Monitoring progress towards
gender equitable development
Francesca Perucci
Statistics Division, DESA
United Nations, New York
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Outline
1. Can we monitor development in all its
gender-based dimensions?
2. An attempt to go beyond MDG Indicators
3. Conclusions and way forward
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
How far have we gone?
•
•
•
The call for improved availability of data
on women and men started with the first
World Women’s Conference in 1975.
The first comprehensive compilation of
data on women and men presented at
the World’s Women Conference in
Nairobi in 1985.
1995: Beijing Platform for Action, a
detailed plan for the production and use
of gender statistics is adopted.
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
How far have we gone?
•
Almost 34 years from the first call for
statistics on women and men, can we
fulfill the current monitoring
requirements? Can we monitor progress
towards gender equality and women’s
empowerment? Can we monitor gender
equitable progress towards all
development goals, including the MDGs?
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
How do we monitor progress towards
the development goals?
Embodies the goals of the
last decades
Millennium Declaration in 2000
Eight universally-agreed
development Goals (MDGs)
Development is not exclusively
economic, but also embraces
human, social and environmental
dimensions
Specific measurable and
time-bound targets
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Gender equality as a necessary
condition for development
• There is universal recognition that gender equality and
women’s empowerment are necessary conditions to
achieve development
– Women contribute to household income
– Gender equality and women’s empowerment are
necessary to achieve universal primary education,
lower under-five mortality, improved maternal
health, and lower likelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS
– Women’s greater control over household resource
allocation improve children’s health, nutrition and
education
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Need to monitor gender equality and
women’s empowerment
Governments need to
honor existing
international
commitments to
mainstream gender
and promote the
empowerment of
women into all
development policies
Data should be
available to
support this effort
and to identify the
progress that is
being achieved
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Monitoring Goal 3 - Promote gender
equality and empower women
Indicators:
Ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary
education
Share of women in wage employment in the nonagricultural sector
Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Are MDG Indicators adequate to monitor
gender based aspects of development?
•Only some of the dimensions of gender equality and
empowerment are captured by the three indicators in
Goal 3
•The three indicators only partially address the
dimensions they are expected to monitor.
•There are problems of data availability and data
quality.
•Although other aspects of women’s lives are covered
by some of the other goals, few of the indicators under
those goals are appropriate or sufficient to fully assess
the situation of women and men.
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Goal 3: Modification of existing indicators
Share of women in wage
employment in the nonagricultural sector
Share of women in employment by type:
1. Share of women in total employment
2. Share of women in agricultural employment
3. Share of women in non-agricultural wage
employment (current MDG indicator)
3.1 Informal wage employment
4. Share of women in non-agricultural selfemployment
4.1 informal self-employment
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Goal 3: Proposed new indicators
Domestic violence
Infrastructure
and women’s
contribution to
the economy
Control of
resources
Participation in
local governments
Proportion of women who ever had
a partner, 15-49 years old, who
have ever experienced physical
violence by an intimate partner
Hours per day (or year) women and
men spend fetching water and
collecting fuel
Land ownership by sex
Housing title, disaggregated by male,
female or jointly held
Percentage of women elected to local
government bodies
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Monitoring Goal 3: Recommendations
by the sub-group
• For most of the indicators proposed the
current data availability was still
insufficient to produce the indicator for all
regions and for two points in time (for
trend analysis).
• The focus should be on promoting
adequate data collection programmes.
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Monitoring Goal 3: Recommendations
by the sub-group
Women’s empowerment in the are of health and
their ability to control their reproductive life
•
•
Adolescent birth rate
Unmet need for family planning
New indicators included in the new MDG
framework, under Goal 5, presented to the
General Assembly, September 2007
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
And even on existing indicators, there are problems
with data availability
MDG-indicator 11: Share of women in wage employment in the nonagricultural sector: % countries with at least 2 data points since 1990
67%
83%
73%
67%
74%
73%
24%
Source: www.mdgs.un.org,
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
20%
Can we monitor development in all its
gender-based dimensions?
