CONTEXT

Women play a pivotal role in a wide range of activities supporting food and nutrition security. They are the powerhouses of the Sahel and West African food economy. Two-thirds of all employed women work across the food system, accounting for half of the labour force. They dominate off-farm segments of food value chains including food processing and selling as well as food-away-from-home. They are also important actors in cross-border trade.

Nevertheless, access to affordable and nutritious foods is beyond the reach of many women and girls. Low income and education levels, discriminatory laws, social norms, and practices such as those revealed in the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI), drive food insecurity among women by curbing their ownership over assets such as land, water and energy as well as their access to financial services, social capital, information and technology, agricultural inputs and services. The double burden facing women balancing the demands of agricultural production and unpaid care and domestic work compound these inequalities.

In the Sahel and West Africa, more than 40% of women of reproductive age suffer from anaemia across 14 countries, driving maternal and child morbidity and undermining women’s economic empowerment. Obesity, which was practically unheard of in the region in the past, affects more women than men. Stunting, a measure of chronic malnutrition, often has its origins in utero due to, for example, poor maternal nutrition. Similarly, women who are overweight or obese are at a greater risk of giving birth to heavier babies, putting them at a higher risk of being overweight and obese as adults.

The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) recognised gender-mainstreaming as an indispensable strategy for achieving gender equality, including in the area of food security. Yet, 25 years later, many responses still tend to operate in silos and focus narrowly on improving women’s agency or access to information for example, instead of addressing the social, structural, and institutional barriers that hamper food and nutrition security among women and girls. Policies also often fail to include men and boys, yet understanding the drivers behind their motivations and behaviours is key to addressing unspoken societal barriers to gender equality.The major challenge lies in developing inclusive policy responses that address these barriers. This could help pave the way towards a more sustainable and transformative change within the West African food system and fuel progress towards achieving not only the “zero hunger” goal (SDG 2) but also “gender equality” (SDG 5).

OBJECTIVE

The OECD Development Centre is collaborating with the Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat to host an interactive discussion on the Wikigender platform on the topic “Towards a Gender-Responsive Approach to Food and Nutrition Security in the Sahel and West Africa”. The objective is to contribute to a process of mutual learning and dialogue that can inspire more gender-responsive and sustainable solutions to food and nutrition insecurity.

Drawing on your experience and expertise, we would like to identify some concrete and promising examples of gender-responsive food and nutrition security programming, and explore and discuss the key lessons learned. (See: Concept Note)

KEY QUESTIONS

1. What is at risk when food and nutrition security programming fails to take gender into account?
   1. What does “gender-mainstreaming” in food and nutrition security policies and programmes mean in practice?
   2. How can the availability of sex-disaggregated food and nutrition security data be improved?
   3. How can early-warning systems be more gender-responsive?
2. What are some of the key lessons learned from best practices around gender-responsive programming in the area of food and nutrition security? What are the success factors and how can they be scaled-up?
   1. Can cash transfers alleviate food insecurity and strengthen gender equality? What specific measures need to be taken to ensure that cash transfers achieve gender-equitable outcomes?
   2. Emerging research shows that the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to exacerbate the gendered nature of food and nutrition insecurity globally. What actions can be taken to prevent the most serious damage to the economic empowerment of women in general and particularly rural women?
3. What can be done to bring attention to gender-responsive food and nutrition security programming among the region’s decision-making bodies?
   1. Are there lessons to be learned from other regions?
   2. How can women be empowered to exercise their rights and take active participation in decision-making bodies?

DIG DEEPER

OECD/SWAC (2018), “Gender Inequality in West African Social Institutions”, West African Papers, No. 13, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/fe5ea0ca-en.

OECD/SWAC (2018), “Agriculture, food and jobs in West Africa”, West African Papers, No. 14, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://www.oecd.org/swac/topics/food-system-transformations/handout-agriculture-food-jobs-west-africa.pdf.

OECD/SWAC (2019), “Integrating gender analysis into food & nutrition security early warning systems in West Africa”, West African Papers, No. 24, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/abd5f499-en.

OECD/SWAC (2019), “Women suffering from anaemia – a major challenge”, Maps & Facts No. 78, Paris, http://www.west-africa-brief.org/content/en/women-suffering-anaemia-%E2%80%93-major-challenge.

OECD (2019), “SIGI 2019 Global Report: Transforming Challenges into Opportunities”, Social Institutions and Gender Index, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/bc56d212-en.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Implications for the SDGs with a focus on women and girls
3. Implications for SDG 5 specifically
4. Additional Resources from OECD on COVID-19
5. References

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a severe threat to the achievement of gender-related SDGs and jeopardises some of the improvements observed since 2015 related to gender equality and women’s empowerment. By looking at the state of the SDGs and their interlinkages pre-crisis, it is clearthat the economic and social consequences of the pandemic will exacerbate existing inequalities and discrimination against women and girls, especially against the most marginalised. As was revealed in West Africa during the Ebola crisis (2014-2015) and in Latin America with the Zika outbreak (2015-2016), public health crises can place a hold on gender-transformative policies and reforms, diverting resources away from the past and current needs of women, while the crises themselves actually increase and expand them. With this, it is important to recognize the impact COVID-19 is having, and will continue to have, on the achievement of the SDGs if progressive actions are not taken.

