Advocates of women's and gender issues are of the view that studies on poverty do not give adequate attention to the gender dimension of poverty. It was these advocates who then coined the expression " women are the poorest of the poor" and the term "the feminization of poverty." In order to see the relationship between gender and poverty which is a complex phenomenon, our Focus On column presents the results of the participatory poverty assessment (PPA) recently conducted by the SMERU Research Institute, which looked at the perceptions of women and men towards poverty.

Although SMERU has not carried out research specifically focused on gender, a number of gender issues were also explored in its field studies. For the From the Field column, we present a number of gender issues from SMERU's field findings. We have chosen three interesting topics: gender aspects in land certification, the women's network in Community Health Insurance Scheme programs in Kabupaten Purbalingga; and the lower wages paid to women. The And the Data Says column is looking at how gender affects the absenteeism rate of basic health and education service providers. These field findings, however, are an initial exploration of gender issues in the above sectors that needs to be addressed in future studies.

For the Opinion and News from NGOs columns, we invite readers to peruse the articles written by Edriana Noerdin of the Women Research Institute on "Women's Political Participation in the Era of Regional Autonomy" and on RAHIMA's experience in raising the awareness of women's rights in Islamic communities. We hope that this edition will contribute to the discourse on gender and poverty.