UN Women flagship report: Turning promises into action: gender equality in the 2030 Agenda

UN Women flagship report: Turning promises into action: gender equality in the 2030 Agenda

Two years after the adoption of Agenda 2030, this first-of-its-kind report examines through a gender lens the progress and challenges in the implementation of all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by world leaders in 2015 - from ending poverty and hunger to tackling climate change. It highlights how women are affected by each of them and looks at both the ends (goals and targets) and the means (policies and processes) that are needed to make the achievement of the ambitious agenda for sustainable development a reality.

The "Turning promises into action: Gender equality in the 2030 Agenda" report also shows through data how progress for women is a pre-requisite if we are to achieve progress for all.

Data snapshots and case studies in the report take in-depth look at the situation in the United States, Colombia, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa and Uruguay. New data included in the report shows that: 

• In 89 countries with available data, there are 4.4 million more women than men living on less than $1.90 a day. Much of this is explained because of the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work women face, especially during their reproductive years.

The report also looks beyond national averages to uncover the yawning gaps between women and girls who, even within the same country, are living in worlds apart, because of their income status, race/ethnicity, or where they live: 

• In the United States, poverty rates among black, Native American and Alaskan native women more than double those of white and Asian women, with disparities in education also staggering. 38 per cent of Hispanic women in the poorest quintile did not complete high school compared to a national average of 10 per cent.
• In India, for example, a young woman aged 20-24 from a poor, rural household is 21.8 times less likely to ever attending school than one from a rich urban household, 5 times more likely to marry before the age of 18, as likely to have never attended school, and 5.8 times as likely to become an adolescent mother.

It also provides wide-ranging recommendations for change, including the roll-out of integrated approaches to implementation that can leverage policy synergies.  The report looks at two specific areas; unpaid care work and ending violence against women.  As one of the case studies in the report points out, providing free and universal child care for children aged 0-5 in South Africa would, at least in part, pay for itself by generating new jobs and additional tax revenue. It could create between 2-3 million new jobs, raising female employment by 10%. The new tax and social security revenue generated by these jobs would cover more than a third of the initial outlay, leading to an effective net cost of only 2.1% of GDP.

UN Women

Comment: Let future generations judge Planet Earth 2018

2018, more shocking and deplorable statistics from the abovementioned report: 49 countries have no legislation on domestic violence; 45 countries have no legislation specifically covering sexual harassment; 37 countries exempt from rape prosecution perpetrators who are married to, or subsequently marry, the victim. More women than men live in extreme poverty, so women are more likely to fall into this category than men. Women are far more likely to report food insecutity. In the area of research, fewer than 30 per cent are females.

In 18 countries, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working. In 39 countries, daughters and sons do not have equal inheritance rights. In 80 per cent of households without basic sanitation, women and girls are responsible for collecting water. The global gender pay gap is 23%.

Photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights#/media/File:Marie_Stopes_in_her_laboratory,_1904.jpg

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru 

Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey

timothy.hinchey@gmail.com

*Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, deputy editor, editor, chief editor, director, project manager, executive director, partner and owner of printed and online daily, weekly, monthly and yearly publications, TV stations and media groups printed, aired and distributed in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe Isles; the Russian Foreign Ministry publication Dialog and the Cuban Foreign Ministry Official Publications. He has spent the last two decades in humanitarian projects, connecting communities, working to document and catalog disappearing languages, cultures, traditions, working to network with the LGBT communities helping to set up shelters for abused or frightened victims and as Media Partner with UN Women, working to foster the UN Women project to fight against gender violence and to strive for an end to sexism, racism and homophobia. A Vegan, he is also a Media Partner of Humane Society International, fighting for animal rights. He is Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru.