Women in Dev

Welcome to our sixth and final episode of season 1.

As Ukraine and Russian peace negotiations begin this week, the absence of women has been notably present and for many in the feminist space, an indication of the lack of consideration of Ukrainian women’s needs in the process.  

Evidence shows that the participation of civil society groups, including women’s organizations, makes a peace agreement 64% less likely to fail. Yet, only about seven out of every ten peace processes still did not include women mediators or women signatories. Why do women continue to be left out of these important negotiations?  

To discuss the opportunities and challenges of women’s involvement in conflict resolution, we’re joined by Eva Tabbasam from Gender Action Peace and Security (GAPS) UK. GAPS are a membership organisation that works to hold the UK government and wider international community on their commitments to women and girls in conflict areas worldwide.  

Here is a link to the helpful two-pager we discussed on Ukraine and how other organisations can best support women and women’s groups there.  

Welcome back to the Women in Dev podcast - we hope you’ve had a good month. 

This month marks two years since the inaugural WID conference where over 400 delegates from across the international development space came together to discuss and put forward a different vision of the sector; one built on justice, equity, and with feminist principles at the heart of it. 

Since then, WID has grown to become a home for reimaging what a feminist and progressive international development sector could be - hosting events and webinars, running a jobs board and helping to foster partnerships across the space. 

So for this month’s episode, we’re looking inwards at what it’s been like building the WID network since the conference, what we’ve gotten right, and where we still have to grow. For it, I’m joined by WID founder Rachel Firth. Rachel is the Managing Director of GOC and has over 15 years + experience working with clients on national and international projects in the Gender and Global Health space.

As always, if you enjoyed the episode, give us a rate and subscribe on whatever podcast platform you are listening. 

For this month’s podcast, we’re looking at the prevailing gender data gap and the importance of turning data into action to improve women’s lives. One year on since our partner, Women’s March Global, ran the Global Count survey as a direct response to the lack of data about what women worldwide see as barriers to progress, turning the 31,000 responses into action has been a challenging process and begs the question of how we create space for women’s experiences to be listened to and heard and how we turn this into action for a progressive future. 

For the episode, we’re joined by Emma Bates who is the founder and CEO of Diem, a social platform for knowledge sharing for women and non-binary folks. Diem is subverting the norms when it comes to social media, offering a place for individuals to learn, offer experience and connect without the  

We talk about how data has become a ‘dirty’ word and yet how valuable it is to have quality data on women’s issues to make good decisions; we talk about how Diem creates a space for knowledge sharing and the relief that users feel to be able to do so away from the male gaze; and we finish the episode discussing Emma’s optimism for a future where everyone can understand the power they have.  

Download Diem now and get lost in its world of sharing and connecting.  

Welcome to November's edition of the Women in Dev podcast. For it, we are joined by Evelyn Acham, a climate justice activist from Uganda, to discuss why we need feminist action on the climate crisis. 

Evelyn has organized climate strikes and campaigns with the Rise Up Movement, where she works as a national coordinator. She is part of Fridays for Future, the international movement of school students striking for bold climate action. She is also an Arctic angel for Global Choices, a youth-led intergenerational action network. 

In the interview, we discuss the frustration and sadness that COP26 left many activists feeling and the fact that we need to see more women leaders and more explicitly feminist actions on climate change to see more just and equitable solutions. We talk about why Evelyn finds cross-border solidarity so important in this space and the work she is doing on the ground to educate her community in Uganda on the impacts of the Climate Crisis. And we end by talking through her hopes for a Climate Just future and why initiatives like those she works on should make us hopeful for the future.

In this month’s episode of the Women in Dev podcast, we’re talking all things youth engagement and asking how we can truly make it meaningful.  

For the episode, we were joined by Gogontlejang (GG) Phaladi, who is a philanthropist and development practitioner from Botswana and the founder of the Gogontlejang Phaladi Pillar of Hope Project (GPPHP). GG has been a youth advocate for nearly a decade and through the conversation, she gives us valuable insights into what it’s like to be invited to speak at the table as a young person in international development and what we can be doing better. We discuss the commodification of young people and how this has not yet translated into young people being paid equally for their time. We talk about some of the common pitfalls big organisations fall into when they invite young people to engage with them and finish with an incredible analogy of what meaningful youth participation in practice actually looks like.  

If you have enjoyed the episode, please check out more of GG’s organisation’s work on Facebook.  

Welcome to the first episode of the Women in Dev podcast, where we'll reimagine the international development sector by challenging funding, representation and accountability practices, and discussing radical actions that can make the future equitable for us all. Each podcast will be hosted by Wallis Grant. 

This month, we are joined by the incredible Kavita Ramdas, Director of Women's Rights Programs at Open Society Foundations. Kavita's previous work has included serving as a strategy advisor for MADRE and as CEO of Global Fund for Women. She is a globally recognised advocate on gender and equity. 

In a year where we saw huge commitments to gender equality at Generation Equality Forum (GEF), Kavita helps us answer the question: do they work and for whom? She shares her experiences of attending the Beijing gathering in 1995 and what it was like to meet women from all different lives who experienced similar things to you. We discuss the importance of holding big institutions accountable and ways grassroots organisations can do this. And she finishes the episode by telling us her hopes for a post-Covid world and why young people might just be the answer. 

We hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to keep up to date with our episodes and if you enjoyed it or want to continue the discussion, you can find us on Twitter and Instagram.

Welcome to Women in Dev: the Podcast, where you will hear from incredible voices in the development space on how we can challenge the current power imbalances and to show what a locally-owned, women led development sector could really look like.