23 November 2011: The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has published the eighth issue of “Making It” magazine. The theme of this issue, titled “We can do it!”, is about gender equality and the economic empowerment of women.

The article titled “Making light from the sun” tells the story of a group of 12 illiterate or semi-literate women subsistence farmers from Sierra Leone who received training to become solar engineers at the Barefoot College in India. The issue also features the article titled “Engineering eco-friendly solutions,” which features the story of Carolina Guerra, a pioneering eco-entrepreneur from Colombia, who turns hazardous waste into useful products and won the prestigious Cartier Women’s Initiative Award for Latin America. An article titled “Clean up the river!” describes a local movement that is helping to prevent industrial pollution from flowing into a river that provides drinking water for three million people in and around the Indonesian city of Surabaya.

Other articles in the issue include: “On the road again – with a new roadmap,” which argues that environmentalists and industry in Europe need to work together to decouple growth from resource depletion; “Solar Sister: empowering women with light and opportunity,” which describes a social enterprise that provides women with training and support to create solar micro-businesses; and “Africa’s superpower,” a feature article on South Africa, containing an interview with South Africa’s International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, in which she highlights the role of women in addressing climate change. [Publication: Making It, Issue 8]