Tag: Gender, Women and Girls

New social contract

How to make gender equality work for everyone

By Laura Parry-Davies, Digital Communications Officer, OECD Development Centre

The pandemic has set equal rights for women and girls back significantly. What can the international community do to reverse this trend and put social, economic and physical equality back on track? 

Experts from UN Women, London School of Economics and Political Science, MenCare Global Fatherhood Campaign, and the OECD gathered to discuss next steps for empowering young women and girls as part of the OECD Development Centre’s 60th Anniversary Dialogues. 

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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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Photo by 2Photo Pots on Unsplash
Africa, New social contract

How women stabilise and grow economies in Africa

By Anzetse Were, Senior Economist at FSD Kenya

Women’s contributions to economic output and baseline economic welfare tend to be underestimated due the double injustice of unpaid care work and unpaid work. This double injustice denies women of the compensation, reward, recognition and upward income mobility that come with performing economic tasks – even when the output of those tasks is counted in official calculations. Most often, unpaid care work is neither formally counted as economic output, nor is it compensated. Instead, it is seen as women’s responsibility, due to their gender. This ultimately means that the immense amount of time, effort and skill women (and girls) put into the economy is invisible.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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