MSI Gender Equality

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PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY www.msiworldwide.com

EQUALITY - WORLD BANK, 2011

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More than 2.3 million women and girls are ‘missing’, especially in South Asia and subSaharan Africa, who have died in infancy, childhood or reproductive years. These women and girls would have survived had they been born in developed countries.

OUR REACH

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authored and collaborated with leaders to produce several guides and publications on Gender Equality

Enhancing gender equality in key sectors improves development results.

Increasing women’s and girls’ access to education, health care, and economic assets and opportunities leads to increased family income, better chances for survival and higher lifelong productivity.

Strengthening women’s voices in their homes, communities and governments improves security and makes democracies more representative and accountable, ensuring a more level playing field for future generations.

MSI is a pioneer in supporting USAID, international donors and host country institutions to integrate gender analysis and empowerment in democracy and governance, basic education, global health, economic growth and results-based management.

Founded in 1981 as a majority women-owned company, MSI brings decades of experience and professional qualifications to its gender equality and empowerment work. Today, we are part of Coffey International Development, expanding the reach of our gender work and applying lessons learned from around the globe.

PROJECTS IN GENDER-BASED DEVELOPMENT INCLUDE: •

Preventing human trafficking

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Reducing severe gender gaps for the most disadvantaged groups

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Preventing sex- and gender-based violence

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Increasing access to effective maternal and child healthcare

GUIDING GENDER INTEGRATION AND PROGRAMMING MSI experts develop analytical tools, training and manuals to enable development institutions to stay current on new knowledge, integrate best practices into their programming and achieve greater compliance with and accountability for gender equality policies.

MSI collaborated with USAID thought leaders to develop the Guide to Gender Integration and Analysis for Democracy Human Rights and Governance Programs, a hands-on guidance for achieving gender equality results in new programs.

PREVENTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING MSI leads programs focused on prevention and protection of human trafficking through advocacy, education, rule of law and service delivery in the Philippines, India, South Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Mexico and Morocco. For SARI/Q, a regional South Asia USAID-funded initiative, MSI developed an M&E tool for identifying and documenting evidence-based best practices among civil society and government partners to address anti-trafficking.

The MSI-authored A Practical Guide to Combating Trafficking in Persons builds on the internationally established “four Ps” of counter-trafficking: prevention, protection, prosecution and partnerships. This guide provides suggested results and performance indicators for programs to reduce trafficking for labor and sexual exploitation.

REDUCING THE MOST SEVERE GENDER GAPS Gender gaps are more extreme among severely disadvantaged populations.

MSI’s local government programs in Colombia, Ghana, and Mali engage these groups to increase their participation in local level campaigns, elections and activities to improve education, health, and water and sanitation services.

MSI’s CIMIENTOS project in Colombia integrated gender, ethnic and racial equality measures into its local governance strengthening programs. The project supplied grants and leadership training for local civil society groups representing women, Afro-Colombians and indigenous people. With project support, municipalities produced gender-inclusive development plans. Internally displaced women, representing women-headed households, advocated successfully for their interests in land restitution negotiations with the government.

PREVENTING GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE The international community seeks to end domestic, sex- and gender-based violence by raising awareness, advocating for policy and legal protections and strengthening government accountability.

In the Afghan Rule of Law Stabilization project, MSI staff engaged women and men in strengthening traditional informal institutions and methods for resolving disputes among families and communities to prevent violence and strengthen respect for human rights. Islamic scholars have trained and taught women’s rights to traditional dispute resolution groups of elder males. Groups of elder women formed their own resolution groups to resolve family and local disputes.

SCALING UP SUCCESSFUL MATERNAL HEALTH CARE More than 2.3 million women and girls are ‘missing’, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, who have died in infancy, childhood or reproductive years.

These women and girls would have survived had they been born in developed countries (World Bank, 2011).

MSI’s Scaling Up Initiative in India, Nigeria and Mexico worked with governments and civil society to pilot test and scale up successful innovative approaches to reproductive health care so that large numbers of disadvantaged women and children could be reached. In India, MSI scaled up the home-based newborn care project to more than 49 sites across India. The project is now being adopted in South Asia and Africa.

To learn more about MSI’s work please visit our website: www.msiworldwide.com

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Tel: +1.202.484.7170 | Fax: +1. 202.488.0754 600 Water St., SW, Washington, DC 20024 USA

www.msiworldwide.com