Diversity Exchange, Issue 24 January 2012

Date: February 7, 2012

Diversity Exchange

Issue 24 | January 2012

Contents

Editor’s Note

By Saeanna Chingamuka
New year, new beginnings! Welcome to Issue 24 of the Diversity Exchange, the Gender and Media Diversity Centre (GMDC) monthly newsletter. The New Year all starts with most of us making resolutions for what we want to achieve in the year. As the GMDC, we are starting on an exciting note and there is a lot of energy that we hope will be infectious. February will be busy as we intensify our gender and media work in the region. This work includes the gender and media literacy training, media COEs as well as gender in journalism and media education. Read more…


		GMDC News

Gender and media literacy in South Africa

Gender Links will run the gender and media literacy course from 3 February to 6 April 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The course is being extended to the staff of loveLife, an organisation that works with youth on HIV and AIDS. Read more…

Mainstreaming gender in journalism and media education

From 20 to 24 February 2012, Gender Links (GL) will train trainers from academic institutions on the key concepts in gender mainstreaming, work on a plan of action for gender mainstreaming in curriculum for each institution, training on the use of the technology for online discussions. Read more…

Media COE’s Training of Trainers – 12-15 February 2012

As GL moves ahead with efforts to mainstream gender in media institutional practice and content, a training of trainers (TOT) workshop will take place from 12-15 February 2012. This workshop aims to explore best strategies for providing support and backstopping to media COEs Read more…

SA secrecy bill hearings commence

When all seemed lost after the Secrecy Bill got a nod from the majority South Africa (SA) parliamentarians in November, a flickering light of hope is appearing at the end of the tunnel again. Public hearings organised by National Council of Provinces ad hoc committee on the Protection of State Information Bill offer a democratic opportunity to SA citizens to finally have a say on this pending law. Read more…

The Talibans of Mozambique

In the daily newspaper Noticias, on 14 January 2012, journalist Pedro Nacuo wrote an op-ed about a crime that took place in Pemba, in Cabo Delgado province: a woman who entered the space reserved for boys’ initiation rites was “punished” by orders of the leader responsible for the ceremony, who ordered a collective rape. She was raped by 17 men. Read more…

“Gender Issue in Azerbaijani Media” launched

A brochure entitled “Gender Issue in Azerbaijani Media” has been launched to encourage women journalists in Azerbaijan to engage in trade-union work through training, networking, communication campaigns and lobbying and stand for election to the decision-making bodies. Read more…


		Partner News

Call for Applications: Public Policy (A course for leaders in civil society, public and private sectors)

This course in public policy, governance and civil society is designed to provide basic fundamentals of public policy analysis to practitioners working in civil society organisations, public service and the private sector. To face the challenges of the new millennium, Africa needs leaders who can inspire those they lead; Read more…

MIJ media literacy graduation

The Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ) participated in the gender and media literacy course provided by Gender Links in March 2011. Twenty six participants have since completed their projects which demonstrate the knowledge and skills that they gained from the course. Read more…

Vacancy: Gender and the Media Country Facilitator Malawi

Gender Links, a Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg specialising in gender, media, women’s rights and governance, seeks the services of an experienced individual to serve as a country facilitator for its media Centres of Excellence (COE) project in Malawi. The main task of the incumbent will be to work with media houses to mainstream gender in media content and institutional practice. Read more…


		GL Opinion & Commentaries

Africa: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for AU’s top job

All eyes are on the 18th African Union (AU) Summit that is currently underway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia until the 30th of January 2012. While the theme of the Summit is “Boosting Intra-African Trade”, the election of the AU Commission Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson on 29 January will also take centre stage. Read more…

Africa: Transformative leaders must recognise LGBTI rights

The acceptance of lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in Africa is a battle that is yet to be won. Sexual orientation and gender identity are integral aspects of an evolving society. In conservative societies where LGBTIââ‚¬â„¢s face discrimination, political and traditional leaders mustlead in the discussions towards the acceptance of sexual minorities. This follows the recent homophobic comments made by King Goodwill Zwelithini of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. Read more…

The curtain comes down on COP 17, we bow out!

