Browse by Theme: Advocacy

Recent research from the World Bank and the LSE (don’t roll your eyeballs) shows that blogging about an academic article can lead to hundreds of new readers, when before there were only a handful. CARE has 60 years of experience of what does and doesn’t work in development. We spend thousands on research and evaluations (there’s a great one on the cards exploring the links between women’s economic empowerment and levels of sexual violence, in the DRC), but tend to keep many of these findings buried from view.

It’s time for this to change.

There are certain working conditions that most workers take for granted; established working hours, a minimum wage, paid annual leave, social security and maternity leave. Historically, domestic workers haven’t shared these basic rights but a major new piece of legislation could change this unacceptable breach of human rights. On the 16th June 2011, at the International Labour Organisation's 100th international conference, 183 countries signed Convention 189. This landmark legislation mandates state-supported protection to ensure decent work for domestic workers. However, to date, only eight countries have ratified the convention (Uruguay, the Philippines, Mauritius, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Italy, Paraguay, and South Africa). At CARE International, we believe domestic work is “real” work and it is time for domestic workers to be granted the same working conditions that other workers all over the world are granted without question.  

A recent WHO study re-confirmed that Pakistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world (nearly 300 women die for every 100,000 births) and many of them are under 20 years old. Despite the challenging political, economic and social context, sixteen parliamentarians from the main four provinces in Pakistan have recently promised to include sexual and reproductive health needs in their provincial health plans.

In the last few months the world’s leaders have declared and resolved to end sexual violence against women in conflict. First we had the G8 declaration and then UN resolution 2106 but what difference will these really make to the women who are being raped in places like the DRC, Syria and South Sudan?

The leaders of the G8 came to the UK over a month ago and David Cameron hosted a ‘Hunger Summit’. While the summit did pledge up to $4.15bn (USD) to tackle malnutrition did it take the opportunity to boost public investment in the small holder farmers that feed a third of the world’s population?

There are certain working conditions that most workers take for granted; established working hours, a minimum wage, paid annual leave, social security and maternity leave. Historically, domestic workers haven’t shared these basic rights but a major new piece of legislation could change this unacceptable breach of human rights. On the 16th June 2011, at the International Labour Organisation's 100th international conference, 183 countries signed Convention 189. This landmark legislation mandates state-supported protection to ensure decent work for domestic workers. However, to date, only eight countries have ratified the convention (Uruguay, the Philippines, Mauritius, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Italy, Paraguay, and South Africa). At CARE International, we believe domestic work is “real” work and it is time for domestic workers to be granted the same working conditions that other workers all over the world are granted without question.  

In the last few months the world’s leaders have declared and resolved to end sexual violence against women in conflict. First we had the G8 declaration and then UN resolution 2106 but what difference will these really make to the women who are being raped in places like the DRC, Syria and South Sudan?