The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) is dedicated to advancing women’s rights and gender equality. It works on implementing international commitments at national levels. Media contact is Oisika Chakrabarti.

Opportunity International is a microfinance ministry based in suburban Chicago working on expanding economic opportunities in developing countries. It includes a Women’s Opportunity Network. Mark Lutz, senior vice president, global philanthropy, is author of the 2010 book Unpoverty: Rich Lessons from the Working Poor. Media contact is Robert Meloche.

Kiva is a microfinance network that connects individual lenders to individual entrepreneurs in developing countries. The majority of Kiva borrowers are women. Kiva blends the microfinance, small loan model with Internet technology to create relationships between lenders and those who get loans. Many lenders and teams of lenders are associated with local religious congregations.

The International Center for Research on Women works on a wide variety of issues of importance to women in Asia and East Africa. Press contact is Jeannie Bunton, vice president of external relations.

InterAction is an alliance of U.S.-based NGOs working in the world’s developing countries; many member groups are faith-based. Gender equality is one of its issues of concern; it is one of the conveners of the Women, Faith and Development Alliance. Burt Edwards is director of communications.

The Grameen Foundation helps the world’s poorest people access financial services and technology, especially women. Director emeritus Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank and was the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his work with Grameen. P

EndItNow is a global campaign to stop violence against women. The campaign is sponsored by the women’s ministry department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency. Contact through the website.

The Center for Interfaith Action targets global poverty and describes its work as “operating at the intersection of faith and development.” Its initiatives include the Women, Faith and Development Alliance. CIFA also has its own new gender program. Contact Margaux Bergen, director of communications and development.

Katherine Marshall is executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue and senior fellow and visiting professor at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, leading the Program on Religion and Global Development. She is an expert on international development issues and advises the World Bank, where she once worked.