Program Priorities

IWDA’S Program Priorities are:

1. Livelihood & economic empowerment
2. Freedom from violence
3. Participation in leadership and decision-making
4. Sexual and reproductive health and rights including HIV/AIDS
5. Environment and natural resource management

IWDA’s overseas programs address poverty and entrenched discrimination against women and girls. There are no quick fix solutions; instead step by step participatory processes developed with people at community level create approaches appropriate to local situations.

The empowerment of women, central to effective development, has many elements – facilitating women’s access to information, education and skills training, income, support from other women, and development of strategies for addressing their concerns and working with others. Supporting the development of partner organisations’ capacity is also important.

Addressing discrimination and promoting women’s participation in decision making requires long term work. Providing information on women’s rights and developing the skills and confidence of women and men to work in the community leads to sustainable change.

Livelihood & economic empowerment

“Microfinance” is a popular term in development discourse, referring to financial services (savings, credit, and insurance.)

Livelihood projects may encompass provision of credit (both cash and in kind), skills and other assistance.

IWDA promotes women’s right to safe and sustainable livelihoods by supporting women’s efforts to develop sustainable small businesses.

Poor women have complex strategies for dealing with the day to day struggles to provide for their families, and to obtain capital for farming or small business enterprises. Production, consumption, trade and exchange, saving, borrowing and income-earning occur in very small amounts among the poor.

Freedom from violence

IWDA promotes the right of women to be free from violence. This is achieved by supporting the work of project partners in programs to eliminate violence against women and girls and to provide support services to women in situations of violence.

IWDA has been supporting development activities addressing violence against women in our overseas program since 1989, at a time when it was not recognised as a development issue by many agencies, governments or the UN system. IWDA’s project partners are providing counselling and referral services to women and girls who are survivors of violence, conducting community education activities with women, men and children, and lobbying for law reform in countries such as Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka to name a few.

Sexual and reproductive health and rights including HIV/AIDS

IWDA projects aim to improve the health of women and girls with a particular focus on sexual and reproductive health, including the reduction of HIV/AIDS.

The prevalence of among women of poverty and economic dependency, experiences of violence, low status in society and racial and other forms of discrimination, as well as women’s limited power and lack of influence over decision-making are realities which all impact adversely on sexual and reproductive health. Lack of food and inequitable distribution, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation facilities, deficient housing conditions and lack of fuel, all have negative effects on the health of women and girls.

Women have different and often unequal access to and use of basic health resources and opportunities to protect and promote their health. Health policies and programs often perpetuate gender stereotypes and a lack of autonomy for women’s decisions regarding their health. Women are frequently not treated with respect nor guaranteed privacy. Decreases in public health spending and privatisation often contribute to deterioration in health systems and women’s sexual and reproductive health.

Environment and natural resource management

IWDA recognises that the survival of communities is totally dependent on the survival of the planet and its resources. IWDA also recognises the fundamental links between gender and the environment through gender roles and responsibilities, gender specific uses of natural resources and gender specific impacts of environmental degradation and environmental programming. IWDA aims to incorporate environmental concerns in its development work wherever possible and to promote ecologically sustainable development as an important development goal.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2001 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Program Priorities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.