, celebrating the anniversary of the U.S. National Action Plan. The event also included a knowledge and resource fair, for which the GGP had a table at.

GGP supported documentary on Burmese migrant women workers

The Global Gender Program supported the making of a short documentary, Stepping into Change: Migrant Women Workers in Thailand, produced by MAP Foundation. The 13-minute film highlights the conditions faced by Burmese migrant women workers in Thailand and the Women’s Exchange program that has helped them.

Women and Water in South and Central Asia:
Building International Social Capital for Sustainable Peace and Development

This project, funded by the State Department, will support Track II diplomacy (people-to-people relations) and enhance capacity on water resource management as a key element in enhancing stability and prosperity in Central and South Asia. It brings together young women social entrepreneurs and activists from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, to discuss their experiences, best practices, and innovative solutions related to community-level water management. It will also connect them to U.S. institutions and the policy community working on water management and women's participation. The project includes in-person and virtual exchanges in the Central and South Asian region and in Washington DC, video and web content production, and curriculum development. The award is for nearly $300,000 and extends from January 2013 to December 2015. The principal investigator is Marlene Laruelle, research professor of international affairs with the Central Asia Program of the Elliott School's Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies; the co-principal investigator is Ariana Rabindranath, associate director of the Global Gender Program of the Elliott School's Institute for Global and International Studies (IGIS). Two other affiliated faculty are Deepa Ollapally of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and Barbara Miller of IGIS and the Global Gender Program.

Launch of the Global Gender Program Bibliography Project

Since 2010, the Global Gender Program has gathered sources relevant to issues raised by United Nations Security Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) which states the importance of including women in all aspects of peace, conflict resolution, and protection during conflict.

Click here to read more and view the Bibliography.

GW Alumna wins 2012 Sports for Social Inclusion Award

Girls Kick It!, a program Anna Phillips conceived six years ago in Uganda to empower women through the power of sport is this year's winner of the "Sports for Social Inclusion Award". This award is provided through Beyond Sport a global network of sport for social change organizations that hosts an annual awards program with international leaders (this year in London) for the best global sport for social change initiatives.

» Read more

Staff changes

The Global Gender Program Assistant since Fall 2010, Erica Buckingham left GGP in July to work as a Business Development Proposal Associate at FHI360. It has been great working with Erica on many GGP projects, including program building, submitting grant proposals, planning events, building social media, developing student volunteer programs, and more. We will miss Erica, but wish her the best in all her future endeavors! Cait O'Donnell will succeed Erica as the main point of contact for GGP and can be reached at ggp@email.gwu.edu.

Gender Equality report co-authored by GGP Director, Barbara Miller

Three GW faculty — Michelle Kelso of the Sociology Department and the Elliott School, Naomi Cahn of the Law School, and Barbara Miller of the Anthropology Department and the Elliott School — collaborated with several Swiss researchers to prepare a report on Gender Equality in Employment: Policies and Practices in Swizterland and the U.S. The report was commissioned by the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland and funded by GW's President, Provost, and Vice Provost for Research. The report formed the basis of discussion for an international conference, U.S.-Swiss Sister Republics - Building Bridges, organized by Megan Beyer and held in Bern, Switzerland.