PRESENTATIONS

INDICATORS FOR MONITORING GENDER EQUALITY:

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE MDGS

Wednesday 12 March | 1.15 2.30 pm | CR 7 (NLB)

LAUNCH OF THE 2014 MDG GENDER CHART

LIST OF PRESENTATIONS
1 2 3 4
Stefan Schweinfest Acting Director, UN Statistics Division
Recent developments in the area of gender statistics: Launch of the Platform for the Minimum Set of Gender Indicators

Saraswathi Menon, Director of Policy, UN Women

Gender statistics and the MDGs: Presentation of the MDGs Gender Chart

Lucinda O'Hanlon Human Rights Officer, Women's Rights and Gender Section, OHCHR
The human rights consequences of indicator selection: Implications for Post-2015

Bruce Campbell Director of the Technical Division, UNFPA

How inequality and vulnerability shape data gaps?

Minimum Set of Gender Indicators

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

United Nations Statistics Division

58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

Background
Internationally-agreed indicators to monitor gender equality
and womens empowerment Gender indicators (52) Gender indicators related to national norms (11)

Five domains

Economic structures, participation in productive activities and

access to resources Education Health and related services Human rights of women and the girl child Public life and decision-making

58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

Development of the Minimum Set of Inter-agency and Expert Group on Gender Indicators Data Platform Gender Statistics
(IAEG-GS)
1st IAEG-GS meeting: developing a common dissemination platform specifically geared to increase accessibility and promote the use of gender statistics and indicators at the global and national levels Indicators approved by the UN Statistical Commission

2006

2006

2007-2011

2012

2013

2014

Developing indicators through the Advisory Group on Global Gender Statistics and Indicators Database

Indicators agreed by the IAEG-GS

Online data platform available

58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

Organization of indicators in Tiers

Tier I

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

International data compilation

Tier II Tier III

Indicators conceptually clear, with an agreed international definition, but not yet regularly produced by countries

Promoting capacity building activities

Indicators for which international standards need still to be developed and not regularly produced by countries

Methodological developments e.g., EDGE project

58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

Gender Data Platform

Improve access to data and methods Contribution from 14 partner agencies Data for all Tier I indicators (35)

58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

Data availability Tier I indicators (35 inds)

Average number of countries with data, by area Indicators, by number of data points, 1990-2012

144
Average # countries data are available for
58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

Features of the Gender data platform (1)

Country and indicator dashboard

58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

Features of the Gender data platform (2)

Downloadable data in accessible format

Accompanying metadata

Data availability report

58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

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

58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

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 in order 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 purpose to track progress on the MDGs. This is the fourth edition of the Gender Chart and we in the UN system have made 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 report comes out every July and is prepared by the Inter-agency and Expert Group on MDGs which is composed of all the UN agencies in charge of monitoring the MDG goals and targets. The Gender Chart is an addendum to the MDG report and traditionally it has been issued every two years, usually around the time of the launch of the MDG report or shortly thereafter. We thought that this year, in the spirit of public accountability, it was important that member states and civil society have access to the latest data on gender equality, womens rights and womens empowerment in order to inform the debate during CSW. This is, therefore, a special edition of the Gender Chart produced by the UN Statistics Division and UN-Women with contributions from other agencies, such as ILO, UNESCOs Institute for Statistics, UNAIDS and OECD. I would like to express our gratitude for this collaboration. In the time we have, I can only highlight a few critical issues that emerge from the picture that the Gender Chart 2014 gives us. I do hope that you will all take the time to delve into the chart and draw your own conclusions and that this will help you not only in the discussions in the days to come but also help you push for public action that will make a difference .
1

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 on womens poverty. 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 the gender gaps in some regions and how persistent they are over time. In South Asia for example, the gender gap has actually increased between 2000 and 2012. In North Africa, for example, less than 1 in 5 women are employed compared to slightly more than two-thirds of men. In sub-Saharan Africa, 85% of working women are in vulnerable forms of employment, compared to about 70% of men. Occupational segregation, gender wage gaps, womens disproportionate burden of unpaid care and discrimination in employment are some of the causes of womens disadvantages in the labour market. This is a key aspect of womens rights that needs to be addressed in order to reduce poverty and empower women. On Goal 2: This is probably the area where there has been the most progress as girls have reached parity with boys in primary education at the global level. Global figures, however, mask wide variations between regions. Yesterday the DG of UNESCO told us that in sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest girls will not
2

