Women and Gender Issues

This volume of Progress of the World’s Women asks the question “Who answers to women?” at a pivotal moment. It demonstrates that the Millennium Development Goals and other international commitments to women will only be met if gender-responsive accountability systems are put in place both nationally and internationally. Acknowledging that different groups of women encounter distinct challenges in gaining access to their rights, the publication examines how women, including the most excluded women, are strengthening their capacity to identify accountability gaps and call for redress. This publication was published by UNIFEM, now known as UN Women.

Drawing on information published in the World Population Policies Database, this data booklet provides up-to-date information on government policies on reproductive health issues, including access to family planning, policies to promote sexual and reproductive health of adolescents, laws on abortion and programmes to reduce maternal mortality, for all 193 Member States, 2 Observer States and 2 non-member States of the United Nations. The booklet also provides latest estimates of contraceptive use and unmet need, maternal mortality ratio, antenatal care and delivery care, adolescent fertility and other selected indicators. The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs was established to play an active role in the intergovernmental dialogue on population and development, producing constantly updated demographic estimates and projections for all countries, including data essential for the monitoring of development around the world.

The World Abortion Policies 2013 wall chart provides up-to-date and objective information on abortion policies, that is, legal grounds on which induced abortion is permitted, for each of 193 Member and 3 non-member States of the United Nations. The wall chart includes information on seven legal grounds, namely: (1) to save the life of a woman; (2) to preserve a woman’s physical health; (3) to preserve a woman’s mental health; (4) in case of rape or incest; (5) because of foetal impairment; (6) for economic or social reasons; and (7) on request. The wall chart also includes information on national estimates of induced abortion rate, fertility rate, maternal mortality ratio, level of contraceptive use, unmet need for family planning and Government support for family planning, as well as regional estimates of unsafe abortion.

This teaching manual was developed to enhance the capacity of policymakers, civil society, and academics to assess the gender implications of trade flows and trade policy, and to formulate gender-sensitive policies on gender and trade. It provides a review of theoretical frameworks and empirical studies on the two-way relationship between gender and trade. It applies to Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama). It inter alia covers trade liberalization policies and presents a comparative picture of the socio-economic profiles of the countries. It examines the gender gaps in education, access to resources and opportunities and gender-based violence. It discusses the implications of these gaps for women’s participation in trade.

Migration has major impacts on both the people and the places involved. When supported by appropriate policies, migration can contribute to inclusive and sustainable development in both origin and destination countries, while also benefiting migrants and their families. The International Migration 2019 analyses global and regional levels and trends in international migration, based on the latest estimates of international migrant stock, and investigates the contribution of migration to demographic change. The highlights also discusses international migration policies and provides an overview of normative and legal frameworks on international migration and refugees.

Le journalisme indépendant est en péril. L'érosion rapide des modèles commerciaux qui sous-tendent la durabilité des médias a aggravé la crise de la liberté et de la sécurité des journalistes dans le monde. Au cours des cinq dernières années, environ 85% de la population mondiale a connu un déclin de la liberté de la presse dans leur pays. Même dans les pays ayant une longue tradition de sauvegarde d'un journalisme libre et indépendant, les transformations financières et technologiques ont contraint les organes d'information, en particulier ceux desservant les communautés locales, à fermer. La pandémie de COVID-19 qui a suivi et son impact économique mondial ont exacerbé cette tendance, menaçant désormais de créer un événement de « niveau d'extinction » pour les médias indépendants. L'édition mondiale 2021/2022 de la série phare de rapports sur les tendances mondiales en matière de liberté d'expression et de développement des médias examine ces questions avec un accent particulier sur « le journalisme en tant que bien public ».

Sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health (SRMNAH) is an essential component of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite a steady drop in maternal and newborn deaths since 1990, hundreds of thousands of women and newborns around the world continue to die each year during pregnancy and childbirth: an estimated 289,000 women and about 3 million newborn babies died in 2013 alone. The vast majority of loss of life is due to complications and illnesses that could be prevented with proper antenatal care and the presence of a skilled midwife during delivery. In recognition of the need to improve such realities and overall SRMNAH, this publication focuses on the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of midwifery services and the pivotal role midwifes play within the wider SRMNAH workforce.

For Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, they need to transform the structure of their economy. This, in turn, requires entrepreneurship that innovates. The entrepreneurial landscape in LDCs is dominated by micro and small enterprises with low chances of survival and growth, and scant innovation. While LDCs are part of global value chains, these provide only limited opportunities of entrepreneurship development and upgrading. Most LDCs policies and programmes for entrepreneurship aim at job creation, poverty reduction and women and youth empowerment. For entrepreneurship to be a driving force towards structural transformation, policies need to target and support high-potential firms.

This report provides a comprehensive picture of acute multidimensional poverty to inform the work of countries and communities building a more just future for the global poor. It examines the levels and composition of multidimensional poverty across 109 countries covering 5.9 billion people. It also discusses trends among more than 5 billion people in 80 countries, 70 of which showed a statistically significant reduction in Multidimensional Poverty Index value during at least one of the time periods presented. While the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on developed countries is already an active area of research, this report offers a multidimensional poverty perspective on the experience of developing countries. It explores how the pandemic has affected three key development indicators (social protection, livelihoods and school attendance), in association with multidimensional poverty, with a focus predominantly on Sub-Saharan Africa. It profiles disparities in multidimensional poverty with new research that scrutinizes estimates disaggregated by ethnicity or race and by caste to identify who and how people are being left behind. It also explores the proportion of multidimensionally poor people who live in a household in which no female member has completed at least six years of schooling and presents disparities in multidimensional poverty by gender of the household head.

On the eve of International Women’s Day, UNESCO launched a one-of-a-kind and richly illustrated publication entitled A Braided River: The Universe of Indian Women in Science. The book showcases the fact that much of India’s success in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) can be attributed to the passion and talent of its women scientists. It also examines in details the challenges they face and provides actionable recommendations to promote and retain women in science education and careers. In addition to insightful research and findings, the book features captivating photographic portraits of some 60 Indian women scientists and provides suggestions to enhance their participation in science research and industry. The substance of the Report has been developed by an experienced team led by Rao R. Bhavani, UNESCO Chair in Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India, under the guidance of UNESCO New Delhi.

L'Indice mondial de pauvreté multidimensionnelle (IPM) produit par le Programme des Nations Unies pour le développement (PNUD) et l'Initiative d'Oxford concernant la pauvreté et le développement humain mesure la pauvreté en tenant compte de diverses privations subies par les personnes au cours de leur vie quotidienne, notamment leur mauvaise santé, une éducation insuffisante et leur faible niveau de vie. Le rapport examine le niveau et la composition de la pauvreté multidimensionnelle dans 109 pays couvrant 5,9 milliards de personnes et présente une ventilation par ethnie/race/caste concernant 41 pays disposant d'informations.

The objective of this recommendation is to establish a mechanism that enables governments, industry partners, consumers, and all other relevant stakeholders to make risk-informed decisions, overcome information asymmetry, communicate, and achieve accountability for sustainability claims (including those for regulatory compliance) and anchor business models to responsible business conduct. It does so by providing industry actors with a set of internationally agreed practices for the harmonized collection and transmission of data for tracking and tracing materials, products, and processes across an entire value chain, including all involved facilities and intermediaries, and includes related information about the sustainability performance of these value chain participants. While specifically developed for the garment and footwear industry, such internationally agreed practices for advancing traceability and transparency have applications in cross-industry value chains, thus contributing to the achievement of several goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda, and particularly Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 on responsible consumption and production.

Without tackling biased gender social norms, we will not achieve gender equality or the Sustainable Development Goals. Biased gender social norms—the undervaluation of women’s capabilities and rights in society—constrain women’s choices and opportunities by regulating behaviour and setting the boundaries of what women are expected to do and be. Biased gender social norms are a major impediment to achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. Gender bias is a pervasive problem worldwide. The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) quantifies biases against women, capturing people’s attitudes on women’s roles along four key dimensions: political, educational, economic and physical integrity. The index, covering 85 percent of the global population, reveals that close to 9 out of 10 men and women hold fundamental biases against women. Nearly half the world’s people believe that men make better political leaders than women do, and two of five people believe that men make better business executives than women do. Gender biases are pronounced in both low and high Human Development Index (HDI) countries. These biases hold across regions, income, level of development and cultures—making them a global issue.

