Gender justice: stories of gender, science & development from around the world

Corruption is neither black nor white but fifty shades of grey, explains Alina Rocha Menocal, in this audio interview. Any attempts to tackle it must take such nuances into account. 

Rocha Menocal is a senior research fellow in the Developmental Leadership Program at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, and co-author of Why corruption matters, a 2015 report published by the UK Department for International Development. 

Here she lifts the lid on myths surrounding corruption — including the alarming development that, rather than stamping it out, the transition of many regimes from authoritarian to democratic government during the 1980s  entrenched new forms of graft. In states where institutions of accountability are weak, the democratic process is often “where much of the business of corruption happens”, Rocha Menocal says. There’s a lot of money involved, “both legal and completely dirty”.  

Another issue is that “corruption is not the sole domain of the developing world … [but] exists everywhere”.  According to Rocha Menocal, developed countries are often responsible for propping up corrupt practices in the global South. Meanwhile, mechanisms for measuring and analysing corruption vary across different contexts, making it difficult to compare across countries, continents or regions. Breaking down what people mean when they use the word “corruption” and putting in place robust mechanisms for measuring and analysing it will be a vital first step towards its eradication, she says. 


The interview was recorded at Corruption and Development, an event at University College London, United Kingdom, on 29 June. 

http://www.scidev.net/global/governance/multimedia/hidden-faces-corruption-dfid.html


The hidden faces of corruption

The contrast between the passionate ideals of the UN International Day of Peace this week (21 September) and the tragic reality of world politics in the closing months of 2015 couldn’t be starker. In 2014 180,000 people were killed in conflicts – over three times the number killed in 2010. In June the UN reported that 60 million people are now displaced from their homes — more than at any point since records began. Of the 19 million refugees, half are children. These are brutal, shameful statistics — each number representing a life destroyed or damaged, a family blown apart. Today, "strenthening the ideals of peace, within and among all nations and peoples" — as the UN said 21 September should be used for back in 1981 — feels more beyond our grasp than ever. 

In this audio interview, we speak to Ray Acheson, director of Reaching Critical Will, a disarmament research and advocacy programme at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the oldest women’s peace organisation in the world. She talks about the link between deadly technologies, the global arms trade and the wars now raging around the world, and the importance of public and political recognition of the connections between weapons sales and the growing refugee crisis.   

Acheson discusses the gendered impacts of weapons — from the role of small firearms in sexual and gender-based violence, to the ways nuclear radiation affects women and men’s bodies differently. She explains how social constructions of gender and gender roles can “reinforce the sense of men as militants, reinforcing violent masculinities, and undermining women.” And she explains why it so important to get more women around the table during peacebuilding discussions — not only to promote gender equality and break down essentialist ideas of masculine and feminine characteristics, but also to ensure the practical knowledge women often have about the mechanics of their communities feed into and shape agreements to build a more socially relevant, robust, and lasting peace.   

http://www.scidev.net/global/conflict/multimedia/women-deadly-tech-war-refugees.html


Women should be at the heart of peacebuilding talks

HIV is no longer the death sentence it used to be. With early diagnosis and treatment, people infected with the virus can now live long and relatively normal lives, and can avoid passing it to their children through pregnancy or breastfeeding. Access to free antiretroviral treatment remains far from universal — only half of those who need it get treatment — but it is improving. 

But the idea of HIV as a death sentence persists, with devastating effect, as filmmaker Tom Gibb explains in this interview for today’s World AIDS Day. Gibb makes films for the Medical Research Council and World Health Organization that aim to make health research in Sub-Saharan Africa accessible to medics, policymakers and funders.  

Another strand of his filmmaking explores how interactive drama workshops and film screenings help reduce HIV stigma and change behaviour among rural people in Malawi and Zimbabwe, as he explains here. Gibb has also teamed up with Together as One, a Harare-based youth group, to test out a filmmaking technique that aims to immerse viewers in the experiences of a young woman in Zimbabwe living with HIV. The resulting film, Chiedza’s Song — Growing up with HIV in Zimbabwe, has its UK premiere this evening at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.


Immersive film seeks to end HIV stigma

The Zika crisis unfolding in Latin America calls for the lessons learnt from the Ebola epidemic to be put into practice. 

When it comes to field response, aid agencies must recognise the importance of culturally sensitive public health information delivered by trusted messengers. 

Anne Bennett is the director of Hirondelle USA, a non-profit organisation that supports radio development in countries emerging from conflict or facing humanitarian crises. 

In this audio interview, she says that “top-down messages with a government stamp” often lack credibility in public health crises because they show a poor understanding of the everyday challenges people face. 

Take the directive from five Latin American governments telling women to avoid getting pregnant for two years, for example. “While that message might be sound biomedical advice,” Bennett says, “it’s entirely impractical for most women, especially women from vulnerable communities who don’t have access to family planning … and [where] there are high levels of sexual violence.” 

This is where community radio stations can step in, Bennett says. These stations are “trusted agents”, ideally placed to deliver information in local languages that takes into account both public health guidelines and cultural realities. 

The interview was recorded at the World Radio Day 2016 celebrations organised by SOAS Radio and the Communication for Development Network at SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom, on 15 February. 

http://www.scidev.net/global/communication/multimedia/local-radio-zika-crisis-ebola.html

The power of local radio in the Zika crisis

What are the language barriers facing refugees and what tools can help bridge these linguistic gaps? Rebecca Petras of Translators Without Borders talks to Imogen Mathers. 

Bridging the language gap in the European refugee crisis

In the face of an earthquake or cyclone, what would you do first? Most people, I imagine, would rush to a place of safety, find out what was going on, and make contact with their families. But what if you didn’t know the language of those around you or understand emergency bulletins broadcast or appearing on billboards, television or mobile screens?   

This is what happens to many of the world’s 60 million people displaced living in countries prone to environmental disasters or conflict,  as well as for local people who do not speak the language of government and public broadcasts. 
When crises strike, it’s not just the emergency itself that affects people: actually understanding what is going on and where to get help is a challenge. 

The breakdown in communication between aid workers and affected people following the Haiti earthquake of 2010 prompted the global translation NGO Translators Without Borders to form their ‘Words of Relief’ crisis project. The team have spent the past two years analysing the information needs of people in crises, designing tech-based tools to aid communication, and training up internet translation engines to recognise more obscure languages like Nepali, Dari and Pashto. 

Their deputy director, Rebecca Petras, tells us more in this interview. 


Tech tools break down language barriers in emergencies

SciDev.Net podcasts look at key global development issues and the ways in which science can have a positive impact on equitable and sustainable development and poverty reduction. 