As the curtain comes down on COP 17 today, 9 December 2011, the various players who came to deliberate on how best to assist in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts will be heading back home to the four corners of the world. Faith based organisations, mineworkers, rural women, economic justice activists, scientists, journalists, economists, researchers, and youth, among other players, attended the conference. Itââ‚¬â„¢s now time to bow out! Read more…


		Seminars

Youth, HIV/Aids and multiple concurrent partnerships

Gender Links in partnership with loveLife will on 24th February 2012 hold seminar on “youth and multiple concurrent sexual partnerships.” Concurrent sexual partnerships is defined as having two or more partnerships that overlap in time. Read more…


		Upcoming Events

Media Centres of Excellence – Training of Trainers, 13-15 February 2012, Johannesburg, South Africa

Mainstreaming gender in media education, 20-24 December 2011, February 2012, Johannesburg, South Africa

GMDC Advisory Group Meeting and telcon, 23 February 2012, Johannesburg, South Africa


		GMDC Databases

Clippings

Head scarves raise hackles – Mail and Guardian

…Rude and embarrassing treatment by passport officials over religious dress upsets local Muslims Muslim woman has lodge a complaint with the department of home affairs after officials at the passport control section of OR Tambo International Airport allegedly told two of her daughters that they needed to remove their headscarves for identification purposes. Quraysha Ismail Sooliman, a lecturer in the department of political science at University of Pretoria said her family was leaving South Africa for a Middle Eastern tour on Christmas day when a passport control official told her 16-year old daughter that he needed to see her hair. She told her she wasn’t wearing a headscarf in her passport photo, which was taken when she was 13, and he needed to see her hair. My daughter responded that wasn’t necessary as her face was clearly visible. Read more…

All the prime Minister’s women – Herald

It is the lifestyle of the rich and famous: top of the range cars; holidays in exquisite resorts and lots of women. They enjoy the fun irrespective of the media scrutiny. In some cases, they never seem to learn from their weaknesses. Former United States president Bill Clinton was a well-known womaniser. From a ten-year relationship with Gennifer Flowers before his presidency to Paula Jones and finally Monica Lewisky who almost cost him his presidency and marriage to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Former IMF president Dominique Strauss Kahn is also said to have the same weakness. It cost him job a few months ago. Read more…

32 years of keeping his HIV status from women – Star

A former professional wrestler has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for having sex with women without telling them he had tested positive for the virus that causes Aids. Andre Davis, 29, was sentenced on 14 counts of felonious assault. As a wrestler he used stage names including Gangsta of Love and Sweet Sex Sensation. Prosecutors said Davis violated state law by not telling a dozen sex partners about his HIV status or lying to them. Read more…

Research

Assessing Capacity Building and Good Governance Indicators in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Implications for Poverty Reduction

The aim of this paper was to examine two important factors that serve as the foundation for poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: capacity building and good governance. The data showed significant differences in the measures of capacity building and good governance across regions. Differences in gender equality and personal satisfaction with life opportunities were most evident across regions. The data indicated that good governance was an issue throughout Sub-Saharan Africa regardless of region. The data also indicated the existent of several links and non-links between human development characteristics and the level of poverty in the nation. It showed that personal satisfaction with life opportunities or government services had no significant influence on the nation’s level of poverty. The level of education among the nation’s population had the greatest potential for explaining variation in the level of poverty, and the migration and population characteristics were associated with producing change in the level of poverty. The data indicated that gender was important in reducing poverty to the extent that it relates to inequality in education. Read more…

Determinants of Income Poverty in Rural Africa: Empirical Evidence from Kenya and Nigeria

Growth and development aid have proved to be insucient for alleviating rural poverty in Africa. Thus, eorts should be directed toward enhancing the capacities of rural households to utilize their productive assets, human capital, and land more eciently in order to alleviate poverty on their own. This paper uses panel and cross- sectional regressions, with socio-economic and demographic survey data collected from rural communities of Kenya and Nigeria, to explore the determinants of income and poverty in rural Africa. Results from the regressions reveal very intriguing insights. Household size has a signicantly large and negative eect on income. The value and size of land owned are both important for explaining dierences in income amongst rural households. Ownership of non-durable assets including tools and livestock improves households’ income generating ability. The results also reveal strong evidence of the feminisation of poverty in rural Kenya, which implies that women should be a major focus of poverty alleviation eorts in Africa. Lastly, based on the surveys for this study, the level of inequality was found to be higher in rural Kenya than some other developing countries. Read more…

The Impact of Mother’s Education on Child Health and Nutrition in Developing Countries: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Burkina Faso

Data from a natural experiment are used to demonstrate how a sudden change in education policy in Burkina Faso is useful in estimating the effect of maternal education on child health. Indeed, a major problem in estimating the effect of maternal education on child health is that unobserved factors may affect maternal education and child health simultaneously, causing endogeneity bias. Most studies on the relationship between maternal education and child health have used instrumental variables to address the endogeneity problem. Because it is very difficult to find instrumental variables that clearly satisfy the requirements of “correlation with maternal education” and “non- correlation to unobserved factors”, instrumental variables do not guarantee a solution to the endogeneity problem. A way around this is the use of natural experiment as an identification strategy. Read more…

Case Studies

Media and GBV reporting: “Ex-miner (61) gets pupil (17) pregnant”