•
•
Available data are insufficient: The data available
from official national and international sources still
do not allow us to monitor the basic aspects of
development related to gender and to inform
policies with the necessary statistics.
Existing indicators are not adequate to reflect
gender based dimensions: Statistics and indicators
currently produced and used for monitoring
indicate that statistical systems (nationally and
internationally) have failed to fully integrate a
gender perspective in all areas of statistical
production and to provide policy makers with the
kind of data required for gender-sensitive
policy formulation and monitoring
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Outline
1. Can we monitor development in all its
gender-based dimensions?
2. An attempt to go beyond MDG Indicators
3. Conclusions and way forward
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Most of the burden of collecting drinking water
falls on women and girls
4
25
64
7
Women
Girls
Men
Boys
Member of the household usually
collecting water, 2005/6 (Percentage)
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Reducing gender inequality is key to
addressing women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS
Sub-Saharan
Africa
59
31
Adults (15+) living with HIV
who are women
Women who used condom at
last high-risk sex
38
Southern Asia
22
Latin America &
the Caribbean
35
47
25
CIS, Asia
52
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Percentage of adults living with HIV who are women, 2007
and Women who used a condom at last high-risk sex,
2005/2006 (Percentage)
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Health care must be made available to all
pregnant women and at all deliveries
0
20
40
Sub-Saharan Africa
60
80
100
47
Southern Asia
40
South-Eastern Asia
900
490
300
Western Asia
160
Northern Africa
160
73
75
79
130
Latin America & the Caribbean
86
CIS
51
98
Eastern Asia
50
98
0
Maternal deaths
120
500
Births attended by skilled health personnel
Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, 2005 and Births attended by skilled health
personnel, 2006 (Percentage)
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
1000
Women's significant contribution to
ensuring food security often goes unpaid
67
Oceania
43
Sub-Saharan Africa
62
47
Southern Asia
57
37
South-eastern Asia
44
27
Northern Africa
43
26
Eastern Asia
36
in unpaid contributing
family work
21
Western Asia
34
9
CIS in Asia
in agriculture employment
30
7
Latin America & the Caribbean
CIS in Europe
75
11
0
9
0
20
40
60
80
Share of women in agricultural employment and in unpaid contributing
family work, 2007 (Percentage)
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
100
Outline
1. Can we monitor development in all its
gender-based dimensions?
2. An attempt to go beyond MDG Indicators
3. Conclusions and way forward
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
The MDG “effect”
• The political importance of the Millennium
Declaration and of monitoring progress towards
the MDGs have contributed to:
– Bringing about an increased recognition of the
importance of statistics for policy-making and
monitoring
– Highlighting the overall lack of adequate statistical
capacity in many developing countries
– A higher recognition and awareness of the urgent
need to build stronger national statistical systems
– The development of new capacity building initiatives
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Monitoring and the need for statistics
• The political importance of the MDGs and the
need to monitor progress have shaped the
development of indicators and related statistical
capacity-building programmes over the past few
years.
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
But are we seizing the opportunity?
•
The MDGs and the new monitoring requirements
have not only created the need but also provided
an opportunity to improve data and genderbased data.
•
The opportunity should not be lost to ensure that
the need for improved gender data is addressed
•
Statisticians concerned with the development of
gender statistics need to become fully involved
in the implementation of these initiatives and
programmes.
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
The way forward: A new environment
•
•
The urgency for development partners to address the lack of
data has become more evident
Important new initiatives for statistical capacity-building:
–
Marrakech Action Plan for the improvement of
development statistics
–
Steering and Working Groups on MDG Africa: Thematic
Group on Statistical Systems
–
IAEG on MDG Indicators: initiatives in statistical capacity
building
–
2006 ECOSOC resolution and recommendations by the
UN Statistical Commission
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
Two important steps
•
Ensure that capacity building programmes
and initiatives to improve the financing for
the development of statistics also include a
gender perspective
•
Develop standards and guidelines through
the formal intergovernmental process (UN
SC) to ensure full involvement and
commitment by national statistical systems
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009
THANK YOU
Visit mdgs.un.org
Global Forum on Gender Statistics, Accra, 26-28 January 2009