Yesterday the CGA had the honor of having Roshaneh Zafar, founder and managing director of Kashf Foundation, come talk to us about microfinance. Zafar, a former World Bank employee, discussed the origins of her organization. At the start of her career, Zafar worked in the Water and Sanitation department of the World Bank, and...
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Women's Rights
Women’s Economic Empowerment Through Microfinance
What did we learn from the MDG Review Summit and Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meetings?
A recent poll I stumbled upon via UN News Wire asks readers what they thought was the most important lesson learned from the 2010 UN Millennium Development Goal Summit and the Clinton Global Initiative Annual meetings, which took Manhattan and the world by storm last week.
The answer? With an overwhelming 46+ percentage of the vote,...
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The Fairer Sex?
One of the reasons to invade Afghanistan was to liberate the population from the medieval rule of the Taliban. In most senses that has happened, as the Taliban is only strong in pockets and has recently been facing a military surge.
All of that being said, there has been rising discomfort that the new...
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Half the Sky
Today I sat in on a panel discussion that took place at the United Nations headquarters where two prominent journalists discussed a new book that they authored: Half the Sky – Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. One of the journalists is the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof...
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Bride-Napping in Kyrgyzstan
That a young man or woman might not choose whom they marry is contrary to modern, western thinking. We typically marry whom we would, rarely with restriction. Ours is a fiercely personal concept of marriage that way. It might surprise some, then, that in many countries matrimony is not experienced...
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Obama reverses the “global gag rule”
Just days after his inauguration, President Obama overturned a policy prohibiting the use of U.S. funds for overseas non-governmental organizations providing abortion services, a ban known as the “global gag rule.” The move took place just one day after the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Formerly, the global gag rule refused funding for overseas...
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Japan’s Former Comfort Women Denied
During the 15 Years War, known in Japan as the period from 1931-1945, nearly 200,000 women from throughout the Japanese Empire fell victim to Japan’s state-sponsored brothel system. Mostly Asian virgins, with the exception of the Dutch women in Indonesia, these women were often forced or tricked into becoming the...
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