‘Momentum 1000’ marked a major milestone on 5 April 2013—1000 days left of action before the target date to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Perhaps the saddest indication of discrimination against women and girls are the millions of baby girls who are simply not born every year due to pre natal sex selection. On the average, for every 100 baby girls born in the world, we should expect between 104 and 107 baby boys to be born. This is called Sex Ratio at Birth or SRB.

What do you do if you want to boost the benefits flowing to women from a regional road project?

Women use the time saved from having electricity in doing more household work while men use the extra time in recreation and leisure. This was one of the results of a study  on the interfaces of energy, poverty and gender through in-depth investigation in selected rural provinces of the People’s Republic of China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

Incremental achievements in reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are possible before they “expire” in 2015 if linkages among strategies to achieve various goals are made.  MDG 5 demands an improvement in maternal health. MDG 4 calls for an improvement in child health.

There is a delicate balance in everything. Gender and diversity is the same. Within many organizations there have been significant historic challenges in rebalancing the numbers of men and women, and treating everyone more fairly.

The realm of “utilities” is perceived as a man’s employment domain in many Asian countries. It is about gadgets—pipes, concrete, construction, machines, control panels, etc. Women’s role in utilities is often relegated to serving tea and welcoming guests.

The only professional women many girls in rural Nepal see are health workers and teachers. Therefore it nearly always sparks conversations when members of our project field teams are women engineers and scientists. You can just see the expanded future possibilities ticking away behind girls’ eyes.

When I was a student, I spent two and a half hours in hellish commuter trains each day as a Tokyo suburbanite. Being a teenager in a manga-like school uniform, I was often a target of groping, eve-teasing, stalking, and even “flashing” on the streets, in the trains, and at the stations.

The region is reeling from the gruesome and brutal rape of a young woman student in Delhi. The horror of the incident and subsequent death of the victim has awakened the global community and generated momentum to fight violence against women. The One Billion Women Rising Campaign is mobilizing men and women to rise up and demand an end to violence on V-Day – 14th February.