Implications for the SDGs with a focus on women and girls

Given the widespread and multiple implications of the COVID-19 crisis, all SDGs, and particularly those gender-related targets and indicators, are likely to be affected. Recognizing this impact and its gendered nature is a critical first step to designing socio-economic recoveries that will help, not hinder, the achievement of the SDGs and gender equality. Though not an exhaustive list, by looking with a gendered lens, it is clear that at least the following SDGs will be stalled by the current crisis:

• SDG 8 – “Decent Work”: “Women constitute an estimated two-thirds of the health workforce worldwide, and…make up around 85% of nurses and midwives in the 104 countries for which data are available” (OECD, 2020). This sectoral concentration, as well as women’s over-representation in retail and hospitality, means that women are disproportionately exposed to COVID-19 at work.
• SDG 3 – “Good Health and Well-Being”: Resources for reproductive and sexual health are diverted to the emergency response – as we saw during the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014-2015, this contributed to an increase in maternal mortality in regions with weak healthcare capacities (Wenham, Smith and Morgan, 2020). For example, in Sierra Leone, post-crisis impact studies uncovered that during the crisis, there was a drop in the use of health services which translated to 3,600 additional maternal, neonatal and stillbirth deaths, under the most conservative estimates, in the year 2014-15 (Sochas, Channon and Nam, 2017).
• SDG 4 – “Quality Education”: The Ebola crisis also revealed a significant increase in adolescent pregnancies following the closure of schools during the outbreak, which in turn translated to higher rates of school dropouts especially for adolescent mothers during the post-crisis period (Bandiera et al., 2019). At the same time, the increased workload of unpaid and domestic care work falling on women’s and girls’ shoulders – in particular caring for the sick—will affect girls’ educational prospects.
• SDG 2 – “Zero Hunger”: In countries where social norms imply a preference for boys over girls, the pandemic might magnify these preferences across a wide array of domains. For instance, restricted food resources might lead households where discriminatory social norms are widespread to favour boys over girls, directly affecting SDG 2. Similarly, in a context of limited resources, preference might be given to boys over girls in terms of education and health (SDGs 3 and 4).
• SDG 1 – “No Poverty” and SDG 10 – “Reduced Inequality”: As the economic consequences of the outbreak – e.g. layoffs, income loss, job insecurity—might disproportionately affect women, an increase in women’s poverty levels around the globe is highly likely.

Implications for SDG 5 specifically 

The pandemic will yield severe consequences on the achievement of SDG 5, “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”, specifically. Before the crisis, it was estimated that 2.1 billion girls and women were living in countries that will not achieve gender equality targets by 2030 (Equal Measures 2030, 2020). As the pace of progress slows down, both developed and developing countries require more time and aggressive action to reach gender equality targets. The following SDG 5 targets will be severely affected:

• SDG 5.1 on eliminating all forms of discrimination against women and girls: According to the OECD’s Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI), new legislation to enhance gender equality and abolish discriminatory laws have benefited from increasing political commitments before the crisis (OECD, 2019). However, the health crisis has crippled the legislative system hindering many government’s abilities to pass and implement new legislation.
• SDG 5.2 on eliminating all violence against women and girls: While recent data show that 18% of women have experienced physical and/or sexual partner violence in the previous 12 months, new evidence shows that domestic violence has increased, especially under lockdowns. For example, the UK’s National Domestic Abuse Helpline say a 25% increase in the number of phone calls in the first week of lockdown and a 150% increase in visits to its website (UN Women, 2020).
• SDG 5.3 on eliminating all harmful practices: Before the crisis, evidence showed a decline in the practice of child marriage in both South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (OECD Development Centre, 2019). As poverty increases in the wake of the pandemic child, early and forced marriage, which often stem from economic considerations under extreme poverty, might also increase in developing countries. Meanwhile, in low-income countries, the health crisis will severely cripple the financial capacities and resources of governments, yielding profound effects on the legislative and enforcement capabilities of these countries. Prosecution of perpetrators of female genital mutilation, for instance, might become even more uneven, and there have been reports that the practice has become more common since the pandemic began.
• SDG 5.4 on recognising unpaid care and domestic work: Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, women were already performing 75% of household and care work globally (OECD Development Centre, 2019). The present crisis has highlighted the importance of carers who take care of the older members of society as well as those with existing health issues. Moreover, in many places schools have closed, meaning that children are staying home. These dynamics and all that comes with them, increase the time-burden of unpaid care work. It will likely be very challenging to return to the pre-crisis distribution and nearly impossible to achieve an equitable distribution of unpaid care and domestic work between men and women by 2030.
• SDG 5.6 on ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights: Provision of sexual and reproductive health commodities, including menstrual health items may be impacted as supply chains undergo strain from the pandemic response (UNFPA, 2020). Evidence from the Zika crisis in Latin America showed that gang violence in El Salvador and Brazil directly affected women’s access to sexual and reproductive health services, with informal networks controlling who had access to supplies and who did not.

