Pri's blog

Shared responsibility - inland waters, Trincomalee Here’s a brief, somewhat  academic blog – inspired by listening to Frances Stewart at a webinar organised by ODI, in the context of doing a Gender Synthesis  of the first round of panel data for the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium.   Most of my readers  may want to escape from this rather unexpected theoretical musing on my part! My problem is that I am not sure that gender falls into how Frances Stewart conceptualises  Horizontal Inequality , even though in some of her writing she thinks it does (1);  and even though, from an external analytical perspective there are visible structural inequalities between women and men.  So as  Stewart et al point out, gender as a group affiliation matters, because it is tightly bounded and members can’t move from one gender to another and because being a member of the group, results in levels of discrimination (ibid).  What I am not...

Just returned from the above UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction - where I represented Duryog Nivaran , and had two speaking slots: as a panellist at the launch of the Global Assessment Report 2015  and at the Ministerial Roundtable on Governing Disaster Risk: overcoming challenges.  Also worked closely with the Women's Major Group, coordinated by WEDO.  Interesting as UN conferences go, but significant, since its the first of three that are aiming to frame the post-2015 world development agenda - what the world is going to do about disasters, sustainable development and climate. Many interesting thoughts to share... but for now, here is my intervention at the Ministerial Round Table chaired by Ms Maria del Pilar Cornejo, Minister Secretary for Risk Management, Ecuador.  at the roundtable with the African Union President on my left and the City of Istanbul on my right. Photo by Ramona Miranda G ood afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, I represent...

Given that it is International Women’s Day, it is probably a good time to reflect on how the transport sector does (or does not) engage with women’s transport needs.  Of course this is not a new subject,  but despite efforts by several women and men, notably in the International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD), the World Bank’s SSATP, and other networks interested in bringing some equity into the transport sector, the problem still remains.   Women’s issues, and particularly the issues of  poor urban and rural women,  remain marginal to transport sector planning.  It is not to say that the sector has not progressed.  When, as  the IFRTD’s first Executive Secretary, I presented the Balancing the Load proposal to what was then DFID’s Knowledge and Research (KAR) funding arm in 1996,  I am told the (male) engineers reviewing the proposals laughed at our audacity and dismissed the proposal with hardly a glance. Balanc...

Danny Chivers in the New Internationalist asks the question - is big business poised to capture the renewables revolution? Whose renewable future?