Egypt elected the first Arab woman to parliament in 1957, but in the half century since, the most populous country in the Arab world has gone from being a leader in women's political participation to a lagger.

Izet Samá has no regrets about her decision to devote every waking hour to her mission as pastor of the Presbyterian-Reformed Church, guiding a small congregation in the Cuban province of Havana.

African women play a critical role in ensuring the food security of the continent, writes Mary Wandia in the run-up to the 2009 African Union Summit (24 June-3 July), which has its official theme ‘Investing in agriculture for economic growth and development’.

Traditionally African culture dictated that elderly citizens be treated with respect, writes Anushka Sehmi, but as economic constraints erode the extended family system and fuel rural-urban migration, many old people languish in villages with no-one to care for them.

Today the global community faces widespread economic turmoil, which has implications of considerable scope for the inclusion and promotion of human rights in general and women's rights in particular.

Affirmative action is necessary, but insufficient, for building a sustained and representative female presence in politics, argues Anne Marie Goetz on openDemocracy.net, and it can only be a temporary measure. So what will it take to build democracies free from gender bias?

Development, the journal of the Society for International Development has dedicated its June 2009 edition to reporting on AWID’s 11th Forum. The articles in ‘Power, movement, change’ offer a comprehensive account of the diverse range of discussions and debates that took place at the Forum.
A cross section of experiences from grassroots to global movement building is covered. Although there was a huge array of presentations at the Forum, the journal highlights the need to consistently link racism, gender based violence and sexuality rights with economic and social justice.
In her editorial which is reproduced below, Wendy Harcourt writes about some of the prominent features, as well as some of the silences at the Forum.

On Jun. 19, 2008, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1820, expressly addressing the problems of sexual violence in conflict situations. One year later, three experts in the field gathered to speak at the United States Institute of Peace to evaluate the implementation of 1820 and consider how it might better prevent this widespread crime.

Now that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has placed himself shoulder to shoulder with his officially elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the very existence of the Islamic regime may now be questioned openly in a nation ever more divided between reformists and those who insist on maintaining the integrity of the 1979 revolution.

Critics dismiss her as foolish. Some even want her dead. For Malalai Joya, an outspoken women's rights activist and scourge of Afghan warlords, controversy is a kind of oxygen.