Dear newsletter subscriber,
“This is a man’s world” is still a true statement in 2025. Men still have significantly more financial resources and political power than women, possess over $ 100 trillion more in wealth, according to Oxfam, and occupy almost three quarters of seats in national parliaments according to the UN. Women’s political influence is increasing, but at a snail’s pace, while many men are defending their own privileges tooth and nail.
In some places, patriarchy is even regaining ground. Strongmen like Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump deliberately link the image of the dominant man to nationalist politics to justify their authoritarian actions. Young men are radicalising themselves online in the “manosphere”, a scene characterised by misogyny and fantasies of dominance.
All of these factors make it more likely that men will become perpetrators, and it is primarily women who suffer. According to the WHO, approximately every third woman worldwide has experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of their partners or other men. The problem is serious and widespread, both in poorer and richer countries. Many men also pay a high price in our patriarchal societies – for example those who buckle under the pressure of fulfilling the role of the unassailable provider and protector that has been assigned to them.
Our authors’ research in this issue shows how men in Kenya, Mexico and Uganda are striving to fulfil their work and family roles differently than their fathers and grandfathers did. They know that greater equality benefits not just their wives and daughters, but also their sons and themselves.
We hope you enjoy reading this newsletter. Please feel free to share your opinions, criticisms and suggestions by emailing us at euz.editor@dandc.eu.
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Kind regards,
Jörg Döbereiner
managing editor at D+C |
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Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery and Jean David Nkot |
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Our latest Digital Monthly:
What does it mean to be a man? |
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© picture alliance/NurPhoto/Artur Widak
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What comes to mind when you hear the word “trucker”? A strong, silent guy who stoically and lonely drives down the roads for days? You’re right in many cases, but in Mexico this is no longer necessarily correct. More and more women have chosen this profession in recent years, defying both dangers and stereotypes. |
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© picture alliance/ASSOCIATED PRESS/David Azia
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| How young South Sudanese men navigate between tradition and modernity |
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© picture alliance/ASSOCIATED PRESS/Themba Hadebe |
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Why African men should help end patriarchy |
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of Africa’s land mass was destroyed by wildfires in 2024, as shown by satellite data from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). If this figure is news to you, that is hardly surprising. Despite the fact that “only” 0.6% of the land mass in Europe and the US was affected by forest fires in the same year, these fires received much more attention in global reporting.
There has been little response from the international community, and African countries often find themselves forced to cut their firefighting budgets. At the same time, according to researchers, the continent is one step ahead of the Global North: instead of fighting fires with more and more equipment and firefighting aircrafts, what is needed is integrated fire management, which includes, for example, fire-resistant zones around residential buildings and better forest management – and this is already being implemented in some African countries.
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According to UNICEF, between 2015 and 2024, around 961 million people gained access to “safely managed drinking water” – that means water that is easily accessible when needed and free from contamination. As a result, the global supply rate in this highest category rose from 68% to 74%.
Conversely, however, this means that 2.1 billion people still lack this secure access. 1.5 billion of them can at least reach a clean water source within 15 minutes. The remaining 600 million either have to travel long distances or use sources that are not adequately protected from contamination.
We regularly update you on more positive developments in our Good News section. |
| What has also caught our interest |
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Many analyses agree that inequality between countries in terms of average per capita income declined between 1990 and 2015. However, development experts Saumik Paul and Andy Sumner argue that this is mainly due to the rapid economic development of China and India. If the two most populous countries are excluded, there has been no decline in inequality between countries, they analyse in a blog post on the website of the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester.
As Paul and Sumner also show, income differences between countries within the Global South have hardly changed since 2015. Between countries within the Global North, they have continued to decline since 2015, but have also remained virtually unchanged recently. Both inequality between countries and within countries remains fairly stable at a high level. And the authors offer little hope that it could be significantly reduced in the near future – even in view of global growth forecasts. Among the measures that could reduce inequality within countries, Paul and Sumner include a higher degree of industrialisation and social and economic policies that lead to appropriate redistribution. Their piece makes it clear that neither of these things is currently on the horizon to the extent that is needed. Our November issue also addresses the topic of inequality, focusing on elites and their political influence.
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In a personal essay for Africa Is A Country, Shuimo Trust Dohyee tells the tale of Ngonnso, founder of the Nso Kingdom in southwestern Cameroon. Ngonnso’s story currently ends at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, where her sacred statue stands after being stolen by German colonial troops in 1902. It is a story about the loss of culture. Dohyee recalls hearing it as a child around the campfire, where his grandparents talked about how the abduction of Ngonnso’s statue destroyed the spiritual connection of the Nso people to their founder.
There are ongoing efforts to bring Ngonnso back, such as those led by Sylvie Njobati, a Cameroonian activist who founded a campaign of the same name. But despite the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation’s promise three years ago to return the statue, it remains in Germany. The current king of the Nso people visited Ngonnso in 2022 at the Berlin museum – where a label described the figure as a “palm wine vessel” – and, according to Dohyee, performed rituals to assure her that she would soon return home. For Dohyee, the story of Ngonnso represents more than the loss of a single community: it represents Africa’s larger struggle to reclaim its stolen cultural identities, which is complicated by colonial legacies and bureaucracy.
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The Human Rights Scholarship at Hertie School supports students committed to advancing human rights within the fields of global governance and politics. The award fully covers tuition fees for the Master of International Affairs, amounting to € 38,500, and is open to applicants of all nationalities.
To apply, candidates must first gain admission to the Master’s programme and then submit a one-page personal statement detailing their motivation and engagement with human rights issues.
Application deadlines:
15 January for non-EU/EEA applicants; 15 February for EU/EEA applicants
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The CrossCulture Programme (CCP) awards between 55 and 60 scholarships annually to professionals and volunteers from over 40 countries. The programme enables them to spend two to three months working in Germany or one of the CCP partner countries.
The aim of the programme is to strengthen civil society networks between Germany and the partner countries and to promote intercultural dialogue. In addition to training and mentoring during the stay, the scholarship includes a monthly grant of € 650 and coverage of other costs, such as flights, accommodation and health insurance.
Application deadline: 10 December
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To counteract the increasing pressure on civil society organisations (CSOs), the Maecenata Foundation has produced a fact sheet that classifies the central argumentation patterns of the anti-NGO discourse on the basis of facts. The aim is to highlight the democratic significance of CSOs, to expose the logic behind the strategies aimed at delegitimising them and to provide actors with counterarguments. |
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Imprint
Publisher information: ENGAGEMENT GLOBAL gGmbH Service für Entwicklungsinitiativen
Publisher: Fazit Communication GmbH, Pariser Strasse 1, D-60486 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Telephone: +49 (0)69 7591-3110 | Email: euz.editor@dandc.eu
Website: www.fazit.de | Managing Directors: Jonas Grashey, Hannes Ludwig |
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