The situation and condition of women in society is a constant source of preoccupation for politicians, decision makers, those involved in development, and for all those concerned with civil society, whether in the North or the South. This is because the common denominator for women is the predominant male order that determines their status, their role and their place in any society. The corollary of this is the under estimation, and even marginalization, of women in social, economic and political fields.
If, in Northern countries, tangible progress can be seen with regard to improvements in the condition of women in these domains, this is far less the case for women in the South. Here the feminine condition can hardly be said to be favourable.
It is determined, on the one hand, by a system of values, socio-cultural constraints and opposition on many fronts, and, on the other, by the general context of under-development.
Nevertheless, whether in the North or the South, all women are faced with the constraints, the stakes and the challenges of globalization. This phenomenon generates a range of external negative factors (deterioration in terms of trade, exclusion, inequality, poverty, conflict, etc.) and yet, at the same time, offers opportunities for improvements in the status of women and in their integration in the global process of sustainable human development.
In order to tackle these problems and challenges, with which all women are faced in such a context, many women’s associations are being created both in the North and in the South.
However, despite the number of these associations, the diversity of their field or domain of intervention and the means brought to bear, the impact of any actions being taken to improve the feminine condition remains minimal.
The FINS/WINS ASBL is a movement of reflection and concrete action, working for the promotion and integration of women in development as well as for intra and intergenerational equity and equality.
The main aim of the ASBL is to establish women as citizens of the world, with a place at the centre of both their own history and of History in the greater sense, and as players in the sociopolitical and economic changes necessary to achieve sustainable and interdependent human development between nations.
The global strategy of the FINS/WINS ASBL centres on Research-Action, based on an empirical approach combining theory and practice. Its aim, on the one hand, is to highlight the « glass ceiling », and, on the other, to identify the strategies and policies that will enable women to take their place in History.
The Founder
Martine Cécile Ngo Nyemb-Wisman
