The title of this year’s ARROW Annual Report is indeed an apt and exciting one: cross-movement dialogue was an exceptionally stimulating part of our 2013 work. The work and the ensuing title reflects our feminist position that development occurs within a particular context and achieving women’s equality and women’s human rights, especially sexual and reproductive rights, is part and parcel of realising all other essential rights that enable women to be equal citizens in everyday life.
In 2013, our intermovement work on the issues of migration, poverty, food sovereignty, and food security was the key highlight of ARROW’s information and communications initiatives. These were cross-movement conversations and dialogues that enabled sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) researchers, activists, and advocates to forge both conceptual paradigms and critical partnerships with the migration and food sovereignty movements. Another highlight was the inception of a 15-country project, which aims to ensure that universal access to SRHR is a message that resonates throughout the region and expands ARROW’s work to countries such as Maldives, Mongolia, and Sri Lanka. ARROW also embarked on a scoping study in the region to look at opportunities and challenges for using social media at community, national, and regional levels to advocate and create public awareness about SRHR.