Conclusions

As the COVID-19 crisis continues, there is growing recognition of the impact it will have on the goals set forth in the 2030 Agenda. While the past months have shown that adaptation is indeed possible, there is a need to look forward at the impact responses to COVID-19 will have on human development worldwide. In looking forward, it is possible to understand that action taken now will fundamentally shape the future. With this recognition comes the possibility to craft policies that are sensitive to gender inequalities and will allow for equitable recoveries.

Additional Resources from OECD on COVID-19 

• Women at the core of the fight against COVID-19 crisis (OECD Publication)
• Tackling coronavirus (COVID‑19) Contributing to a global effort (OECD’s COVID-19 platform)

References: 

Bandiera, O. et al. (2019). “The Economic Lives of Young Women in the Time of Ebola: Lessons from an Empowerment Program”. Impact Evaluation series, No. WPS 8760. World Bank Group, Washington D.C. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/452451551361923106/The-Economic-Lives-of-Young-Women-in-the-Time-of-Ebola-Lessons-from-an-Empowerment-Program.

Equal Measures 2030 (2020). Bending the Curve Towards Gender Equality by 2030. https://www.equalmeasures2030.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/EM2030BendingTheCurveReportMarch2020.pdf.

OECD (2020). Women at the Core of the Fight Against COVID-19 Crisis. OECD Publishing, Paris. https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=127_127000-awfnqj80me&title=Women-at-the-core-of-the-fight-against-COVID-19-crisis.

OECD (2019). SIGI 2019 Global Report: Transforming Challenges into Opportunities, Social Institutions and Gender Index. OECD Publishing, Paris. https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/bc56d212-en.

OECD Development Centre (2019). Gender, Institutions and Development Database (GID-DB) 2019. https://oe.cd/ds/GIDDB2019.

Sochas, L., A. Channon and S. Nam (2017). “Counting indirect crisis-related deaths in the context of a low-resilience health system: the case of maternal and neonatal health during the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone”. Vol. 32, pp. 32-39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czx108.

UNFPA (2020). COVID-19: A Gender Lens – Protecting sexual and reproductive health and rights, and promoting gender equality. UNFPA. https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource-pdf/COVID-19_A_Gender_Lens_Guidance_Note.pdf.

Wenham, C., J. Smith and R. Morgan (2020). COVID-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreak, Lancet Publishing Group. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30526-2.

United Nations (n.d.). Sustainable Development Goal 5. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg5.

United Nations (n.d.). Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Retrieved from https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda.

UN Women (2020). COVID-19 and Violence Against Women and Girls: Addressing the Shadow Pandemic.  https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2020/policy-brief-covid-19-and-violence-against-women-and-girls-en.pdf?la=en&vs=5842

Article proposed and written by Euro – Mediterranean Women’s Foundation’s Secretary

Publication date: 28 October 2019

Introduction 

In its latest report ‘’The Global Climate in 2015–2019’’, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned that global warming is accelerating, so are the associated features such as the sea level rise, the shrinking sea ice, glacier retreat and last but least the extreme events such as heatwaves, droughts, landslides, floods and hurricanes [1]. Although these events affect all of humanity, their repercussions can radically affect the lives, lifestyles, consumption and economic and social dynamics of certain groups, especially those whose lives depend heavily on natural resources, or who experience a certain degree of loss resulting from resources depletion or scarcity [2].
It has been evidenced by many international actors that women are among the most vulnerable groups to climate change, especially in areas where gender roles and relations lead to gender inequalities. For instance, 80% of people displaced worldwide by climate change are women, according to UNDP [3] who also concluded that ‘’women don´t have easy and adequate access to funds to cover weather-related losses or adaptation technologies. Women also face discrimination in accessing land, financial services, social capital and technology. [4]’’

Despite the disproportionate impact of climate change on women and scientists alarm bells, these risks must be faced with hope and seen as an opportunity to empower women and increase their contributions to finding sustainable alternatives and solutions to environmental problems and their socio-economic consequences. This article attempts to explore the specific relationship between climate change and women in the oases of Tozeur (Tunisia), whose ecosystem has been disrupted and some of its crops resistant to climate change have disappeared due to some unfortunate agricultural policies.

The article is based on a field diagnosis conducted by the association La Ruche de la citoyenneté active de Tozeur (The Hive of Active Citizenship of Tozeur), with the support of the Euro-Mediterranean Women’s Foundation (FFEM) and the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) within the framework of the project “Strengthening the capacities of equality actors” which consists in analysing women’s local realities and public policies through consultations and dialogues at a grass-roots level, through the set-up of local clusters of gender equality actors in 7 southern Mediterranean countries, including Tunisia (more information about these local clusters’ project is available on www.euromedwomen.foundation). The article is also based on perception surveys with 32 environmental and women empowering entities including associations, trade unions and agricultural development groups (GDAs), four focus group discussions with institutional and civic actors from Chebika, Tamagheza, Hezouwa and Nafta).

