This blog from the ODI by Cora Walsh and Nicola Jones notes that, after decades of work to tackle gender disparities in healthcare, gender remains a significant factor in the poor health of millions around the globe. This year the UN theme of International Women’s Day is ‘investing in women’, and the blog reiterates why this is particularly important in health policy. It also offers four concrete steps to be taken in order to more effectively invest in women's health in developing contexts.

'One of the most important messages in support of gender equality in the World Development Report 2008 is its position that challenging gender inequality and investing in addressing the barriers that women face ... will increase efficiency and productivity in the agricultural sector and thereby contribute towards growth and poverty reduction.'

"There is a growing concern in academic and practitioner circles alike that 12 years after the lofty optimism of the 1995 UN Beijing Conference on Women we have reached a state of 'gender fatigue'. The energy of global women’s movements appears to be waning; gender mainstreaming initiatives have not lived up to expectations; and donor and government funding for gender equality remains static or in some cases is even in decline, despite the fact that a significant number of countries are off-track in terms of meeting the Millennium Development Goal on gender empowerment. What steps can we as development researchers and practitioners take to tackle such weariness?"

"Few people would argue, publicly at least, that they oppose evidence-informed policy. Yet, ... in the field of sexual and reproductive health at least, all too often affordable and cost-effective interventions which are technically feasible, in even the most resource constrained settings, are not implemented due to passive or active resistance."

This paper evaluates the gender dimensions of poverty and trade in Latin America. In particular, it notes that changes in employment, prices and social expenditures are three pathways linking trade and gender. Also, trade liberalisation may have positive or negative impacts, but there are risks for women. Therefore it argues that trade reforms must be complemented by social and labour policies to ensure that women can take full advantage of the new economic environment.

Drawing on work commissioned by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to help its forward planning, this paper asks how the rural poor might benefit more fully from global economic processes. It argues that, whilst the scope for the more entrepreneurial to link into value chains associated with either agriculture or the nonfarm rural economy is present, its relevance for many of the rural poor is questionable. There is, however, substantial scope for labourers to participate in activities influenced by globalisation.

Policies therefore need to support temporary and permanent migration from rural to urban areas. As a prior condition for the design and implementation of such policies, political mindsets need to be changed to give fuller recognition to the value of such labour in supporting economic modernisation.

Migrant workers could contribute significantly to the reduction of poverty in Asia, however new protective policies must be implemented to secure their status and ensure benefits are distributed evenly.

It is now accepted that HIV/AIDS is a long-wave event, with accumulative and systemic impacts. It follows from this that longitudinal studies are needed, to establish the effects on individuals, households and communities and their complex interactions over time. But what kinds of longitudinal studies illuminate these issues the best?

This briefing paper outlines the various ways in which food and nutritional security is essential in the HIV/AIDS response. It looks at Article 28 in the Declaration of Commitment by the United Nations General Assembly Special Session dedicated to HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), and argues that this provides the high profile international endorsement needed to secure vigorous action, if used effectively.

Drawing on the findings of fieldwork with cash, food, cash and food beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries, this paper uses a comparative approach to explore the impact of cash transfers on gender relations.

'This paper reviews the international literature on the intergenerational transmission (IGT) of poverty and seeks to identify gaps in knowledge and to suggest a research agenda for work on the IGT poverty within te Chronic Poverty Research Centre. It aims to identify the factors and processes that, within the context of the broader economic and socio-political context, determine the poverty status of individuals and their households, the likelihood that poverty is passed from one generation to another, and the potential 'poverty trajectories' for those growing up in poor households.'

This paper presents an overview of debates surrounding the different definitions and conceptual approaches to empowerment and explores a number of conceptual issues which have practical implications for the operationalisation of empowerment. These include whether empowerment is viewed as a process or an outcome; whether an ‘agency’ or a structural approach is taken. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these principles for working with partners and explores the potential of empowerment as a multidimensional approach for poverty reduction.

This paper evaluates an attempt in Andhra Pradesh to improve the outreach, quality and accountability of educational, health and Early Childhood Development services by involving parents closely in their monitoring and management. Participatory Education Committees and Mothers' Committees were established in the context of a growing concensus in national and international policy circles that decentralisation and community participation are critical for improved coverage, responsiveness and quality of public services.

This paper assesses the inter-generational impacts of women’s participation in micro-credit programmes and the transmission mechanisms through which children’s wellbeing is affected by different dimensions of women’s empowerment. The over-arching question is to what extent are these linkages due to ripple effects and to what extent the result of deliberate policy intentions to tackle childhood poverty. These questions are important as international development experience has shown that reduction in aggregate poverty levels does not automatically translate into diminished poverty for children.

This paper discusses the development and implementation of Juntos ('Together'), a cash transfer programme in Peru aimed at developing human capital and breaking inter-generational transfers of poverty. The paper is based on documentary analysis and fieldwork in Ayachucho Department, the first region in which the pilot phase of the programme was implemented. We selected two communities based on the following criteria: presence of Young Lives sites (given plans to follow up with longitudinal research about the effects of the programme over time), geographical accessibility; size of the population and the number of children enrolled in the programme. The analysis pays particular attention to the impacts of this social protection mechanism on women and children, the strengths and weaknesses of a conditional approach, and changes in family and community dynamics. It concludes by discussing future policy challenges and directions for research.

Poverty data rarely capture processes of change, limiting our ability to understand poverty trajectories at the individual or household levels. This article uses a household survey, village-level participatory studies and indepth life-history interviews to examine people’s poverty trajectories and to identify what drives and maintains chronic poverty. Composite shocks can propel previously non-poor households into severe and long-term poverty. Poverty is hard to escape, and people born into chronically poor households find few opportunities for accumulation and wealth creation. The analysis highlights the importance of poverty interrupters, including the end of conflict and the re-integration of internally displaced people, and suggests that state-led interventions would be needed to provide real opportunities to the chronically poor.

This paper examines the fracture points, or areas of weakness and failure, in social policy formation – from agenda setting through to policy formation and its legitimisation. It suggests why it is that despite clearly identified severe and widespread problems, which have been shown to drive and maintain poverty and which are also clearly associated with marginalisation and vulnerability, policy makers may still fail to generate adequate responses. Social policies have been selected as the focus of this study because they are generally weakly addressed by the development and poverty policies of both donors and developing country governments. Also includes case studies that examine the barriers to effective policy responses to the problems of marginalised and vulnerable groups. The multiple deprivations experienced by some of these groups increases their likelihood of being not only poor, but chronically poor.

This paper is a discussion of the role of gender issues in social protection policies, strategies and programmes, and as such it shows that vulnerabilities to risk vary significantly by gender. Because the impacts of shocks affect men and women differently, it is useful to think of them (as well as boys and girls) as  different constituents in any analysis; social protection needs to be tailored accordingly.