Gender Indicators Side Event Presentations

8/12/2019 Gender Indicators Side Event Presentations

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PRESENTATIONS


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LIST OF PRESENTATIONS

1 Stefan SchweinfestActing Director, UN Statistics DivisionRecent developments in the area of gender statistics:Launch of the Platform for the Minimum Set of Gender Indicators

2 Saraswathi Menon,Director of Policy, UN WomenGender statistics and the MDGs: Presentation of the MDGs Gender Chart


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58thSession of the Commission on the Status of Women

Minimum Set of Gender Indicators

United Nations Statistics Division

@ unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/data.html


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Background

Internationally-agreed indicators to monitor gender equalityand womens empowerment

Gender indicators (52)

Gender indicators related to national norms (11)

Five domains Economic structures, participation in productive activities andaccess to resources

Education

Health and related services

Human rights of women and the girl child

Public life and decision-making


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Organization of indicators in Tiers

Indicators conceptually clear, with an agreed internationaldefinition and regularly produced by countries

Tier I

International data compilation

Promoting capacity building activities

Methodologicaldevelopments e.g., EDGE project

Indicators conceptually clear, with an agreed internationaldefinition, but not yet regularly produced by countriesTier II

Indicators for which international standards need still to bedeveloped and not regularly produced by countriesTier III


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Gender Data Platform

Improve access to data and methods

Contribution from 14 partner agencies

Data for all Tier I indicators (35)


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Data availability Tier I indicators (35 inds)

Average number of countries withdata, by area

Indicators, by number of data points,1990-2012

Average # countries

data are available for

144


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Features of the Gender data platform (1)

Country and indicator dashboard


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Features of the Gender data platform (2)

Downloadable data in accessible format

Accompanying metadata Data availability report


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http://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/default.html
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/default.htmlhttp://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/default.html


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Remarks by Saraswathi Menon at the event on Indicators for monitoring

gender equality: Lessons learned from the MDGs

Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends,

Let me now say a few words about the second exciting new product we are

launching today: the MDG Gender Chart. The minimum set of gender

indicators that Stefan talked about are the bedrock of what we need to track inorder to comprehensively monitor progress on gender equality, not least

because they are so closely linked to the commitments in the Beijing Platform

for Action. The MDGs Gender Chart has a more immediate purposeto track

progress on the MDGs.

This is the fourth edition of the Gender Chart and we in the UN system havemade a special effort to bring this out while the CSW is in session since the

priority theme this year is Challenges and achievements in the implementation

of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls,

Traditionally, the MDGs Gender Chart is produced in tandem with the annual

Secretary-Generals report that reviews achievements on all MDGs. This reportcomes out every July and is prepared by the Inter-agency and Expert Group on


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On Goal 1: We present data on women and mens employment rates and the

share of women and men in vulnerable employment between 2000 and 2012.

The reason we present employment rates is related to an acute lack of data onwomenspoverty. It is often mentioned that 70% of the worlds poor are

women. We know that this is not correct, but because rigorous statistics on

women and mens poverty have not been produced we continue to rely on such

myths. The time has come to stop treating households like a black box in

household surveys and to collect data on both women and men, including on

income and consumption. Gender equality needs to be taken more seriously in

household surveys.

Over the last 12 years, we have seen a decline in both women and mens

employment rates with women doing relatively worse than men globally. There

are variations between regions. In developed regions for example, men fared

worse than women resulting in a narrowing of gender gaps. However, clearly,

when the reduction in the gender gap is predicated on worsening outcomes for

men (levelling down), this does not mark progress. Therefore, even where we

have a narrowing of gender gaps, it is important to pay attention to the actual

levels to ensure that this is due to real progress for women rather than a

levelling down of mens outcomes.

Another fact that is conspicuous in the employment charts is the sheer size of


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achieve universal primary completion until 2086, compared to 2021 for the

richest boys.

We also need to pay attention to the quality of education. Many girls and boys

do attend primary school but are unable to read or write by grade 4. This is

clearly unacceptable and has to be addressed.

And, as we can see from both charts, progress on secondary education is even

less encouraging. This is unfortunate as some of the greatest positive outcomes

for womens empowerment happen as a result of secondary educationan issue

that needs emphasis as we move forward.

On Goal 3: There is good news in terms of political participation at the

national level. Last year, womens representation in parliament was 21 percent

globally, up from 14 percent in 2000. Even though North Africa started at a

very low level in 2000, progress there has been nothing short of impressive. In

2000, women were 3 percent of parliamentarians; by 2013, this figure had risen

to 18 percent. The story is similar in some other regions such as West Asia and

South Asia. There is no doubt that temporary special measures have helped.