This study investigated women’s participation in the economy and trade by distinguishing between women’s different economic roles as workers and entrepreneurs/business owners, and between different economic sectors such as agriculture, industry, and services. Specifically, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) carried out a qualitative analysis of women’s participation in the economy and in trade in selected subsectors of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) during April-May 2022. The olive oil sector was selected from agriculture due to its major role in Palestinian society and women’s significant participation in this sector. The food products sector was selected from industry because it is traditionally a major sector in which women are highly involved. Finally, the information and communications technology (ICT) sector was selected from services due to its significant potential for future growth prospects and women’s employment in the OPT.

This second edition of Born Free and Equal takes into account developments since the publication of the first edition in 2012, including decisions by the United Nations, and regional and national human rights bodies. It sets out the source and scope of the legal obligations of Member States in respect of the rights of LGBTI people, and also integrates, for the first time, recommendations in respect of the rights of intersex persons. It is designed as a tool for States, to help them better understand the nature of their obligations and the steps required to meet them, as well as for civil society activists, human rights defenders and others seeking to hold Governments to account for breaches of international human rights law.

This is the official report submitted to the General Assembly by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on its Seventy-third session (1–19 July 2019), Seventy-fourth session (21 October–8 November 2019), Seventy-fifth session (10–28 February 2020).

This is the official report submitted to the General Assembly by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on its Seventieth session (2–20 July 2018), Seventy-first session (22 October–9 November 2018), Seventy-second session (18 February–8 March 2019).

A year and a half into the pandemic, progress towards expanding women’s rights and opportunities continues to be tested and impeded. Women’s economic losses have not rebounded, hunger is on the rise, and school closures threaten to destroy girl’s educational gains. Women’s participation in government, research and resource management remains far from equal. Vulnerable groups of women - including migrants, those with disabilities and those affected by conflict – are too frequently left out and left behind and disparities between rich and poor countries are preventing equal access to lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. But swift action and targeted interventions can halt the decline and drive forward equal rights for women and girls. The 2021 Gender Snapshot: Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals brings together the latest evidence on gender equality across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals, taking stock of the progress achieved and the challenges that remain.

Are we on track to achieve Goal 5? On 24 and 25 September 2019, Heads of State and Government gathered at UN Headquarters in New York to comprehensively review progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. To inform those discussions, UN Women and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs have released “Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2019”. This publication brings together the latest available evidence on gender equality across all 17 Goals, underscoring the progress made as well as the action still needed to accelerate progress.

This is the official record of the report of the Commission on the Status of Women on its fifty-eighth session for the period of 15 March 2013 and 10-21 March 2014.

This manual aims at providing practical guidance on how to achieve gender-equitable small-scale fisheries in the context of the implementation of the SSF Guidelines. Women play a key role, in particular in post-harvest activities relating to processing, marketing and trade, but their role remains undervalued. Within the broader context of the FAO Blue Growth Initiative, this publication therefore contributes to SP 1 Outcome 101 - Member countries and their development partners make explicit political commitments in the form of policies, investment plans, programmes, legal frameworks and the allocation of necessary resources to eradicate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. The target audience for this manual is twofold: (i) policy makers/public administrations working on small-scale fisheries will be informed about ways to ensure gender-sensitive policies, investments and small-scale fisheries sector support, (ii) CSOs/Fisheries organizations will receive guidance on how to actively support the empowerment of women in small-scale fisheries.

This publication provides a comprehensive and authoritative assessment of progress, gaps and challenges in the implementation of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from a gender perspective. The report monitors global and regional trends in achieving the SDGs for women and girls based on available data. It furthermore provides practical guidance for the implementation of gender-responsive policies and accountability processes.

Official records of the Report of the Commission on the Status of Women on the sixty-fourth session (22 March 2019 and 9 March 2020). The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The CSW is instrumental in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women. During its annual two-week session, representatives of UN Member States, civil society organizations and UN entities gather at UN headquarters in New York to discuss progress and commit to further action. The outcomes and recommendations of each session are forwarded to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Commission’s parent body, for follow-up.

As the world learns to live with COVID-19, to emerge from the current crisis, and to “build back better”, UN Women’s new Feminist Plan for Sustainability and Social Justice is a visionary but practical roadmap for putting gender equality, social justice, and sustainability at the centre of the recovery. The Feminist Plan maps the ambitious and transformative policies – on livelihoods, care, and the environment – that are needed to build a more equal and sustainable future. To get there, calls for context-specific policy pathways, tailored political strategies, and financing. The plan identifies key levers that can create change and the actors at global, national, local levels that need to take action to move towards this vision.