MEG 3, to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment includes one target and three indicators 1). Global agreement on including this goal was a very positive development and signaled a recognition by member states that gender inequality not only decreases the likelihood of achieving the other goals, but also that advancing gender equality depends on progress made on each of the other also. However, MEG 3 interprets gender equality very narrowly. There is a single target for this goal, linked to education, which is Just one important element of women’s empowerment.
Only two other Meds have only one target: Goal 2 calls for the achievement of universal primary education and Goal 4 for the reduction of child mortality. Aside from education, the MEG 3 indicators focus on women’s employment and political representation. While the commitment of Members States to tracking these two crucial elements of women’s empowerment is welcome, the absence of responding targets on these issues has meant they have received less attention, and are less likely to be prioritize.
Moreover, the employment indicator is limited to women’s share of waged employment in the non-agricultural sector. While this is a good indication of women’s ability to earn income of their own, it excludes the vast number of women working in agriculture, particularly in developing countries, where women comprise from 50 to 80 per cent of those working in this sector, many of them as unpaid family workers. It also fails to address the issue of informal employment, in which close to two-thirds of all employed women in developing countries work.
With only five years to go to achieve the Meds, this paper draws attention to: The ways in which countries are instituting policy and practice innovations towards achieving Targets and indicators related to MEG 3; Cross-cutting gaps in the MEG framework for gender equality and in existing efforts to make Progress on agreed priorities; and Recommendations for scaling up promising practices that could propel progress towards MD over the next 5 years.
Before embarking on this, it is important to acknowledge that the enduring impact of he inter-linked food, climate and economic/financial crises pervades all considerations of MEG progress, and recognizes that their effects are likely to include a reversal of gains in reducing poverty and hunger and eliminating gender inequalities. In the past decade, climate change and environmental degradation have led to increased desertification, soil contamination and depletion and more frequent and destructive natural disasters.
As a result, women require far more time to collect water and fuel, particularly in rural areas, increasing their already onerous burden of household provisioning. Evidence from previous natural disasters, women generally die in far greater numbers than men, while those that survive will have even greater difficulty providing care for the elderly, the sick and the young. Food insecurity and instability in food prices also affects women differently from men.
Research suggests that female-headed households, even when they are not over-represented among the poor, are disproportionately affected by rising food prices since they tend to spend a greater share of their income on food than male- headed households. Based on studies of previous crises, there is growing recognition hat in times of economic crisis and insecurity, levels of violence against women tend to increase. This is already showing up in media reports in different countries as well as in surveys of shelters and hotness, primarily in the United States.
The economic slowdown is impacting on women and men in developing countries through different transmission channels, including declining demand for exports, reduced capital flows, and declining remittances. The economies of many if not most developing countries are inadequately diversified and dependent on one or very few commodities or manufactures. For example, 85 per cent of Cambodia exports are from the garment industry, nearly 80 per cent of Samba’s exports are from copper/ cobalt, and almost 80 per cent of Beings exports are from cotton.
The decline in trade has increased unemployment for many poor households, obliging them to adopt short-term coping strategies such as eating less and foregoing health career. A decline in capital flows in developing countries, whether in the form of bank lending, foreign direct investment or portfolio flows, is putting many sectors, including those that employ predominantly women, at risk of closures and bankruptcy. As the economic stimulus packages have kicked in, the ILL revised its estimate of the number of Jobs lost by the end of 2009 due to the crisis from up to 55 million to 34 million.
Progress on women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights has been far too slow. The Meds, Cairo Consensus from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICP) and the Beijing Platform for Action all highlight the crucial role that sexual and reproductive health issues play in the ability of women and girls to claim, realize and enjoy their human rights. Articulating and supporting the ender equality elements of all other Megs will accelerate progress in achieving MEG 3. There is growing recognition that the targets and indicators that frame the goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment are too limited. Lenience against women, unequal access to housing, inheritance, land and property rights, women’s unequal share of unpaid care work and infrastructure burdens, is increasingly being national MEG reporters. Progress on all the Meds is dependent on progress on gender equality and women’s rights. It is evident that continuing discrimination against girls and women will make it difficult to fully achieve any of the Meds. Articulating and supporting the gender equality elements of all other Meds will accelerate progress in achieving MEG 3.
At the global level, it has successfully advocated for the broader inclusion of gender, HIVE and AIDS, childhood disability and child labor issues in the appraisal process for the Education for All Fast Track Initiative (FEE-FIT) funding. At the country level, it has supported countries in undertaking gender audits of the education sector. The Latin America and Caribbean region is well on track to achieve the target, with 25 of 27 entries for which data exist having achieved parity in both primary and secondary education. Eighteen of 21 countries in Europe and Central Asia and 15 of 17 countries target. What has helped to make a difference? Elimination of user fees.
Eliminating user fees for primary education has contributed significantly to the improvement of female enrolment in a number of countries, The School Fee Abolition Initiative (SFA), led by EUNICE in partnership with the World Bank, UNESCO, Association for the Development of Education in Africa (IDEA) and others continues to support countries’ efforts to establish and integrate policies and trainees that address cost barriers to education within national planning processes, Demand-side financing mechanisms. The World Bank has introduced stipends, targeted vouchers, bursaries and other demand-side financing mechanisms in 30 countries to encourage the enrolment of poor children and girls at all levels of education in an effort to offset the indirect opportunity costs. Community and MONGO managed schools. Community schools are playing an important role in some West African countries such as Chad and Mali, as well as in parts of Asia. Community schools are financed by parents in contexts where the state is unable to provide public education. B.
