Monitoring progress towards gender equitable development

Monitoring progress towards gender equitable development Francesca Perucci Statistics Division, DESA United Nations, New York

Outline • Can we monitor development in all its gender-based dimensions? • An attempt to go beyond MDG Indicators • Conclusions and way forward

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.

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?

How do we monitor progress towards the development goals? Embodies the goals of the last decades Development is not exclusively economic, but also embraces human, social and environmental dimensions Millennium Declaration in 2000 Eight universally-agreed development Goals (MDGs) Specific measurable and time-bound targets

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

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

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 non-agricultural sector Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament

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.

Goal 3: Modification of existing indicators Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural 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 self- employment • 4.1 informal self-employment

Goal 3: Proposed new indicators Proportion of women who ever had a partner, 15-49 years old, who have ever experienced physical violence by an intimate partner Domestic violence Infrastructure and women’s contribution to the economy 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 Control of resources Percentage of women elected to local government bodies Participation in local governments

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.

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

And even on existing indicators, there are problems with data availability MDG-indicator 11: Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector: % countries with at least 2 data points since 1990 67% 83% 73% 67% 73% 20% 24% 74% Source:www.mdgs.un.org,

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 formulationand monitoring

Most of the burden of collecting drinking water falls on women and girls

Sub-Saharan 59 31 Africa Adults (15+) living with HIV who are women 38 Southern Asia 22 Women who used condom at last high-risk sex Latin America & 35 47 the Caribbean 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) Reducing gender inequality is key to addressing women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS

Health care must be made available to all pregnant women and at all deliveries

Women's significant contribution to ensuring food security often goes unpaid

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

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.

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 gender-based 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.

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

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

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Monitoring progress towards gender equitable development