Tozeur: Demography, facts and fragile ecosystem 

As its geographical location suggests, the governorate of Tozeur and its 6 delegations (Tozeur, Hezoua, Tamagheza, Nefta, Deguèche and Hamma) are characterised by a dry continental climate with very high evaporation and extremely low rainfall, never exceeding 100 mm/year [5].

Tozeur is the least populated governorate in Tunisia, as the number of inhabitants represents less than 1% of the Tunisian population. More than half of its population are women, due to the recent increasing migration of young males in search of better living conditions in neighbouring cities and regions.

The economy of this governorate is dominated by agriculture, mainly palm date production which remains the most important sector in terms of area, production volume and revenues, following decades of agricultural business policies supporting date palm monoculture. These policies though led to the depletion of water resources and the gradual loss of local oasis expertise which adopted integrated agriculture to adapt to difficult climatic conditions.

This ancient agriculture is carried on, typically by superimposing three layers: at the top, date palms; in the middle, fruit trees (oranges, bananas, pomegranates, apples, etc.); and, in the shade, at the lowest level, plants (vegetables, fodder, cereals) [6]. The three-stage culture creates an oasis microclimate that reduces evaporation, allows the growing of several species using the water and the sun, and shelters and preserves a wide diversity of animals [7]. Therefore, the dependence on one type of agriculture, coupled with high temperatures and water scarcity, started to vulnerating the oasis ecosystem and posing a serious threat to its inhabitants and their livelihoods.

This fragile situation has, though, pushed Tozeur’s population to engage in tourism, a sector has a lot of potential.

Oasis Women: traditional knowledge and economic practice 

As most of the oasis women in North Africa, women in Tozeur play an important role in the management and the conservation of biodiversity. They have knowledge and expertise, acquired over centuries, of conservation, processing and recovery of date palm products, other fruits, palm grove by-products and surrounding species [8].

Their lifestyle, positions, roles, customs, behaviours and even economic activity are quite diverse and are governed by their area’s nature. For instance, in the mountainous area of Tamagheza, Chbika and Mides where lifestyle is semi-rural, women take part in fieldwork at the bottom level (irrigation, hoeing, weeding, etc.), contributing to maintaining soil quality. They are also responsible for caring for herds’ hygiene and stables.

Meanwhile, the women of Hezoua region are semi-nomads, they travel with their stock-farmer husbands in search of desert pasture. In urban areas such as Tozeur and Nafta, the division between agriculture and domestic life is very clear. Women in these areas don’t customarily work in the fields, where the tasks are considered tough for women, but they contribute to the processing of palm grove products: grading, filling and packaging dates, on one hand; and the preservation and processing of local products such as date syrup, paste and vinegar. They also contribute massively to crafts and artisan dairy products. Women also make use of other oasis products such as vegetable crops, aromatic and medicinal plants. Additionally, women weave clothing and carpets from camel skin and remnants of fabrics.

Underrepresentation of oasis women in the public sphere 

Despite women’s significant contribution to the local economy and the preservation of the oases biodiversity, and their remarkable participation in the first municipal elections after the revolution in 2018 (out of 36 electoral lists, 11 were headed by women in Tozeur), their presence in local governance and the political scene remain weak. Following 2018 municipal elections, women of Tozeur have only won seats as deputy mayors.

The same goes for civil society: 70% of members of organizations targeted by the survey on which this article is partially based are women, while this figure is inverted when it comes to decision-making posts as it turned out that only 30% of active women in associations have managerial roles.

In the survey, 3 out of four of the people interviewed stated that the level of gender integration in development projects in Tozeur is insufficient and that dedicated programmes in the region do not take into account the needs and expectations of oasis women. For example, only 3 out of the 40 development projects, programmed for the Chebika, Tamagheza and Mides regions as part of the Sustainable Management of Oasis Ecosystems project (SMOE), financed by the World Bank, are dedicated to women.

Likewise, women make up only 3% of the members of the GDAs who are been appointed by the State to manage local natural resources including water, forests and pastures.

Existing initiatives and promising efforts to empower oasis women

Tunisia’s Jasmine revolution paved the way for increased participation of women on all levels. In Tozeur, several initiatives have been carried out by or for women, and various programmes and projects were launched to improve women’s lives and boost their leadership.

In 2017, the Regional Commission for Agricultural Development (CRDA) set up a women’s GDA in Tozeur as one of the components pf a project it has been conducted since 2013 with support of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), to promote women’s participation in rural sustainable development [9].

Civil society organizations are also playing huge role in empowering women and strengthening female entrepreneurship. One good example is Tozeur WES Centre [10] whose some beneficiaries’ achievements were recognized on local and national levels. Precisely, Fathia Arfaoui, a housewife from Bouhlel, who won several awards for the quality of her date-derived products, after attending one of WES Centre’s training programme.

Another good example is the social enterprise Shanti which came up with the project El Mensej as a solution to fight environmental pollution caused by cloth waste, as well as to perpetuate an endangered knowledge and tradition [11].

