The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World is proud to announce the launch of our Gender Policy, which documents our commitment to gender equality and the application of a comprehensive gender perspective to all of our work.
The challenges of this world can be daunting. Poverty. Homelessness. Conflict. Violence. Starvation. Suffering. Sadness. Greed. Fear. Meanwhile, technological progress has been propelling the world into an era of unimaginable possibilities and unprecedented prosperity. So why, in a world such as this, why are so many people left out? The injustices of this world can be daunting—and at least the daunted have the luxury of time to worry about them.
In development contexts, women are often considered to be a singular unified cohort that can be grouped together and served based solely on their gender. However, women are not a monolith. This overly simplistic classification interferes with the development community’s ability to serve the most vulnerable populations of women. Intersectionality broadens the concept of “women” and brings visibility to women with differential identities.
A WHO report on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) reveals an important change in direction, in our view. Specifically, WHO is adopting a monitoring mechanism that will rely on a WHO-convened consortium of institutions, including the Access to Nutrition Foundation and others. This approach follows the recognition that, “WHO has not been able to finalize a concrete self-reporting tool, including related indicators, that non-State actors could use to publish their own contributions on their own websites for independent comparison and assessment.”
Nancy Conrad launched the Conrad Foundation and its flagship program, the Conrad Challenge, after the passing of her husband, Charles “Pete” Conrad. Pete was the third man to walk on the moon and an entrepreneur in aerospace exploration. Earlier this month, NASA confirmed that the first all-women spacewalk would take place on March 29th. We took the opportunity to speak with Nancy, who shares her husband’s passion for inspiring future explorers and has made incredible efforts to keep his spirit for innovation and entrepreneurship alive.