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Contributor Guidelines

Submitting guest blogs is open to Global Washington’s members of the Atlas level and above. We value a diversity of opinions on a broad range of subjects of interest to the global health and development community.

Blog article submissions should be 500-1500 words. Photos, graphs, videos, and other art that supports the main themes are strongly encouraged.

You may not be the best writer, and that’s okay. We can help you shape and edit your contribution. The most important thing is that it furthers an important conversation in your field, and that it is relatively jargon-free. Anyone without a background in global development should still be able to engage with your ideas.

If you include statistics or reference current research, please hyperlink your sources in the text, wherever possible.

Have an idea of what you’d like to write about? Let’s continue the conversation! Email comms@globalWA.org and put “Blog Idea” in the subject line.


Women’s Justice Initiative Addresses Gender Inequality and Violence

By Pangea Giving

The municipality of Patzun in the Chimaltenango district of Guatemala is not unique. Like other regions of Guatemala it’s a highly patriarchal society and gender inequality is entrenched in the culture. The United Nations estimates close to 45% of Guatemala women are victims of gender- based violence and it’s even higher among rural indigenous women due to social isolation and limited access to resources. Continue Reading

Securing Women’s Land Rights Can Help With Climate Change

By Ranjana Das and Tzili Mor, Landesa

Climate negotiations

A farmer working in a paddy field is silhouetted against the setting sun on the outskirts of Agartala, capital of India’s northeastern state of Tripura August 9, 2010. REUTERS/Jayanta Dey

As world leaders convene in Paris this week for the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference, it is important that they recognize secure land rights for smallholder farmers – and especially for women farmers – as a critical tool for building a more sustainable planet.

It is increasingly understood that climate change is far from gender neutral. In fact, hotter temperatures, erratic rainfall, and worsening natural disasters ravage rural women in general and women small-scale farmers in particular. They must travel further for water and firewood, struggle with drought-stricken yields, grapple with disaster reduction and recovery efforts that fail to account for their interests and needs, and shoulder increased domestic workload related to climate change. Continue Reading

COP 21 Dispatch: The final Paris agreement

By Heather Coleman, Oxfam America

Climate negotiations

Global climate negotiations begin in France on Sunday. Photo: http://bit.ly/1T4UMN8

A few top-line comments on the agreement coming out of COP21

We have been waiting for the world to act and today, more than 190 countries  — including the US, have come together to do just that. Having been part of the climate movement for most of my professional life, it will be a moment I will not forget. It’s hard to overstate how important and historic  a  moment this is, with the US at the center of a global agreement that addresses one of the greatest challenges of our time. Continue Reading