Investing in initiatives enabling women to recover agricultural heritage would contribute to oasis women’s economic empowerment © La Ruche de la citoyenneté active de Tozeur

In 2018, and following the field diagnosis on which this article is based, the association La Ruche de la citoyenneté active à Tozeur conducted several activities to strengthen the resilience of oasis women in the face of climate change and to improve the incomes of women artisans through the promotion of local know-how and products that result from it (gastronomy, crafts …). these activities included a training for local elected officials and members of the civil society of Tozeur on gender and climate change, the production and dissemination of videos and radio programs on traditional dishes in connection with the biodiversity of oases, and the distribution of a directory to facilitate the marketing of local products developed by women in the region of Tozeur [12].

Conclusion:

Women of Tozeur have a close relationship with the oasis, therefore, any imbalance affecting the oasis ecosystem will evidently have an impact on their lives, which means that they must be involved in every decision making related to local development.

Investing in initiatives enabling women to recuperate and revive ancestral knowledge and agricultural and cultural heritage would contribute to the economic empowerment of women in Tozeur and the preservation of the environment. A program to improve product quality, packaging, and marketing will increase sales revenue for these women and help them to meet their needs and those of their families.

Scientific research in the area of adaptation and resilience to climate change in oasis regions needs to be developed and further explored. It is also necessary to build the capacities of local civil and institutional actors in planning and executing gender-sensitive projects and programs.

An urgent action to protect and to re-introduce local varieties resistant to climate change is also needed.

References

https://www.euromedwomen.foundation/pg/en/news/view/8281/climate-change-and-womens-economic-empowerment-in-tozeur

UN Women, World Bank Group, and OECD Development Centre are pleased to invite you to a side event

Monitoring legal frameworks that address non-discrimination on the basis of sex

SDG indicator 5.1.1: Whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce and monitor equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex

When: Monday, 20 March 2017 | 1:15p.m. – 2:30p.m.
Where: Conference Room A, UN Headquarters, New York

Moderator:
Purna Sen
Director, Policy Division, UN Women

Panel speakers:

• Jane Mpagi, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Uganda
• Nicole Ameline, CEDAW Committee
• Janette Amer, UN Women
• Sarah Iqbal, World Bank Group Women Business and the Law
• Keiko Nowacka, OECD Development Centre Social Institutions and Gender Index

Despite progress reforming laws addressing discrimination against women, there are numerous countries where women are still left without protection or the legal basis to claim their rights. Many women and girls continue to be affected by multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, preventing the full realization of their human rights.
Strong legal frameworks must be put in place to advance gender equality in all areas. Principles of non-discrimination cannot be fully realized without “legal frameworks to promote, enforce and monitor equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex” (SDG Indicator 5.1.1).
UN Women, in partnership with the OECD Development Centre and the World Bank Group, are working together to develop, measure and track progress on this important indicator. This side event will present the technical work underpinning this collaboration and efforts by Member States and other stakeholders in relation to SDG indicator 5.1.1 and legal frameworks that advance gender equality.

Registration

Please RSVP by Friday 17 March 2017 with your full name and affiliation to dev.gender@oecd.org

Kindly indicate if you have a UN grounds pass. If you do not have a UN grounds pass, you will require a
special event pass that will be provided outside the UN visitors entrance before the event.
Further details will be sent to those who indicate they do not have a UN grounds pass.

What

The Birdsall House Conference Series on Women seeks to identify and bring attention to leading research and scholarly findings on women’s empowerment in the fields of development economics, behavioral economics, and political economy.

On November 2nd, academics, private sector representatives, and policymakers will discuss the potential of ‘beyond-aid’ approaches to stoke change in gender norms and practices worldwide, with a particular focus on the private sector. How can businesses go beyond traditional forms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to integrate gender equality concerns into their value chains? How can the banking sector narrow gaps in access to formal financial services? And how can international policymaking levers such as trade agreements play a role in combatting gender discrimination?

The next day we will take a close look at women’s economic empowerment programming. Register here.

When

Wednesday, November 2, 2016 – 11:00am to 5:00pm

Where

Center for Global Development

Washington, DC 20036

More information about the event on the Center for Global Development website.

Never before has humankind faced as many tough challenges as it does now: from harsh climate change causing droughts and flooding to violence; rights abuses, refugees; child trafficking and modern-day slavery; human and social inequalities continue to grow. In a concerted effort to alleviate such unprecedented human suffering, the international community has adopted 17 key objectives to be achieved by 2030, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

IPS and the UN Foundation plan to contribute to this massive effort by organising four media and civil society training workshops in Ecuador, Germany, Nepal and Sweden during the months of October and December 2016. The objective is to work with the participants on how to decode the SDGs and follow and cover them in an engaging way.

The training workshops will be open to UN officials, journalists, academics and representatives of civil society and humanitarian organizations – all of whom can make a significant difference to a debate that will continue through 2030 and beyond.