We need to build on this success in the Post-2015 agenda until a critical mass is

reached. But we also need to go beyond parliamentary representation towomens leadership, voice and participation in all spheres -- the private sector,


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likely to miss by a long shot. This is despite the fact that most of these deaths

are preventable. Prevention starts with women and girlsenjoying sexual and

reproductive health and rights, including eradicating child marriage. Here aresome telling statistics from the Gender Chart:

Approximately 80 per cent of maternal deaths could be averted if womenhad access to essential maternity and basic health-care services.

Globally, in 2008, an estimated 21.6 million unsafe abortions took place,mostly in developing countries, resulting in 47,000 deaths. In LatinAmerica abortions alone are responsible for 12% of all maternal deaths.

There are more than 140 million women who are married or in union andwould like to delay or avoid pregnancy, but are not using contraception.

We can no longer allow the world to deny these rights: they are literally a

matter of life and death.

Yet, unfortunately, as we can see from Goal 8, this has not always been a global

priority. While overall DAC members aid to population policies/programmes

and reproductive health reached 8 billion US dollars in 2011, donor funding to

family planning remained low at a mere 650 million dollars.

On Goal 6 we see that young women aged 15-24 are more than twice as likely

as young men to be newly infected by HIV in Sub Saharan Africa In 2012


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Finally, I will touch on the last goalGoal 8. The share of bilateral sector aid

allocated in support of gender equality started at 27 per cent in 2002 and has

risen to 35 per cent in 2011. This is a welcome development, particularly giventhe fact that aid budgets have been squeezed due to the financial crisis.

However, in 2011, only 5 per cent of total bilateral sector allocable aid went to

programmes that were assessed as having gender equality as their principal

objective. Goal 8 is much broader than aid. But, the lack of gender-related data

limits our capacity to analyse progress on this goal to OECD-DAC aid figures.

In conclusion, as we look at progress on the MDGs we are struck by three types

of gaps.

First, there is a gap in coverage; a recent review of gender statistics in 126

countries has found that while production of gender statistics has increased in

recent years, the focus is still predominantly on traditional areas such asmortality, education and labour force statistics. But even so reliable data on

maternal mortality is not always available.

Second, there is a gap in developing and using indicators that are relevant to

address gender inequality. There has for years been less work on areas such as

violence against women and girls or the measurement of unpaid care workthrough time use surveys. But now we do have the 9 indicators endorsed by the


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Millennium Development Goals Gender Chart 2014

Special edition for CSW 58, UN Statistics Division and UN Women


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Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger


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Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger


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Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education


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Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empowerwomen


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Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empowerwomen


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Goal 5: Improve maternal health


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Goal 6: Combat HIV, malaria and other diseases


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Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability


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Goal 8: Global partnership for development


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Lucinda OHanlon, OHCHR

Indicators side event

12 March

Commission on the Status of Women

1. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today and among such prominentpanellists. As we discuss where we are with the MDGs, where the MDGs have not

delivered, and how we can do better in the post 2015 era, this discussion on

indicators is critical.

2. One year ago, the High Commissioner opened the post 2015 thematic consultationon governance with the following words:

In 2000, the process for selecting the MDGs was opaque and, if I may say so,

technocratic. Proposals that lacked quantifiable measures and cross-national data-

sets were rejected. Civil and political rights were often excluded. We treasured what

we measured and perhaps that was the wrong way round. It seems to me we

should measure what we treasure.

Todays event is about discussing the impact that the MDGs had by adopting anapproach of treasuring what we measured and discussing recommendations for

the post 2015 framework which would align more closely with our hope to rather


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as articulated in CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action, among other

international standards. The fact that there were no indicators on gender-

based violence nor on womens unpaid work was a powerful signal thatwomens reality was not adequately considered in the MDGs. The work of the

Inter-agency Expert Group and the launch of the platform on gender

indicators is incredibly important work to redress these shortcomings.

b. In the case of MDG 5 on improving maternal health, already in the goalformulation, the agenda was narrowed from sexual and reproductive rights

as articulated in the human rights conferences of the 90s, to a focus onmaternal health. And then the indicators for improving maternal health again

narrowed the focus to skilled birth attendants. This narrowing despite the

fact that it was well recognized amongst public health experts that improving

maternal health required attention to at least four dimensions : SBAs,

emergency obstetric care, access to contraception, and strong referral

systems. In 2007, an additional goal was added on reproductive health, which

covered family planning and was important step in the right direction.

c. For water and sanitation, the indicators again fell short of human rightsrequirements. The assessment of access to an improved water source was

taken as a proxy for quality water. However, we have seen that water sources

have been built and not maintained, now delivering no water or poor quality

water to people. In other cases we see that the water is unaffordable.

