Half the WorldGender equality and the millenium development goals [Archives:2005/853/Culture]
By WNC
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) emerged out of a global commitment to reduce world poverty by 2015. At the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000, world leaders endorsed a set of time bound and measurable goals to tackle world poverty, hunger, disease, discrimination against women and create a global partnership for development. The political framework for making the MDGs a reality was forged at the Monterey Conference on Financing for Development where the countries of the North committed to remove trade barriers, provide more aid and debt relief to countries of the South willing to undertake tough political and economic reforms. The MDGs emerged from the recognition of the world community that ending extreme poverty would require concerted action through greater global partnership and dedicated resources supported by sound policies.
The Declaration recognized achievement of gender equality and empowerment of women as central to eradication of poverty. It is argued that “Gender inequality, which remains pervasive worldwide, tends to lower the productivity of labour and the inefficiency of labour allocation in households and the economy, intensifying the unequal distribution of resources. It also contributes to the non-monetary aspects of poverty – lack of security, opportunity and empowerment – that lower the quality of life for both men and women' (The World Bank, pg.1). The MDGs thus provides a strategic opportunity to put the issue of women's exclusion as central to future policy making, and in addition creates a space for women to engage in a policy dialogue on socio economic planning.
Linking Gender Equality to the Millennium Development Goals
The MDGs commits member countries to promote gender equality and women's empowerment as a necessary condition to combat poverty. Persistent gender inequalities is seen as being one of the underlying causes of poverty both from the point of view of limiting women's capacities to contribute fully to growth as well as benefit from development. Women's exclusion and persistent marginalisation from the social, economic and political spheres of the economy results in both their inability to participate fully in development but also limits the extent to which a country can emerge from the poverty trap. While all the eight MDGs endorse this view and recognize the fact that gender equality and women's empowerment is central to eradicate poverty, Goal 3 specifically focuses on achievement of gender equality and women's empowerment.
The goals of the Millennium Declaration are not new, their key contribution is advancing international agreements and commitments on women's rights and girls. The MDGs promote the twelve critical areas identified in the Beijing Platform for Action, adopted by all 189 countries of the United Nations a the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. It also endorses the commitments made in the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979 and ratified by 170 member countries. But the most important feature of the MDGs is the time-bound quantitative targets of actions.
Development Planning in Yemen
Yemen was one of eight pilot countries selected by the UN Millennium Project to ensure achievement of MDGs by 2015. Pursuant to this the Ministry of Planning and International Co-operation (MoPIC) took a lead in carrying out the MDG Needs Assessment and Costing. The outcomes of the needs assessment and costing will form the basis for development of the forthcoming Third Five Years Plan for Development and Poverty Reduction (2006-2010). The MoPIC set up five Thematic Working Groups (TWGs) on Macro-Economic Growth & Employment, Health, Education, Infrastructure and Environment along with three groups on Gender, Decentralisation and Civil Society to address cross-cutting issues.
The Women's National Committee (WNC) responsible for gender mainstreaming of national plans, strategies and policies viewed this as an opportunity to integrate gender needs and concerns in the forthcoming planning process. Given WNCs linkages with the grassroots through its branches in the different governorates and programmes, the emphasis was on reflecting the reality of Yemeni women in national policy making. Engendering the MDG Needs Assessment is viewed as a first step in mainstreaming gender in the forthcoming national policy plans. Five parallel TWGs were set up to undertake this agenda and this report attempts to capture the outcomes of this process.
Methodology
Development of the MDG Needs Assessment was perceived as an ongoing process of building people's capacities in adopting a gender analysis and application of that analysis to their specific issue and context. The TWGs prepared the zero draft in October pursuant to which a technical team comprising of two international consultants – a gender expert and an economic expert – and two national consultants were brought on board to work with the TWGs between November-January. After review of the zero drafts and discussions with the TWG members, guidelines on how to engender each sector were developed along with the TWG members. All five TWGs addressed themselves to the following key questions:
– What is the gaps in women's participation and access in each sector?
– What are the barriers to women's participation?
– What are the interventions to redress gender inequality?
In pursuing these questions the TWG groups undertook:
– Review of literature on MDGs and macro economic models
– Analysis of Women's status in Yemen in the context of MDG targets
– Calculated costs based on coverage targets and investment model to support gender equality interventions
Framework of Analysis
In undertaking a gender analysis some key assumptions were made by the group which we are explained briefly here. It is a well known fact that women experience poverty much more than men. Social roles and relations ascribe different roles and responsibilities to men and women. Social norms and structures re-inforce this gender division of labour as a result of which women are responsible for both household responsibilities (reproductive work) such as cooking, care of family, collection of water etc. as well as income generation (productive work). In poor households with scarce resources (human as well as material) women are forced to work much harder and longer to provide for the basic needs of the family. While all members of the household experience income poverty, women are doubly burdened in terms of the social demands made on their labour and time. This is reflected in the poor gender development indicators – low education status of women, low health status in terms of maternal mortality as well as low participation in labour force and employment.
Women's marginalisation and exclusion from the social-economic and political process is not merely due to poverty. While women's low skills and capacities influence their ability to take advantage of newly emerging opportunities, economic empowerment alone will not solve the problem. Gender inequalities exist in all social institutions from the household, community, market as well as state. Also, women have certain specific needs and interests arising from their gender roles and responsibilities which is distinct from men and would need to be integrated in formulating development policy.
Gender inequality influences women's access and control over resources. For example a majority of women in Yemen work in the rural agriculture sector. Many of them are engaged as unpaid family labour and have access to land. But the actual entitlement of the land is often with the male heads of households. Altering gender inequalities and transforming women's situation would require ensuring women's control over resources, not just access. Changing ownership of land to ensure gender equity would require law reform and is bound to take a long time given prevailing social attitudes on ownership of property. However, ensuring new resources (both material and intangible) in the form of credit for agriculture, extention work or capacity building could be used as an opportunity to increase women's access and control over resources.
Starting from this issue, introduction of the status of women in Yemen will be discussed from various aspects, this information is availed based on a study conducted by the Women's National Committee earlier this year. The first part sets the existing policy framework and provisions towards promotion of gender equality goals. This is followed by an analysis of women's situation in the different social, economic and political spheres and achievement of the eight MDG goals. Subsequent section focuses on remedial measures and interventions that can tackle gender inequalities in forthcoming planning processes and finally the financial investment that would be required to ensure this is a reality.
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