Customary and contemporary resources for women's empowerment in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, dramatic social and economic changes are transforming historical forms of patriarchy with various impacts on pathways to women's empowerment. We hypothesised contemporary resources would be more strongly associated with women's empowerment, as reflected in their influence in family decisions. In cross-sectional analysis, we found the contemporary resources of employment and membership in NGOs were most strongly and consistently associated with women's influence in family decisions. Education was only modestly associated, as were customary resources, including age and fertility. Programmatic efforts to enhance women's empowerment should consider the rapidly changing environment and the importance of women's economic participation.     

Criminality among female drug users following an HIV risk-reduction intervention

The main objectives of this article are to determine the prevalence of criminality among a sample of female African American drug users and to examine change in criminality over time, including the correlates associated with this change. Data were collected from 336 adult women who participated in an HIV risk-reduction intervention focused on the context of the women's daily life. Face-to-face structured interviews were conducted at baseline, prior to enrolling in the intervention, and at follow-up, 6 months after completion of the intervention. Bivariate and correlated multivariate methods were utilized to examine changes in criminality and other behaviors over time. Both violent and nonviolent criminality declined significantly between baseline and follow-up assessments. Of the correlates considered, drug-using characteristics and victimization played the greatest role in explaining the decrease in criminality. Low self-control and depressive symptoms also contributed to the reduction in criminality. The findings suggest the importance of considering individual characteristics that may influence the women's criminal behavior as well as the impact of their routine activities.     

Enhancing the clean development mechanism through sectoral approaches: definitions, applications and ways forward

Grave concerns with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) have increasingly surfaced in the international climate policy arena. The sectoral approaches described in this paper may be a way to address some of the shortcomings of this Kyoto mechanism. The paper outlines the criticisms that have been raised against the CDM as well as the conflicting interpretations of a sectoral approach and examines in how far it might resolve the mechanism’s perceived shortcomings. Furthermore, it outlines issues that need to be resolved when implementing a sectoral approach: distributing costs and benefits, defining the sector and its baseline, ensuring additionality and tackling procedural issues. A sectoral approach can enable countries to guide their structural development but it also opens up a gap between public and private investment that needs to be addressed before conflicts arise. Sectoral CDM activities may be able to lower transaction costs for projects that otherwise cannot compete in the CDM market and might even pave the way to sectoral greenhouse gas limitation targets in developing countries by establishing the necessary infrastructure for data collection. However, a sectoral CDM cannot be mistaken for a panacea. Some of the mechanism’s problems remain, which highlights the need to establish additional instruments to support Southern countries in furthering sustainable development and embarking on a low-emission trajectory.