Very often, efforts to improve value chains miss out half of the population - the female half. It is men who sell the products and who keep the money from those sales. The women, who do much of the work but are not recognized for it, often have to work even harder to meet ever-increasing quality requirements. But they see few of the benefits. How to change this? This book explains how development organizations and private entrepreneurs have found ways to improve the position of women in value chains - especially small scale women farmers and primary processors. It outlines five broad strategies for doing this: (1) working with women on typical "women's products" such as shea, poultry and dairy; (2) opening up opportunities for women to work on what are traditionally "men's commodities" or in men's domains; (3) supporting women and men in organizing for change by building capacity, organization, sensitization and access to finance; (4) using standards and certification to promote gender equity, and (5) promoting gender-responsible business. The book draws on dozens of cases from all over the world, covering a wide range of crops and livestock products. These include traditional subsistence products (such as rice), small-scale cash items (honey, vegetables) as well as export commodities (artichokes, coffee) and biofuels (jatropha). The book includes a range of tools and methodologies for analyzing and developing value chains with gender in mind. By bringing together the two fields of gender and value chains, this book offers a set of compelling arguments for addressing gender in value chain development.

EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Today, production processes have become fragmented with a range of activities divided among firms and workers across borders. These global value chains are being strongly promoted by international organisations, such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, but social and political backlash is mounting in a growing variety of forms. This ambitious volume brings together academics and activists from Europe to address the social and environmental imbalances of global production. Thinking creatively about how to reform the current economic system, this book will be essential reading for those interested in building sustainable alternatives at local, regional and global levels.

The book was prepared by the academics and doctoral students of the Faculty of International Business and Economics of the Poznań University of Economics and Business to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the University and the 10th anniversary of the Faculty itself. The subject of this Volume reflects the variety of issues that are researched by academics from all departments of the Faculty. The rationale for publishing this Volume was to signal current work and research progress in the area of international economics, business and management. As the title of the Volume suggests, we need to anticipate changes and implement a new approach to face the challenges in the world economy for it is transforming in an unprecedented way now, at a fast pace, and the global economic map is constantly redrawing. Papers published in this Volume are written by individual authors and workgroups. They are results of research conducted in departments and have been assigned to eight chapters discussing crucial aspects of the world economy. The deliberations are held on a micro- and macroeconomic level in both theoretical and empirical terms. We hope that the contents of individual papers will inspire both readers and authors themselves to make further studies, to carry out follow-up research, to network with one another in order to find answers to the most important problems of the world economy and international business.

If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl? As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder who can provide her with freedom. From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling, impeccably researched novel that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual.

These guidelines aim to respond to these questions and support practitioners in translating the Gender-Sensitive Value Chain Framework, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) into action (FAO, 2016a). Building on FAO’s comparative advantage on gender in agriculture and food security, these guidelines are primarily intended to assist practitioners in designing and implementing interventions that provide women and men with equal opportunities to benefit from agrifood value chain development. They offer practical tools and examples of successful approaches to foster a more systematic integration of gender equality dimensions in value chain interventions in the agricultural sector and enhance the social impact of these interventions.

Value chains today have a huge impact on multinational corporations right to exist and the way they compete. The future challenges associated with value chains are also huge and include new demands from society, emerging-market strategies, resource scarcity, risk proliferation and other issues. Anticipating and addressing these future challenges are crucial if companies are to compete effectively. IMD and several multinational companies created the IMD Global Value Chain Center (VC2020) in June 2011 to develop research about the future of value chains. This book summarizes some of the key findings from this two-year project."

This book focuses on the changing gender patterns of work in a global retail environment associated with the rise of contemporary retail and global sourcing. This has affected the working lives of hundreds of millions of workers in high-, middle- and low-income countries. The growth of contemporary retail has been driven by the commercialised production of many goods previously produced unpaid by women within the home. Sourcing is now largely undertaken through global value chains in low- or middle-income economies, using a 'cheap' feminised labour force to produce low-price goods. As women have been drawn into the labour force, households are increasingly dependent on the purchase of food and consumer goods, blurring the boundaries between paid and unpaid work. This book examines how gendered patterns of work have changed and explores the extent to which global retail opens up new channels to leverage more gender-equitable gains in sourcing countries.