The Change Page:Voices

THE CHANGE PAGE

Margaret Grieco is the series editor of the Voices in Development Management book series published by Ashgate: Aldershot. For information on this series click here .

The first volume in this series was:

Maintaining the Momentum of Beijing
The Contribution of African Gender NGOs

Edited by

Nana Araba Apt, Centre for Social Policy Studies, University of Ghana,
Naana Agyemang-Mensah, Associates in Development, Accra, Ghana
Margaret Grieco, The Business School, University of North London, UK

University of North London Voices in Development Management Series

Maintaining the Momentum of Beijing provides an overview of gender NGO activity in Africa in the run up to and post-Beijing. The development and contents of this African Platform for Action is examined and specific elements commented upon by six African female authors. The book also advises NGOs on how to maintain the momentum of Beijing. The strength of this book lies in the fact that it gives a hearing to African women's perception of the development process coupled with a valuable overview of NGOs and development agencies, and how they are to create successful organisation structures and strategies to empower them to move forward post-Beijing.

A Foreword to the Book

It gives me great pleasure to introduce this timely volume, which attests to the dynamism, resourcefulness, and resilience of women in Africa. In this collection of essays, African women, in their own voices, rightly call for development by donors and policymakers of explicit gender strategies and protocols for the inclusion of women in all aspects of the business of development. It is a call we must all hear and heed. The Africa Region of the World Bank launched the Voices from African Women initiative before the Beijing Conference as a means to increase the influence of African women in mainstream development policy and Bank work, and we acknowledge with gratitude the financial support provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

This volume should indeed help to amplify women's voices, enabling their own distinct perspectives and priorities to be heard and to shape the future direction of development policies. It also suggests ways to harness advances in information technology and communications to support gender-inclusive development. In this respect, the volume raises new challenges in the ways we think about access rights for women in Africa. The World Bank intends to be responsive. As part of the follow up to the Beijing Conference, the World Bank's Africa Region prepared a Regional Gender Action Plan, which has strengthening women's participation at all levels as one of its key strategic objectives. The Voices speaking in this volume will help to enrich this --and other-- efforts and to ensure that women are truly recognized as the full actors they are in building better lives for the people of Africa. I look forward to an even richer dialogue and deeper partnership.

Jean-Louis Sarbib
Vice President for Africa
The World Bank.

Virtually Launched at the Business School University of North London October 1998 < Also now published in this series:

IMF and World Bank Sponsored Structural Adjustment Programs in Africa - Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang

Information Technology in Context - Chrisanthi Avgerou and Geoff Walsham

Maintaining the Momentum of Beijing - Nana Araba Apt, Naana Agyemang-Mensah and Margaret Grieco

Organising in the Information Age - Len Holmes, Dian Marie Hosking and Margaret Grieco

The Problems of Refugees in Africa - Ebenezer Q. Blavo

Souvenirs: The Material Culture of Tourism - Michael Hitchcock and Ken Teague

Voices from the Shopfloor: Dramas of the Employment Relationship - Anne-Marie Greene

Coming soon:

Len Holmes' book: The Dominance of Management: A Participatory Critique

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