Category: Gender, Women and Girls

Woman carrying water, Uganda
Africa, Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

How to close the gender care gap in Sub Saharan Africa

By Madina M. Guloba, Development Economist and Senior Research Fellow at the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) in Kampala, Uganda

Due to gender bias and the patriarchal nature of many African economies, care work, especially unpaid, is considered a woman’s prerogative. This is often intertwined with negative social and cultural norms. In this context, is paternity leave a realistic solution to closing the gender care gap?

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Development Matters
Diverse group of women illustration
Français, Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

Trois pistes d’action concrètes pour combler les lacunes en matière de données sur le genre

Par Deirdre Appel, Community Manager, Clearinghouse, PARIS21 et Fatoumata Ngom, Analyste des politiques, OCDE, Direction de la coopération pour le développement

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Moins de la moitié des données nécessaires au suivi de l’ODD 5, « Parvenir à l’égalité des sexes et autonomiser toutes les femmes et les filles », sont disponibles. Les données sur le genre sont bien plus que des données ventilées par sexe. Selon la Division de la statistique des Nations Unies, elles comprennent des données concernant exclusivement ou principalement les femmes et les filles, couvrent un large éventail de questions et réalités socio-économiques, et donnent un aperçu significatif des différences existant en matière de bien-être entre les femmes et les hommes, les filles et les garçons. Lors de l’élaboration de politiques publiques, si l’on ne parvient pas à saisir et à mesurer les problèmes liés au genre à l’aide de données solides et actualisées, les plus vulnérables de la société resteront au bord du chemin. Avec des données sur le genre en quantité et qualité suffisantes, on peut élaborer des politiques plus équitables qui tiennent compte du facteur genre, contribuant ainsi à une prospérité économique durable pour tous.

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Development Matters
Jharkhand, India -Group of Indian school girls in class
Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

Spiralling gender inequality is not inevitable: here’s how we can fix it

By Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director, Oxfam International

The more we listen to women’s rights leaders across the world, the harder it is to ignore the reality that we have been witnessing profound and staggering setbacks to gender equality.

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Development Matters
Diverse group of women illustration
Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

Three ways to close the gender data gap

By Deirdre Appel, Clearinghouse Community Manager, PARIS21 and Fatoumata Ngom, Policy Analyst, OECD, Development Co-operation Directorate

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Less than half the data needed to monitor SDG 5, “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”, is available. Gender data are about much more than sex-disaggregated data. According to the UN Statistics Division, they include data that affect women and girls exclusively or primarily, they span a wide range of socio-economic issues, and they provide meaningful insight into differences in wellbeing across women and men, and girls and boys. Failing to capture and measure gender issues with sound and timely data when designing policies, leaves the most vulnerable further behind. More and better gender data contribute to more equitable and gender-informed policy, all of which contribute to sustainable economic prosperity for all.

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Development Matters
Ethiopian Woman chopping wood nearby Wenchi Crater Lake, Ethiopia
Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

How Graduation can complement social protection for women in extreme poverty

By Isabel Whisson, Senior Manager, BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative and Bill Abrams, Senior Advisor, Leadership Collaborative to End Ultra-Poverty

Successive crises including COVID-19, climate change, conflicts, and the emerging global food crisis will force 75 to 95 million more people into extreme poverty this year compared to pre-pandemic estimates, according to the World Bank. With 700 million people already living in extreme poverty today (back to 2018 levels), people and societies urgently need social protection to cope with economic shocks.  

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Development Matters
Africa, Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

How women African entrepreneurs can overcome the “beauty pageant problem”

By Miishe Addy, co-Founder and CEO of Jetstream Africa, an e-logistics startup building digital infrastructure for African supply chains.

Growing up, I thought that the women in my family were remarkable. They had strong entrepreneurial instincts, and built businesses from scratch using only their intellect and the resources around them. My eldest aunt founded a thriving restaurant, spun off a catering business, and turned her car into a taxi service while she was at work. Her younger sister founded a crèche and scaled it up to a 200-student primary and secondary school. My great-grandmother, born in the late 1800s, was a self-made businesswoman in Accra and the breadwinner for her family.

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Development Matters
Transformative change for gender equality
Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

What is transformative change for gender equality and how do we achieve it?

By Jenny Hedman, Policy Analyst, Lisa Williams, Gender Team Lead and Laura McDonald, Policy Analyst, Development Co-operation Directorate, OECD

Prioritising gender equality in development is crucial to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. But to make sure the impacts of efforts are truly sustainable requires that imbalances in power relations between men and women are addressed, as well as the visible and invisible structures and norms that uphold these inequalities. This is what we call transformative change.

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How Colombia made abortions legal
Gender, Women and Girls, Latin America and the Caribbean, New social contract

Colombia’s landmark abortion ruling

By Catalina Martínez Coral, Senior Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Center for Reproductive Rights, and spokesperson for the Causa Justa movement

On 21 February 2022, Colombia’s Constitutional Court issued a historic ruling decriminalising abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. After this period, abortion will only be permitted in certain circumstances. This decision was widely celebrated by the feminist movement and other voices in the country, who hailed it as a major step forward not only for women’s rights but also for democracy and social justice. Colombia is now at the forefront of reproductive rights, joining other countries of the global south that today set an example in Latin America and worldwide.

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Development Matters
Building resilience, Covid-19, Gender, Women and Girls

Towards gender-inclusive industrialisation in a post-pandemic world

By Elissa Braunstein, Colorado State University, Elisa Calza and Alejandro Lavopa, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)[1]

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world unlike any other crisis in recent history. During 2020, world gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 3.3%, the deepest global recession in 70 years, with an estimated loss of 255 million full-time employment jobs and an additional 97 million people falling into poverty. The effects were especially severe in developing and emerging industrial economies, which suffered an average estimated output loss of 7.7% compared to 3.9% for industrialised economies, according to the UNIDO Industrial Development Report 2022. Within countries, SMEs were more likely to shut down operations than large firms and suffered larger declines in sales and profits. Across workers, women experienced greater labour-market losses than men.

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Bangladesh graduation commonwealth
Gender, Women and Girls, New social contract

Why intersectional feminism matters for development

By Aviva Stein, Co-founder and Strategic Development Consultant at Catalystas Consulting, an intersectional feminist consulting collective working on international development

The future is female. But it is also climate aware, energy efficient, and well-fed with nutritious and sustainably produced food. It provides equitable access to basic services, education, and economic empowerment – regardless of level of (dis)ability, socioeconomic status, or racial, ethnic, and religious background. While this future may take some time to build, intersectional feminism can play a key role in ensuring we realise the change we envision.

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