Hopefully, these brain-storming sessions will help influence key decision-makers in politics, parliaments and governments worldwide.

The workshops are scheduled to take place in Stockholm (October 20-21), in Bonn (October 25-26), in Quito (October 27-28) and in Bangladesh (December 18-19). Those interested can reach the organisers via email:

For Stockholm workshop, please contact: ws.stockholm@ips.org

For Bonn workshop, please contact: ws.bonn@ips.org

For Quito workshop, please contact: ws.quito@ips.org

More information on the IPS website.

Remarks by Angel Gurría,

Secretary-General, OECD

New York, 21 September 2016

(As prepared for delivery)

Your Excellency Dalia Grybauskaite, Excellencies, Ministers, dear colleagues,

It is a great privilege to be here alongside world leaders who are working to end violence against women and girls. Violence that is an affront to our basic human rights, and that affects not only individuals, but also our families, our societies, and our economies.

Those of us who were here in New York last year for the launch of the SDGs will recall the excitement, the ambition, the genuine consensus. The inclusion of a target for the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls is, I believe, a particularly strong achievement of the SDGs. Now we need to get on and do it!

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, no country is immune from this pandemic, and no country can afford to ignore it. Each of us must be part of the solution.

At the OECD, we’re deploying all the tools we have to support these efforts. This includes better evidence, improved public policies, and enforceable standards. Allow me to say a few words about each of these.

More data, better quantification of the costs of violence against women

First, we’re increasing our focus on evidence. Data on the prevalence and incidence of gender-based violence remain scarce, yet it’s crucial if we’re serious about meeting SDG Target 5.2.

Our new research will enable cross-country comparison across all OECD countries. And as we work with the OECD countries to track what they’re doing to tackle violence against women and girls, we will also track what they do to support partner countries. Just last year we upgraded our statistical system to allow us to track – for the first time ever – aid in support of ending violence against women.

Evidence of effort also needs to be matched with evidence of impact. And here I am talking about impact on people – on individual women and girls. We will expand our work on well-being to shine a spotlight on the links between women’s well-being and violence. We will look at quantifying the true costs of violence by including the impact on subjective well-being. Initial research suggests that being assaulted may be equivalent, in life satisfaction terms, to losing between 50,000 and 90,000 US dollars in annual income. It might sound crude – and sometimes these estimates are – but very often, putting a number to an issue is an effective way of drawing attention to it.

Better policies to help stamp out discrimination

Second, we will focus on policies that respond to the discriminatory social norms that drive violence. Our Social Institutions and Gender Index, or SIGI, looks at laws, attitudes, social norms and practices around violence against women. Across the 160 countries included in SIGI, one in three women agrees that domestic violence is justified; in some countries, these acceptance rates climb close to 90%. How can we even begin to tackle violence if women believe it can be justified?

Our estimates suggest that discriminatory social institutions – including violence against women – cost the global economy approximately 12 trillion US dollars a year. So while it is critical to put in place laws, budgets and plans to transform discriminatory social norms, we also need to empower women and girls, men and boys, to challenge – and change – these norms.

Better standards, safer economies

Finally, we will continue our work on global standards to empower women as economic actors and prevent violence against them in global supply chains. We are particularly proud of our co-operation with the UN Security Council to prevent conflict financing and violence against women in the production and trade of minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Côte d’Ivoire, for example. This work has helped to improve market access for more than 100,000 artisanal miners, many of them women. It’s also helped to eradicate the economic opportunities that fuel the armed groups that prey on women and girls.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I have shared just a few examples of how we, at the OECD, are acting on violence against women. Better data, better policies, better standards. The human rights imperative is crystal clear. The economic case has been made. Now let’s get on and deliver better gender policies and better policies on violence against women and girls.

Thank you.

Resources

• OECD work on gender equality
• Mr. Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, in New York from 18 to 23 September 2016

 What

Join feminists from across the region to discuss how we can work towards a #Feminist2030

The 2030 Agenda, the SDGs, and their accompanying targets and indicators will set the tone and drive international and national development policies and programmes for the next 15 years. The next five years will be especially formative for governments, CSOs, and social movements, where discussions around accountability and implementation of the 2030 Agenda will take place.
If feminist and women’s rights activists, organizations, and networks, and our allies are to work with this agenda, as well as other international frameworks, we need to view sustainable development from an intersectional feminist framework that recognizes and strategizes against systemic inequalities, prioritizes marginalized groups, and identifies issues that have been left behind as well as issues that are emerging. We must strategize against a patriarchal and heteronormative society that continues to find new ways to restrict our bodies, minds, and voices. Most importantly, we must strategies to tackle inequalities both at the macro and micro levels. For this, we need to chart and utilize both inside and outside strategies to further our work and our agenda.

As such we need to ask:

• What are the current and emerging issues that are likely to shape our world in the next 15 years and beyond?
• Who are the people and what are the issues that are left behind by the new sustainable development agenda?
• Where do these people and issues intersect?
• What are the challenges and barriers that hold back the full realization of the human rights of all women across ages and their various identities?
• How can we strategies to collectively move forward using an intersectional feminist framework?
• How can we acknowledge fractures and move towards building alliances with other social movements?