Early pregnancies are a major cause of school drop-outs among girls in Southern African region. Premature pregnancies also expose youngsters to HIV, a virus that causes aids. However, early pregnancies do not only affect the future of the impregnated girls but a society as a whole as it impacts directly on the realisation of Millennium Development Goals. This media highlight analyses a Times of Swaziland article in which it was reported that a 61 year old man impregnated a 17 year old school going girl. She eventually dropped out of school. Read more…

Thematic media highlight: Fikile Mbalula and the sex scandal

When a person occupies a public office his/her private life literally ceases. Whatever little or big, good or bad, scandalous or reputable thing s/he does is always of public interest. This is the case with Fikile Mabalula, South Africa’s Sports and Recreation Minister whose sex encounter with Joyce Malamu, a North West based businessperson and model attracted a lot South Africa’s media attention. This thematic media highlight analyses some of the media articles that reported on this “scandalous” development. Read more…

Feminist view of gender budgeting in Zimbabwe

Allocating enough resources to women’s empowerment endeavours at national level is one important step to achieving gender equality in a country. It is imperative for government to have a gender responsive budget to adequately address the different needs of women and men. This media highlight analyses a newspaper article that critiques the national budget allocation in Zimbabwe from a gender perspective. The critique traces the budget process since 2007 when the Zimbabwe government adopted a gender budgeting and women’s empowerment strategy. Read more…

Publications

Transforming Capitalism and Patriarchy: Gender and Development in Africa

Using insights from feminist theory and political economy, Gordon examines the implications for women of current economic and political reform efforts in Africa. Much of the work on women in Africa argues that patriarchy and capitalism have collaborated in the exploitation and control of women to support dependent capitalist development; therefore, both are antithetical to the interests of women. Dependent capitalist development, however, has been a failure. And now, Gordon contends, the interests of patriarchy-in its current form in Africa-and capitalism no longer coincide. Further capitalist expansion requires improving the status of women, who now have a window of opportunity to and alter patriarchal structures. Nevertheless, the mutuality of capitalist and feminist interests is only partial. Gordon points out that, if women are to avoid merely substituting one form of patriarchy for another (i.e., that typical of Western capitalist societies), they must develop new strategies and alliances to shape a future beyond dependent capitalist and patriarchal inequalities. Read more…

INTEGRATING MULTIPLE PEPFAR GENDER STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE HIV INTERVENTIONS

Recognizing that HIV risk is shaped by a complex web of social, economic, and legal factors that affect women, men, girls, and boys differently, many in the development community have long been calling for the integration of gender-specific1 strategies to combat the spread of HIV (Gupta 2000; Gupta et al. 2008). The merit of this approach is supported by recent research demonstrating that HIV programs that integrate multiple PEPFAR gender strategies can be particularly effective in helping women protect themselves against HIV and reducing the frequency of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV; Pronyk et al. 2008). The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is committed to integrating a gender perspective into its prevention, care, and treatment programs. In 2008, AIDSTAR-One began the process of compiling a compendium of programs and conducting case studies illustrating HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support programs in sub-Saharan Africa that integrate multiple gender strategies. The main goal of this two-phase activity was to expand the knowledge base of how to design and implement HIV programs that seek to reduce gender-based vulnerability to HIV infection. Read more…

Economic Report on Africa 2011

The world economy grew by 3.6 per cent in 2010 up from -2.1 per cent in 2009, but its growth is expected to moderate to 3.1 per cent in 2011. Africa’s rebound strengthened from the GDP growth rate of 2.4 per cent in 2009 to 4.7 per cent in 2010 and a forecast of 5 per cent for 2011. The recovery in Africa was underpinned by a number of factors, including the rebound of export demand and commodity prices; increased inflows of foreign direct investment in extractive industries and aid; return of tourism; investment in infrastructure associated with the countercyclical policies adopted by many African countries; increased activities in the service and especially telecommunication sectors; increased consumer demand; and good harvests in some subregions. Despite progress in some countries, African economies are still characterized by heavy reliance on the primary commodity sector, high vulnerability to external shocks, jobless growth and slow progress towards social development goals. It is essential for African countries to promote economic diversification and structural transformation as a means to accelerate and sustain broad-based and shared high employment-generating growth. Read more…


		Internships				Members

Internships

A GL intern on a mission

For 23-year-old Samkelo Ngwenya from Swaziland, pursuing journalism as a profession could not have been an overnight decision but a passion he developed while doing his primary education. Read more…

Members

Lovelife to sign two MOUs with the GMDC

Lovelife, the largest national HIV prevention initiative for young people in South Africa will soon sign two MOUs with the GMDC. The first MOU will be for the gender and media literacy course that is being extended to loveLife staff. Read more…

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Diversity Exchange, Issue 24 January 2012

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