BRIDGE is a research and information programme located within IDS Knowledge Services. We are part of a global movement whose vision is a world where gender equality, dignity and social justice prevail, where poverty is eliminated and where human rights – including women’s rights - are realised. We believe that we play an important role in realising this vision by generating and sharing diverse, accessible gender information, and by stimulating collaborative, groundbreaking thinking on key issues related to gender and development. We also support the exchange of experience and ideas of how to put this thinking into practice in ways that will make a difference.
Our approach BRIDGE acts as a catalyst by facilitating the generation and exchange of relevant, accessible and diverse gender information in print, online and through other innovative forms of communication. This supports the needs of policymakers, practitioners, advocates and researchers in bridging the gaps between gender theory, policy and practice to make gender equality happen. BRIDGE targets both gender and non-gender specialists in an effort to ensure gender is central to all development thinking and practice, and to inspire transformation in attitudes, policies and legislation.
We do this by: Producing BRIDGE resources such as Cutting Edge Packs and In Briefs on relevant, timely gender and development issues through collaborative processes Taking a nuanced approach that focuses on transforming gender relations, and challenging gender stereotypes rather than only being about women and development Facilitating information sharing, partnerships and networking, and reflecting perspectives from non English-speaking contributors Setting and influencing gender and development agendas by creating platforms for discussion, debate and new ideas Supporting the specific information needs of development practitioners and policy-makers with a gender mainstreaming remit.
Members:
Resources
Displaying 26 - 30 of 78Human rights, formalisation and women’s land rights in southern and eastern Africa
How can the abstract principles of the human rights-based approach (HRBA) be translated into practical strategies to improve women's ownership and access to land? In Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, despite changes in national law and policy aiming to improve women's land tenure, none of the land reforms meet human rights standards. This is because legal regulation of land blurs with customary laws mostly relating to land transactions and family, marriage or inheritance.
Land Reform and Human Rights in Contemporary Zimbabwe: Balancing Individual and Social Justice through an Integrated Human Rights Framework
Land distribution and access to land are key issues in Zimbabwe. In recent years, nearly all of the country's commercial farm land has been re-designated, leaving most farm workers dislocated from their farm villages. The government of Zimbabwe argues that the land reform programme is needed to achieve historical and social justice. However, this article concludes that the government is engaged in serious human rights violations and is appropriating land to distribute to its followers for political not social justice ends.
Widows, AIDS, Health and Human Rights in Africa
This paper argues that widows and female children in Tanzania have traditionally been denied the right to inherit property from their husbands, even when the property was acquired during the marriage. This is further complicated by a three-part legal system consisting of customary law (law grounded in customs or traditions), Islamic law, and statutory law (law set down by a legislature). As a result, Tanzanian women and their children are often left homeless upon the death of their husbands.
Rural Women's Access to Land and Property in Selected Countries: Progress Towards Achieving the Aims of Articles 14, 15 and 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
Women's access to land is a fundamental factor in food security. Yet women all over the world suffer under discriminatory property and inheritance laws and customary practices which restrict their rights over the land on which they live and work. Articles 15 and 16 of CEDAW state the rights of women to property and inheritance. This report is a tool to help non-governmental organisations and multilateral agencies in advocacy and policy dialogue using CEDAW and the Optional Protocol (which allows individuals and groups to make complaints directly to the CEDAW committee).
Gender and Citizenship: Supporting Resources Collection
Citizenship is an abstract concept and therefore great care must be taken in explaining what it means in practice and what can effectively be done in the context of development interventions and policy. Development projects which enhance the ability of marginalised groups to access and influence decision-making bodies are implicitly if not explicitly working with concepts of citizenship. Citizenship is about concrete institutions, policy and structures and the ways in which people can shape them using ideas of rights and participation.