Archive for Opinions

• Gender Matters – CSW54: Making the linkages

  by Wendy Harcourt There is no doubt that there is a lot of knowledge gathered at the CSW. I have been scribbling non-stop, picking up new ideas and ways of thinking. The spectrum goes from issues around multilateralism and how institutions are not working for women’s rights, to in-depth ...

• Gender Matters – CSW54: How do we bring about change?

  Today I found myself sitting at the top of a very tall hotel looking over the skyline of Manhattan in one of the parallel of parallel sessions organized by UNIFEM. The topic remains financial crisis, the strategies, the forecasts, ways to grapple with systemic failure. Having painted too grim a p...

• The Cognitive Landscape of a Refugee Camp: Conversation part IV

  by Angela Zarro in response to Bethany Ojalehto and Jacob Akech Bethany’s article takes a close and hard look at the condition of being a refugee, going beyond any use of definitions and categories. The stories that Bethany tells, remind us that refugees are first and foremost people and like ...

• Gender Matters – CSW 54: Dealing with the crisis not as victims but with solutions.

  by Wendy Harcourt High on the list of the discussions in New York at the CSW54 is the impact of the financial crisis on women. How are women dealing with a systemic crisis? Stories such as those put out by GenderWire of IPS show that the multiple crises of food, climate and economic is hitt...

• Not one track, not two tracks, but a completely new track: A response from Nicola Bullard to Jan Pronk

  This is a commentary article by Nicola Bullard* on the opinion piece “Beyond Copenhagen” by Jan Pronk. For those of us who consider ourselves part of the climate justice movement, the spectacular failure of the Copenhagen climate talks was not only expected, but almost welcomed. This may b...

• How can the international community help Somalia move forward?

  By Abdinur Aw Ali* External influences, at the regional and global levels, are playing pivotal roles in Somalia, both in positive and negative ways. And while many Somalis, increasingly believe that left to their own devices, the political/tribal conflict in the country have better chance of been s...

• Gender Matters – CSW54: A place for change?

  by Wendy Harcourt When told about the Commission on the Status of Women some might think, so what? Surely this is    just yet another big UN affair with little impact in the real world? So why, then, are thousands of women from around the world coming to New York during the first two weeks of...

• The Cognitive Landscape of a Refugee Camp: Conversation part III

  by bethany ojalehto, in response to Jacob Akech Jacob Akech raises an intriguing and perennial question in the study of human cognition. How do our global portraits of human thought account for the striking local diversity of individual minds? In any group of people there exist profound individu...

• New Forms of Citizen’s Engagement

  By Fatma Alloo I come from Zanzibar where we claim to be Zanzibar first and then something else! ‘Where people do not go to street to demand [electrical] power (umeme) but do so to demand political power’ (Mwafaka). I grew up in a visionary society. My conscious years were throu...

• The Rosarno Riots and the European Debate on Immigration: A southern point of view

  by Ayman Zohry The Rosarno riots between African immigrants and residents came as a sad opening of the year 2010. Rosarno, with its fertile land, is famous for producing citrus and olive, also produces xenophobia and racism. What happened in Rosarno is just a piece in the immigration puzzle of Eu...