Women continue to suffer lack of access to water disproportionately because

of their domestic roles. Regarding sanitation, the indicator on access toimproved sanitation fails to capture womens specific needs, especially as

d l h i


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9. Indicators for measuring compliance with human rights standards require attentionto the structures that are in place to protect human rights, the efforts made by the

responsible parties, and the outcomes achieved. Taking gender equality as anexample, this would mean examining the existence of laws and policies to eliminate

discrimination based on sex (structure), the degree to which the Government

allocates funds towards the achievement of gender equality (process), and results

(or outcomes) in terms of not only of achieving gender balance in representation in

different sectors, but also better sharing of unpaid family responsibilities, womens

decision making abilities about their bodies, their families and within their

communities, as well as improved health outcomes.

10.The indicators in the post 2015 framework should be aligned with human rightsstandards. With regard to economic, social and cultural rights such as education,

health, work, housing and food -- this would require special attention to ensuring

that these are available, accessible, affordable, acceptable and of good quality. We

also must ensure that data collected is disaggregated by sex and other grounds of

discrimination, but also include indicators which respond to womens specific

experience. Human rights would also require exploring all available data sources and

spurring the collection of new data where necessary. Capturing progress in human

rights terms also means looking beyond quantitative indicators. Qualitative data is

critical for understanding the context of deprivation and rights violations. Finally,

human rights would require that the data collection process itself complies with

human rights principles of transparency, participation and accountability.

11.Ladies and gentlemen, infusing the post 2015 agenda with a rights based approachmeans challenging the notion that indicators and statistics are the domain only of

b i li N d b d h i li h l d i h i


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Criteria Questions

Relevance of indicator to theme How closely does a proposed indicator reflect the theme?

Saliency/ communicability Are the indicator and target psychologically salient and easy to understand?

Data availability and comparability Are the data comparable and well established globally? Could comparability and

coverage be improved with support? If not, would nationally defined

measurement be enough to spur action or even be preferred?

Robustness, reliability, validity Are the data reliable, valid and externally verifiable?

Action-orientation Would the target/indicator signal appropriate policy choices and provide a usefulstandard for active monitoring?

Universally applicable Does it require fair progress by all countries or, if not, is a complementary

target/indicator available for other countries?

Measure effort as well as outcome Do the proposed indicators, taken as a whole, help to measure the actual

commitment and fiscal and policy effort that Member States dedicate toachieving agreed post-2015 outcomes?

Equality-sensitivity Does it have an equality focus or disaggregated targets?

Absence of perverse incentives Does it create perverse incentives and, if so, can a complementary

target/indicator be adopted to overcome this?

Criteria for selecting indicators


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Support for gender equality by region

2004-2009

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Egypt

Mali

Ghana

BurkinaFaso

Morocco

SouthAfrica

Jordan

Iran

Malaysia

Georgia

India

Turkey

Indonesia

SouthKorea

VietNam

China

Thailand

Cyprus

Rus

sianFederation

Romania

Ukraine

Moldova

Bulgaria

Poland

Serbia

Slovenia

Argentina

Brazil

Mexico

TrinidadandTobago

Uruguay

Peru

Japan

UnitedStates

Australia

France

Spain

GreatBritain

Italy

Finland

Germany

Canada

Netherlands

Switzerland

Norway

Andorra

Sweden

University

education

Business

executives

Political

leaders

Right to a job

Per cent

Africa Asia Eastern LAC West Europe &

Supportfor

genderequality

The report presents new findings from the World Values Survey showing that public attitudes to gender equality vary greatly between

countries, and region. Respondents in most counties agree that both girls and boys deserve equal access to a university education, but when

asked whether girls and boys have equal rights to a jobmany countries disagree.


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Men make better political leaders than women

Proportion who disagree - 1995-2005

Supportforgenderequality

Since the 1990s, an increasing proportion of people disagree that men make better political leaders than women , showing growing support

for gender equality (from analysis of World Values Survey data).


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Armenia

Burkina Faso

Ethiopia

Ghana

Kenya

Lesotho

Madagascar

Malawi

Tanzania

Uganda

Zambia

Zimbabwe

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Trends in mens attitudes towards wife beating

Sources: Demographic and Health Surveys, all countries with available data for at least 2 timepoints,

retrieved from www.measuredhs.comon 15 November 2013.
http://www.measuredhs.com/http://www.measuredhs.com/


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Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) increased

~ 10% world-wide, 1990-2010

Africa

Asia

Europe

Latin America/Caribbean

North America

Oceania

World

0

20

40

60

80

1994 2014

Source: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Contraceptive Use 2012

Percentage of married (or in union) women 1549 years who are using modern method of contraceptive, 1994 and 2014


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Way forward:

Systematically identify data gaps across the Post 2015 agenda

Rigorously assess pros and cons of the investments required to

fill the gaps

Ensure technical and financial resources for data collectionanalysis, dissemination and utilization are incorporated across

all development efforts

Meanwhile, support more rigorous analysis and utilization ofexisting data for a stronger evidence based policy engagement

Gender Indicators Side Event Presentations

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