Newsletter 2 | June 19, 2023
Celebrating Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
The Women RISE initiative is supporting six research projects that seek to address the challenges faced by small and medium enterprises due to the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID19) pandemic and their impact on women’s health and livelihoods. Their findings will inform gender transformative interventions that will make it easier to withstand future crises. This newsletter recognizes the celebration of the small and medium enterprise day on June 27, 2023, and features some projects in line with this theme.
One of the Women RISE projects that is investigating the emerging economic issues of small enterprises is titled ‘Examining the Socio-economic and Health Vulnerabilities of Female Bushmeat Traders in the Context of COVID-19 in Ghana.’ The project seeks to mobilize efforts and resources to enhance the well-being of women participating in the bushmeat trade and to promote gender and health equity in Ghana. To learn more about the project, watch an interview with Fidelia Ohemeng, a lecturer and researcher from the University of Ghana here.
Women RISEProject updates
Establishing Continuity through Documentation
The Rise-Benin project, that focuses on Post-COVID-19 Recovery by Overcoming Economic Hardship and Violence Against Women in Southern Benin, conducted exploratory interviews in February 2023 among 44 representatives of community organizations in Southern Benin. According to fieldworkers, the preliminary findings suggest that the Covid-19 context has severely impacted the free movement of people and goods, posing a significant threat to gender equality achievements.
Before the pandemic, women in the region faced challenges related to survival and experienced various forms of physical, psychological, and sexual violence. The Covid-19 context exacerbated these issues,. Respondents believe the Covid-19 crisis has increased poor access to healthcare services and contributed to low income and violence. PostCovid-19 recovery has been further complicated by the international crisis stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, resulting in challenging inflation rates. Nonetheless, they also point out that the Covid-19 context has triggered new resilience strategies such as promoting hand hygiene, the emergence of COVID-related businesses (“coro-business” or “corona-business”), and the increased adoption of telecommuting also called teleworking. The Rise-Benin team launched‑ a website to showcase the project objectives and progress. Eventually, the website will facilitate the dissemination of the research findings and learnings and serve as a comprehensive resource on gender-based violence in Benin. Click here to learn more about the project.
A Strategic Kickoff
In preparation for fieldwork for the ARISE&WIN project based in Nigeria, a three-day training workshop for all the fieldworkers began on May 10, 2023. The focus of the training was Qualitative Situational Analysis and Policy Engagement Strategies. The training topics included: Introduction to Qualitative Research, Ethics of Human Subjects Research, and Cultural Sensitivity in Qualitative Research. “Participants gained valuable insights into important ethical considerations for human subjects research and cultural sensitivity in qualitative research.
Our team is now better equipped to conduct high-quality fieldwork for the ARISE&WINproject,” says Dr. Funmilola OlaOlorun, who facilitated the sessions.
The ARISE&WIN project seeks to understand the gendered impact of COVID-19 on young, self-employed Nigerian women and co-producing solutions that improve income security, foster better support systems and Wellbeing. Click here to learn more about the project.
ANITA Project’s Workshop on Respondent Driven Sampling
On January 18, 2023, the ANITA project team organized a workshop on Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) led by the University of Toronto. The ANITA project aims to address the challenges and constraints of social protection policies for Peruvian women domestic workers by examining their working conditions and access to health care after the COVID-19 pandemic. This project will use the Respondent-Driven Sampling (RDS) method for hard-to-reach populations and beyond. A total of 36 people from the research team and collaborators/colleagues from the Upstream Lab, CRONICAS, Center of Excellence in Chronic Diseases, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), and IMEK Research Center in Marketing & Development participated in the RDS workshop. At the end of the project term, the team plans to present recommendations to improve domestic workers’
access to social protection in the event of future pandemics.
Human-Centered Design Ideation Workshop on Gender-Responsive Healthcare Financing
Th e WINRACK project on Catalyzing Women’s Involvement in Post-Covid-19 Recovery through Agricultural Cooperatives in Kenya aims to empower women in Kenya by investigating their work, participation, and health in agricultural cooperatives in a post-COVID-19 world. The project team participated in workshops in Kajiado, Kiambu, and Taita Taveta counties to assess the use of agricultural cooperatives as leverages for gender-responsive healthcare financing.
Participants of the workshops, including board members, directors, managers, and cooperative members, were asked to identify challenges and propose innovative solutions to address health and financial obstacles. Cooperative members shared various barriers, such as limited access to finances, health education, transportation, medical facilities, and medications. Additionally, they discussed challenges related to poor road conditions, inadequate healthcare, cultural and religious beliefs, gender roles, and food insecurity. The group was encouraged to identify one tangible solution they could leverage in their positions to promote gender-responsive healthcare financing.
They proposed a structure where cooperatives could pay the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) fees for their members and their families and provide access to free or low-cost medical checkups. This innovation would enable households to reallocate funds previously spent on emergency or preventative healthcare towards business growth and other essential needs, such as children’s school fees. Participants committed to raising awareness of the proposed innovation among farmers at an upcoming annual general meeting and sharing the idea with their cooperative Boards.
