FRIDAY FILE: Six months after the 4thHigh Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4) took place in Busan, a new Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) was launched, but civil society organizations have expressed concerns about the inclusiveness of the process and scepticism that any real change will take place.

FRIDAY FILE - Threats and violence against women journalists are on the rise in many regions of the world. In their work exposing injustices and bearing witness to human rights violations, women journalists are women human rights defenders and as such are in need of better security and protection mechanisms.

By Katherine Ronderos

While governments were selling out on women’s reproductive rights at the official United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), women’s rights and feminist groups were organizing at the People’s Summit for Social and Environmental Justice to denounce the green economy and neoliberal development model and offer feminist proposals in relation to the future of the planet.

By Alejandra Scampini

We invite you to share your opinion in the comments box below.

FRIDAY FILE: A discussion about the implications of the proposed UN Fifth World Conference on Women in 2015 is urgently needed among feminists and women’s rights activists from all regions of the world.

There are diverse opinions about the organization, hosting and purpose of the proposed conference, which have not been broadly debated.

By Susan Tolmay[i]

The proposed 5th World Conference on Women

On April 27, during its 45th Session, the United Nations Commission on Population and Development (CPD) adopted a landmark Resolution on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of adolescents and youth.

FRIDAY FILE: Feminists have started to consider self-care and security as a political tool to ensure the survival of our movement as well as our personal wellness. But, the patriarchal legacy mandating women as “care-givers of the world”, creates contradictions in balancing the demand of caring for others with needing to care for ourselves.

By Katherine Ronderos

Rape and gender violence in conflict is a problem of huge proportions across the globe.

The International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict has been launched to end this wanton scourge. AWID spoke to Yee Htun, Coordinator of the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict at the Nobel Women’s Initiative about the objectives and hopes for the campaign.

FRIDAY FILE: The onslaught of transgenic food production, the advance of agro-business driven single-crop farming and the exploitative economic development model, are putting food sovereignty at risk. Those supporting and reinforcing these practices, including transnational corporations, are more focused on profit than caring for food and natural resources.

FRIDAY FILE: Domestic workers contribute greatly to the global economy. They bolster local and foreign economies by taking on care-giving roles, and migrant workers send home remittances that form a substantial part of their home countries’ gross domestic product. Yet for a long time domestic labour has been unregulated and domestic workers have experienced violations of their economic rights and faced barriers in accessing justice.

FRIDAY FILE: The role of women and girls as key to changing the course of development has received increasing attention in recent years, further bolstered by calls for making gender equality a cornerstone of development, but has the rhetoric of commitment translated into actual financial support?