These are some of the questions that will be discussed by feminists, activists, and advocates from diverse organizations, networks, and social movements at a 3-day consultation being supported by the Post 2015 Women’s Coalition, organized by ARROW and feminist collaborators from Asia and the Pacific, including the Asia Pacific Women’s Alliance on Peace and Security (APWAPS), Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility (CARAM Asia), CREA, and YouthLEAD.

Get the detailed programme here.

When

27 – 29 July 2016

How to participate

We invite you to join the discussions online using #Feminist2030 on Twitter and our livestream on Periscope (@ARROW_Women). Send an email to sachini@arrow.org.my if you would like to receive the streaming link via email just before each session.

You can RSVP to the event on facebook.

 Overview

In 2000, global leaders gathered at the United Nations launched a plan of action intended to fight poverty in all its forms. To this end, they set eight goals known as “the Millennium Development Goals “(MDGs) to be achieved by 2015:

The MDGs were complemented by a series of 18 quantifiable targets measured by 60 statistical indicators in order to track progress and identify implementation gaps.

MDG 3 was specifically dedicated to gender equality, while MDG 2 and 5 included targets linked to women and girls.

The MDGs expired in 2015 and were replaced in September of that year by a new global framework for development: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which includes the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs “seek to build on the Millennium Development Goals and complete what they did not achieve” (UNGA, 2015).

Progress in achieving the MDGs

Quoted as “the most successful anti-poverty movement in history” by the UN Secretary General (UN, 2015), the MDGs have met a number of their targets:

• The target of halving the population whose income was less than one dollar a day between 1990 and 2015 has been reached and even exceeded. The number of people living in extreme poverty has dropped from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015.
• The proportion of undernourished people in developing regions fell by almost half since 1990, from 23.3% in 1990-1992 to 12.9% in 2014-2016 – very close to the target set by MDG 1.
• According to UN estimates, developing regions have overall reached the target of eliminating gender disparities in primary, secondary and tertiary education. In South Asia for instance, only 74 girls attended primary school for every 100 boys in 1990. In 2015, 103 girls were enrolled for every 100 boys.
• New HIV infections have fallen by nearly 40% between 2000 and 2013 and the number of people receiving antiretroviral treatments has jumped from to 800,000 in 2003 to 13.6 million people in 2014. The target to halt the spread of HIV / AIDS and to reverse the trend by 2015 has thus been reached.
• The target to halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water has been reached: from 2.3 billion in 1990, the coverage in piped drinking water increased to 4.2 billion in 2015.
• One of the targets of Goal 8 was to increase public development assistance to countries demonstrating their commitment to the fight against poverty. The 2015 MDG report shows that developed countries increased their official development assistance by 66% in real terms between 2000 and 2014, reaching $135.2 billion (UN, 2015).

The 2015 UN report on the MDGs provides further information on the progress achieved under the different targets.

Missed targets

While significant progress was achieved in the realisation of the MDGs, a number of targets were falling behind at the end of 2015, for instance:

• The net enrolment rate in primary education in developing regions reached 91% in 2015, compared to 83% in 2000. The target of universal access to primary education set by MDG 2 has thus not been reached.
• Child mortality under age 5 has declined by more than half worldwide, from 90 to 43 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2015. Yet the target set by the MDGs aimed to a two-third reduction.
• Since 1990, the maternal mortality rate has decreased by 45% worldwide. Those significant gains still fell short of the two-third reduction target set by the MDGs (UN, 2015).

Persistence of inequalities

The 2015 UN Report stressed that progress in achieving the MDGs has been uneven across regions and countries.

In particular, conflict areas have remained excluded from the development gains observed in the rest of the world: the share of out-of-school children in war-torn countries has increased from 30% in 1999 to 36% in 2012 (UN, 2015).

The reduction of extreme poverty was particularly sharp in Asia, but slower in sub-Saharan Africa. The number of people living in extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated at 347 million in 2015, compared to 284 million in 1990. This increase in absolute terms is linked to population growth, whereas the percentage of African population living in poverty declined in relative terms (World Bank, 2015).

Significant inequalities remain between the poorest and richest households. In the developing regions, children from the poorest 20 % of households are more than twice as likely to be stunted as those from the wealthiest 20%(UN, 2015).

Women and the realisation of the MDGs

Progress in achieving the MDGs was uneven between women and men, the UN reported (2015).

Women remained more vulnerable than men to poverty. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the proportion of women in poor households increased from 108 women per 100 men in 1997 to 117 women per 100 men in 2012, despite the overall decline in poverty rates across the region (UN, 2015).

The economic vulnerability of women is linked, among others, to their disadvantage on the labour market. In 2015, only half of women were in the labour force compared to three-quarters of men. And the women who worked earned on average 24% less than men (UN, 2015).

Girls were still more likely than boys to be out of school in primary and junior high school in 63 countries (UN Women, n.d., citing figures from 2013).

