About Gender Action

I just received an e-mail from Gender Action, and thought that other blog readers might be interested in knowing about the recent activities of this Washington, D.C.-based organization. The goal of Gender Action is to ensure equality of participation and benefits for both women and men in the investments of international financial institutions. I attended one of their presentations on gender awareness and World Bank programs.
Here's an excerpt from the e-mail from Gender Action's President Elaine Zuckerman, Programs Director Mande Limbu, and Programs Coordinator Anna Rooke (more information is available on the website):

Gender Action has been hard at work over the past six months developing advocacy campaigns, tools and research publications to hold the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) accountable on their promises to promote gender equality and empower women. Our sixth biannual Update looks back six months at the exciting work we’ve done and great strides we’ve made toward achieving this goal!
New Gender and Climate Change Program!
Last year, Gender Action produced its first paper on gender, climate change and the IFIs in April 2009: Doubling the Damage: World Bank Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) Undermine Climate and Gender Justice. This introductory paper, published with support from the Heinrich Boell Foundation, explores the linkages between climate change, gender justice and the World Bank’s new Climate Investment Funds. The paper outlines how the new Funds entirely ignore gender considerations, thus
undermining gender justice and disproportionately harming poor women.
Gender, Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS
Gender Action recently launched a new advocacy campaign called Leveraging IFI Funds for Reproductive Health & HIV/AIDS, which will pressure IFIs to increase and improve their spending on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, as well as remove their loan conditionalities which impede progress toward achieving the reproductive health and HIV/AIDS Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The campaign’s long-term goal is to increase the number of poor women, men, boys and girls with access to high-quality family planning, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS services in the global South. As of June 2009, 27 global and local organizations have joined the campaign!
Linking IFI-Watchers and Gender Justice Groups
Gender Action is bringing gender into the agendas of many existing IFI-watcher groups, which traditionally focused on the environment, transparency and accountability issues but neglected gender dimensions. We are also bringing IFIs into the work of gender justice and women’s rights groups, which have not yet addressed the IFIs.
Gender and Post-Conflict Reconstruction
In early 2009, Gender Action published The Gender Dimensions of Post-Conflict Reconstruction: The Challenges in Development Aid (Elaine Zuckerman & Marcia E. Greenberg) as a chapter in Making Peace Work: The Challenges of Social and Economic Reconstruction (Palgrave MacMillan, UNU-WIDER).