Diagnostic Workshop for Inclusive Recycling
As part of the activities of the project: ” Women recyclers’ work and health in the context of COVID-19 in Ecuador ” (RUMBOS),the research team held a Participatory Diagnostic Workshop in Cuenca, Ecuador, which focused on constructing multi-stakeholder processes using participatory action research techniques. The main objective of the meeting was to engage critical actors and recyclers who, through a dialogic exchange, shared with the research team the history of recycling in Cuenca.
One of the results of the workshop was the construction of a timeline of the last 25 years of recycling in the city of Cuenca through the identification of milestones, projects, problems, and critical actors, who directly or indirectly have been part of inclusive recycling in the city. Another result was the identification of the relevance and importance of the reactivation of space for consultation and the collective construction of public policies related to Inclusive Recycling in Cuenca.
In addition, on April 24-28, the research team applied a health survey to understand the health status and working conditions of grassroots recyclers from a social justice and gender equity approach. Anthropometric measurements, vital signs, and laboratory tests were taken from waste pickers in Macas and canton Morona, Ecuador. This work was supported by nursing students from the Catholic University of Cuenca – Macas campus and Health District 14, specifically from the Luxembourg Health Center.
Applying the Knowledge from the Inception Workshop
Since the Inception workshop in January, the research team working on the Caregiver Wellbeing Plus (CWEL+) trial, which seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of a cash transfer plus economic empowerment intervention for improving the wellbeing of caregivers of children and adolescents living with HIV in South Africa, has been on a learning curve incorporating the learnings from the Inception workshop into their study. The team has been busy planning for the trial start-up, which has involved obtaining local ethics approval, setting up the field site, and hosting several caregiver advisory board meetings to co-develop the intervention manual and stakeholder engagement mapping.
“After our first grant meeting in January, I felt inspired to get the ball rolling. My number one priority was to ensure we obtained ethics approval. With support from our expert coinvestigators, I could address all the very detailed comments and questions from the committee, strengthening the trial. We are now sampling sites for the trial,” project manager Stanley Carries shared on the progress.
Reading Resources
Follow the links below to read on research methodologies and processes in relation to gender transformative research. These briefs were developed in partnership with Gender at Work for the Global South AI4COVID Program which is funded by The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Swedish International Cooperation Agency (Sida).
- Technical Brief 1: Designing gender-responsive data projects
- Technical Brief 2: A guide for more gender-responsive health research
- Technical Brief 3: Stakeholder engagement for gender-responsive health research
- Technical Brief 4: Connecting Gender Data to Action
These briefs (and other resources) are availablehere in other languages including French and Spanish.
Upcoming Women RISE Event
- Women RISE Regional in-person workshops
The regional workshops are scheduled to kick off inJuly as shown in the schedule below.
– Asia regional workshop – The workshop will be held onJuly 26-27, 2023 in Malaysia.
– Africa regional workshops – There will be two workshops in Africa, one for the East African region to be held in Kenya and another for the West African region in Ghana. Both
workshops will take place on August 8-9, 2023. Further communication on these engagements will be shared through email.
– Latin America regional workshop – The workshop will take place in Argentina with an informal virtual engagement planned to allow the teams to be well acquainted ahead of the in-person meeting scheduled for August 28-29, 2023. The date for the informal virtual engagement will be communicated through email.
Mid-term virtual meeting –
The Mid-term virtual meeting will be held on14-16 November 2023 for all Women RISE research team teams. Details of the meeting will follow in due course.
International Conferences
- Women Deliver 2023
The Women Deliver 2023 Conference (WD2023) will take place in Kigali, Rwanda, as well as virtually, from July 17-20, 2023. Women RISE will host a side event titled, “Balancing access to care and care responsibilities among women health care workers: breaking down international evidence and solutions for communities, families and women.” The event will be held on Thursday, July 20, 2023, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm at Kigali Convention Center, Room MH1.1. If you are attending the conference, please let us know by sending an email to Evelyn Muthoni ([email protected]) and Francine Sinzinkayo ([email protected]). - Canadian Conference for Global Health (CCGH)Th e CCGH 2023 theme is “From Rhetoric to Action: Moving policy, research, and practice” and will take place between October 16-18, 2023, in Ottawa, Canada. Women RISE will hold a panel at the conference. Additionally, two Women RISE teams have proposed to hold a half-day symposium at the CCGH on strong partnership and high-quality research. Click here to register to the CCGH.
External Events of Interest
- The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) will hold its 11th annual Africa Evidence Summit in Nairobi, Kenya from June 19-20, 2023. Register to attend.
- The International Conference on Science, Technology and Society (iCON-STS) 2023 will take place on August 15-16, 2023. Follow this link for more information.
- The What Works Global Summit is scheduled forOctober 18-20, 2023 in Ottawa, Canada. Registration for attendance is ongoing.
Articles of Interest
- Jerving, S. (2023, March 16). African policymakers ask for more data on climate and health. Devex, Inside Development, Planet Health..
https://www.devex.com/news/african-policymakers-ask-for-more-data-onclimate-and-health-105136 - Clark J. How pandemic publishing struck a blow to the visibility of women’s expertise BMJ 2023; 381 :p788 doi:10.1136/bmj.p788
Connect with us
We want to feature your work. Share with us any news and updates such as published papers, policy briefs, and community engagement activities, about an upcoming conference you are participating in. Share before August 15, 2023 to be included in the next Women RISE News Roundup.
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