Recently, Foreign Policy magazine asked a group of the world's leading thinkers to answer one question: What single policy or gesture can the next president of the United States make to improve America's standing in the world? Global Fund CEO and President Kavita Ramdas  was among those invited to respond to this question.

Recently, Foreign Policy magazine asked a group of the world's leading thinkers to answer one question: What single policy or gesture can the next president of the United States make to improve America's standing in the world? Global Fund CEO and President Kavita Ramdas  was among those invited to respond to this question. Read an excerpt from the post below to find out what she has to say!

What America Must Do: A Woman’s Worth

Without spending a dime, the next president can single-handedly lift half of the world.  

For the next president, there are no quick fixes. American moral legitimacy has suffered setback after setback in recent years, and there is no singular step a president can now take that would wipe the slate clean overnight. Indeed, seven years of unilateral gestures are what have brought us to this point. The United States is still admired for the possibilities it holds, but it has lost the benefit of the doubt.

At such a moment, what is needed is a sudden and unmistakable break from the past. It should be a policy that clearly demonstrates that the world’s most powerful country is willing to harness its resources to benefit those who, so far, have been denied power. The next president should make a public commitment to use his or her office to promote global gender equality for the next four years.

Cynics will roll their eyes. Some will see this as a task best left to a U.N. agency with an acronym they can’t quite recall. Others will consider it a well-meaning and important initiative that must be pushed aside in favor of more pressing issues. They are all mistaken. Not only is gender equality an important goal in its own right, but it is also an efficient path to solving many of the problems that plague our world. In the past decade, the increased employment of women in developed economies has contributed more to global growth than China’s rise. Not surprisingly, therefore, the education of women far outstrips most other strategies for economic development in the poorest nations.

Likewise, many developing countries are beset with poverty, high child mortality rates, and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Yet we now know that with every additional year of education a woman receives beyond the fourth grade, average family size drops by 20 percent and child mortality rates drop by 10 percent.

This piece is excerpted from "What America Must Do." Reproduced with permission from Foreign Policy #164 (January/February 2008). Copyright 2008, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Kavita Ramdas is President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women.

Global Fund Advisor Luz Mendez recently shared the following statement expressing solidarity with Amandine Fulchiron.  Luz is the President of the Advisory Board of the National Union of Guatemalan Women (UNAMG), a  women's association working for women's human rights, gender equality and social justice: 

Threat of Sexual Violence Against a Member of Women Act for Change, Guatemala.

We wish to denounce in the strongest terms a threat recently addressed to Amandine Fulchiron, a member of Women Act for Change (Actoras de Cambio), a Consortium created by the National Union of Guatemalan Women (UNAMG) and the Community Studies and Psicosocial Action Team (ECAP). On the night of 24 November 2007, as she came out of ameeting, Amandine found some women’s underwear, rippedapart and placed under the windscreen wipers of her vehicle.

This threatening gesture is directly related to the work of Women Act for Change, which involves accompaniment of women who were victims of sexual violence during Guatemala’s armed conflict. Our work aims to support and strengthen women survivors in such a way that they recover their ‘life projects’ and are enabled to play an active role as protagonists for change in their communities and in the country.We understand this menacing act, with its implicit sexual violence, as an attack not only on the person and the human integrity of Amandine Fulchiron herself, but on the whole Consortium team.

It is one in a series of similar acts of intimidation that have been levelled in recent months against various of our female activists. We have issued public information on each as it occurred. Threats such as this are clearlyintended to disrupt our work among women survivors of war-time sexual violence. Those responsible want to impede or stop women’s empowerment, the renewal of their dignity and the recovery of historical memory.We have denounced each act of aggression to the Attorney General's Office and the Human Rights Ombudsperson´s Office, calling on the State to
fulfil its duty to investigate the offences and protect the life and physical safety of all those of us who work  for women’s human rights.

Finally, we appeal for solidarity from Guatemalan organizations, from the international community and the media, so as to strengthen the networks of protection and accompaniment without which we cannot continue our struggle for the life and dignity of women.

Consortium Women Actors for Change
(Consorcio Actoras de Cambio)
UNAMG ECAP

The Nepalese Supreme Court recently ordered that the government should guarantee LGBTI people equal rights as other citizens. Last year, four LGBTI organizations, including Blue Diamond Society, a Global Fund grantee, had filed a petition demanding equal rights for all Nepalese citizens under the country's Constitution and human rights conventions.

As in the rest of South Asia, homosexuality is either strictly frowned upon and condemened and is "illegal" in many countries. In addition to this ruling, a committee is likely to be constituted to discuss and recommend legalizing same sex marriage.

Useful links:

Update posted by Blue Diamond

BBC's news report on the ruling