Regarding MDG 6, women were more vulnerable than men to HIV/AIDS. In 2013, girls and young women represented around 60% of all new HIV / AIDS infections among young people (UN Women, n.d., quoting UNAIDS data).

Women also remained under-represented in public and private decision-making processes. Only one in five parliamentarians worldwide was a woman in 2014 (UN, 2015).

Lessons learned for the implementation of the SDGs

The challenges encountered in the implementation of the MDGs can be insightful as the post-2015 agenda for sustainable development is just starting to unfold. Development agencies have drawn a number of lessons from the MDG experience, in particular the following:

• Towards a more comprehensive approach to gender equality taking into account social norms: in a report on the challenges and achievements of MDGs implementation for women and girls (2013), the UN Secretary-General noted that the MDG targets did not reflect the full set of rights of women and girls. Among other omissions: unpaid care work, violence against women and girls, sexual and reproductive health, women’s access to resources and assets, and the equal participation of women at all decision-making levels. These targets were explicitly integrated into the SDGs adopted in 2015. In addition, discriminatory structures such as laws, norms, practices and stereotypes were not included in the MDGs and jeopardised their implementation, according to the same report. The SDGs now explicitly refer to social institutions such as early marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM).

• The need for a ‘data revolution’ to track progress: “The MDG monitoring experience has clearly demonstrated that effective use of data can help to galvanise development efforts, implement successful targeted interventions, track performance and improve accountability. Thus sustainable development demands a data revolution to improve the availability, quality, timeliness and disaggregation of data to support the implementation of the new development agenda at all levels”, the UN Report on the MDGs concluded (2015). Investments in gender-disaggregated data will be of particular importance for the SDGs to fully benefit women and girls (UN, 2013).

• The need for appropriate means of implementation: according to a study on the realisation of the MDGs in Africa, a lack of credible means of implementations weakened the MDGs outcomes on the continent. Dependence on official development assistance linked the implementation of development goals to the good fortune of donor countries, compromising sustainability. Strengthening national capacities to mobilise domestic resources should thus be a priority for the implementation of the SDGs (UNECA, 2015).
• Strengthening investments in women and girls: “Accelerating progress on the goals for women and girls will require an increased commitment to financing for gender equality with a focus on both social and economic sectors”, the UN Secretary General said in its 2013 report. The OECD-DAC has made similar recommendations, pointing to an under-investment in gender equality at 5% of official development assistance in 2012-2013 (OECD / DAC, 2015).

• Importance of participatory approaches involving women’s organisations: The MDG implementation has highlighted the importance of women’s participation at all levels (UN, 2013). This participatory approach has inspired the process leading up the new sustainable development agenda, which was elaborated in consultation with civil society. It will be important to pursue such participatory initiatives during the implementation phase, particularly at national level.
• Need for qualitative approaches: according to several UN agencies, the MDGs have suffered from a gap between the focus on targets from a quantitative point of view, and the lack of interest in the policies and conditions to achieve them (UN, 2013). The Ebola crisis seems to have highlighted how efforts undertaken in the context of MDG 6 on HIV / AIDS and malaria have failed to strengthen health systems as a whole (UNECA, 2015).

References

UN General Assembly (2015), “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, Resolution A/RES/70/1, 25 September 2015, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E

UN Economic Commission for Africa (2015), MDG Report 2015: Assessing Progress in Africa toward the Millennium Development Goals, Addis Abeba, http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/MDG%20Report%202015_ENG.pdf

United Nations (2015), Millenium Development Goals – 2015 Report, New York, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf

United Nations (2013), Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls, E/CN.6/2014/3, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=E/CN.6/2014/3

United Nations (n.d.), Millenium Development Goals and Beyond 2015, website consulted on 23 February 2016, http://www.un.org/en/millenniumgoals/

UN Women (n.d.), Progress towards meeting the MDGs for women and girls, website consulted on 23 February 2016, http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/mdg-momentum#sthash.Uztxq6Yl.dpuf

World Bank (2015), “Africa Gains in Health, Education, but Numbers of Poor Grow”, Press Release, 16 October 2015, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/10/16/africa-gains-in-health-education-but-numbers-of-poor-grow

See also

The Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development Goal 5

Liens externes

UN Economic Commission for Europe (2015), The Millenium Development Goals in Europe and Central Asia – Lessons on Monitoring and Implementation of the MDGs for the Post-2015 Development Agenda, Geneva, http://www.unece.org/index.php?id=38786

Kabeer, N. (2015), Gender equality, the MDGs and the SDGs: Achievements, lessons and concerns, International Growth Center, webpage consulted on 23 February 2016, http://www.theigc.org/blog/gender-equality-the-mdgs-and-the-sdgs-achievements-lessons-and-concerns/

Sarwar, M.B (2015), National MDG Implementation: Lessons for the SDG Era, Overseas Development Institute, London, http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/10003.pdf

This study, it is hoped, will encourage Governments and other concerned parties to redouble their commitment to the vision of the Beijing Declaration. It provides a sound foundation on which to build future development and gender equality strategies.