Data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAT) show that between 1990 and 2005 women’ economic participation practically doubled in absolute numbers for the region as a whole and that it will increase further by up to 70 per cent between 2005 and 2030. Women suffer multiple disadvantages in access to labor markets and often do not have the same freedom to choose to work as men. Gender differences in labor Orca participation rates, unemployment rates and gender wage gaps are a persistent feature of global labor markets. Close to two-thirds of all employed women in workers, extremely vulnerable employment which lack security and benefits. This is especially true in Oceania and South Asia, where the largest share of women’s employment is as contributing family workers: 64 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively.
The large share of unpaid Jobs adds to the already heavy burden of unpaid work carried out by women in households in all regions, which is not reflected in official labor force statistics. At less than 30 per cent, the labor force participation of women in West Asia and North Africa is the lowest in the worldly. Many female workers are concentrated in service sectors and tend to be the first to lose their Jobs in the time of economic regression and the last to obtain employment in the time of recovery. For many private sector employers, women’s double their productivity, despite significant increases in the levels of women’s education in recent years. Positive action in employment programmers.
In 2005, the Indian Government passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (ENRAGE), which exulted in the creation of the world’s largest social safety net programmer based on the right to work. The law guarantees 100 days of employment on rural public works projects to a member of every rural household, and one-third of the workers are intended to be women. The programmer allows a multiple number of eligible members to register on one Job. Card, which is given to a household. ENRAGE reflects the Government’s commitment to supporting women’s employment, including through the provision of local projects and childcare facilities. Women’s share of employment in the scheme has been over 40 per cent, rising to 82 per cent in Tamil Nadia.
Supporting women’s entrepreneurship growth. Self-employment is another strategy for the economic empowerment of women and their families as it provides an important option for many entering work for the first time in developing countries. Since women face barriers in access to credit, training and technology in many countries a gender focus can help to develop women’s entrepreneurship’s. An OIL OSDL supported project in Bangladesh, which assisted over 4,000 women micro- entrepreneurs, has shown substantial improvement of women’s income levels, household land ownership, health status and working conditions. Gender-responsive service delivery.
Essential for the achievement of the Meds in developing countries is the expansion and effective delivery of basic public services. This poses a major challenge for local governments in particular, as they tend to lack the resources and capacity needed to ensure that all citizens receive basic necessities. Many countries, particularly in Africa, are currently implementing decentralization reforms which add to this challenge. As more responsibility is placed on local governments, they are having difficulty meeting the growing demand alone and are turning to other actors, including the private sector, resulting in a growing number of public-private partnerships (Peps). Social and legal protection for the most vulnerable women workers.
Migrant and informal economy women workers comprise a significant portion of the female labor force and require both gender-responsive laws and social protection policies. Globalization has contributed to an increasing flow of migrant workers from countries with limited economic opportunities to fill gaps in nations with a dwindling labor supply. The World Bank estimated remittances at IIS$328 billion in 2008, revised from an earlier figure of $305 billion. These monetary investments -? used for food, housing, education and medical services -? along with newly acquired skills of returnees, can potentially contribute significantly to poverty reduction.
Attention to the impact of child labor – particularly girls’ labor – is critical. The Olio’s most recent global estimate showed that more than 100 million girls between the ages of five and 17 were involved in child labor in 2004, contravening the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Girls accounted for approximately 46 per cent of all child workers. Approximately 53 million girls were estimated to be in hazardous work, of which 20 lion were under 12 years old. Reliable estimates on the extent of the worst forms labor are difficult to obtain, but studies suggest that the majority of children involved are girls. There is also evidence that girls are involved in significantly more unpaid household services than boys.
More than 35 per cent of working youth below the age of 15 are in employment for 21 hours or more per week. The barriers this presents for their participation in education are a direct violation of their right to education. C. GENDER PARITY IN POLITICAL REPRESENTATION Globally, women make up 18. 6 per cent of parliamentarians, still far from the 30 per .NET that was envisaged in the Beijing Platform for Action as required to achieve a ‘critical mass’ of women’s representation (Table 1). Nevertheless, this represents an increase of seven percentage points since 1995. In the two decades between 1975 and 1995, women’s representation rose by less than one per cent.
There are significant differences within and between regions. The very positive results that some of the world’s poorest countries – including post-conflict countries – have had in increasing women’s seats in parliaments show that achievements on this indicator are related more to political will than to level of development. Rwanda, for instance, was the first country in the world to elect more women parliamentarians than men in 2008, and now has the highest number of female parliamentarians in the world at 56. 3 per cent. Sweden is second at 47 per cent, followed by South Africa at 44. 5 per cent and Cuba at 43. 2 per cent. Positive action and quotas.
Constitutional or electoral laws mandating quotas or special temporary measures are the strongest means of increasing women’s engagement in political competition and are used in 46 countries. As of 2008, the average representation of women was 21. 9 per cent in countries that used these hypes of quotas as opposed to 15. 3 per cent for the rest of the countries. Other types of temporary special measures, such as quotas at the sub-national level or political party quotas raise the number of countries with such quotas to 95. The majority of countries with women in 30 per cent or more of national assembly seats applied quotas in some form. Stronger investments in women’s participation in governance at the local level.
While MEG 3 focuses on national parliaments, it is crucial to provide women with opportunities and incentives to lead at the local level, where the results of women’s dervish can often be seen more quickly and they can build constituencies to support their aspirations at the national level. A growing number of countries – from Cambodia to Argentina and Rwanda – are introducing quotas at the local level. In India, a 1992 constitutional reform introduced gender reservations at all tiers of local governance, including the local penchant village council system. One-third of all council seats were reserved for women-only competition as were one-third of council heads (piranha). Specific penchant councils were randomly designated to have a