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 to womens leadership, voice and participation in all spheres -- the private sector, local governments and in households. For all this we need better data and better ways to measure womens participation in decision-making. In monitoring goal 3 we decided to take a leap. There is widespread consensus that violence against women and girls was a missing target in the MDGs. The excuse used was that we did not have enough data. Well, now we do! It might not be perfect, but it is certainly no worse than many other statistics that are currently being used in making policies that affect peoples lives. It is clear that VAW is pervasive in all regions. In high income countries for example, nearly one in 4 women has experienced intimate partner violence at some point in her life. Globally, it is nearly 1 in 3 women. This is a violation of women and girls rights that can no longer be tolerated. For post-2015, a target on violence against women and girls cannot simply be crafted as reduce by x%. Instead, in line with human rights principles and commitments, we must call for eradicating violence against women and girls in all its forms. Goal 5: reveals that although there has been progress on reducing maternal deaths, this progress has been painfully slow and this is one target that we are
3

likely to miss by a long shot. This is despite the fact that most of these deaths are preventable. Prevention starts with women and girls enjoying sexual and reproductive health and rights, including eradicating child marriage. Here are some telling statistics from the Gender Chart: Approximately 80 per cent of maternal deaths could be averted if women had 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 Latin America abortions alone are responsible for 12% of all maternal deaths. There are more than 140 million women who are married or in union and would 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 alone, 380,000 young women became infected by HIV, compared to 180,000 young men. These facts yet again underline the unequal power relations between women and men that results in the inability of young women to negotiate safe sex with their partners. Again, this goes to the heart of sexual and reproductive health and rights and the need for comprehensive sexuality education for girls and boys. This also highlights how interconnected the achievement of the MDGs goals and targets are when looked at from the perspective of people. On Goal 7: while progress has been made towards the water target, but the same cannot be said for sanitation. As mentioned in the gender chart, access to sanitation is important for womens and girls safety, dignity and health. Women and girls need more privacy and time than men when they use toilets in schools, at home and in public spaces. They may have small children in their care. They need safety to access outside toilets. They may need multiple daily visits during menstruation. So responding to womens and girls needs must be a conscious part of setting targets and developing infrastructure and policies.
4

Finally, I will touch on the last goal Goal 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 given the 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 as mortality, 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 work through time use surveys. But now we do have the 9 indicators endorsed by the Statistical Commission on violence against women and a large number of countries are collecting time use information. The work of the Inter-Agency Expert Group on Gender Statistics is making huge breakthroughs. And we are all collaborating, through initiatives such as EDGE, to push the methodological frontier by work at the national level so that all these advances made by the international statistical community can be integrated into national statistical systems. And, third there is a gap in policy responses to what statistics tell us. I think I need to point to no more than the dismal record on goal 5. Why is maternal mortality a lagging MDG? We know what needs to be done. We have an opportunity with the post-2015 agenda to close all three of these gaps. I do believe that at this CSW we can and must take a huge step forward. Thank you very much.

Millennium Development Goals Gender Chart 2014

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

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Goal 6: Combat HIV, malaria and other diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Goal 8: Global partnership for development

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 prominent panellists. 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 consultation on governance with the following words: In 2000, the process for selecting the MDGs was opaque and, if I may say s o, technocratic. Proposals that lacked quantifiable measures and cross-national datasets 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 an approach of treasuring what we measured and discussing recommendations for the post 2015 framework which would align more closely with our hope to rather measure what we treasure. And to be clear, for OHCHR, and I would venture for the United Nations as a whole, we treasure our pursuit of ensuring fundamental human rights for every single human being. This is indivisible from our collective efforts towards sustainable development, and peace and security. 3. The concise nature of the MDGs, with a limited set of goals and indicators was part of its strength. However, there was a lack of transparency in the selection of the priorities set out in the MDG project, and for human rights advocates, the lack of alignment with human rights standards raised serious concerns. Added to this was the fact that the MDG targets and indicators were adopted as national planning targets rather than global goals, which was their original intention. As national planning targets, the MDG project had unintended, and sometimes perverse, consequences. 4. And even as international aspirations, the targets and indicators fell short of what States were already obliged to do under international human rights law. This had particularly important consequences for women. For instance, a. MDG 3 on gender equality has been widely criticized for its reductionist approach to womens empowerment. Including only sex ratios in education, participation in non-agricultural wage employment, and political participation at the national level, this goal undermined the indivisibility of womens rights

as articulated in CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action, among other international standards. The fact that there were no indicators on genderbased violence nor on womens unpaid work was a powerful signal that womens 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 goal formulation, the agenda was narrowed from sexual and reproductive rights as articulated in the human rights conferences of the 90s, to a focus on maternal 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 rights requirements. 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 to improved sanitation fails to capture womens specific needs, especially as regards menstrual hygiene. 5. Different reasons might explain the choice of indicators in the MDGs. Some indicator choices may have reflected political agendas of the time. Other choices may have been more technocratic -- choosing indicators which reflected data already collected on a wide scale. And there may have been other reasons. 6. The choice of indicators matters. We have seen with the MDGs that the indicators chosen have affected priority setting and as a consequence funding flows. This narrow focus on meeting the targets through the chosen indicators has sometimes occurred without due regard for the more holistic vision of the Goal or the Millennium Declaration, not to mention human rights obligations. 7. For post 2015, we need a better process. Todays event is an important moment to share some of the ways that we are trying to put a better process into motion. We need to understand why indicators are chosen and have an open and transparent discussion about whether the chosen indicators offer us enough information about whether a target has been achieved. OHCHR has developed proposals of criteria to guide indicator selection (SLIDE) 8. I will just touch on a couple of themes that emerge from these criteria.

9. Indicators for measuring compliance with human rights standards require attention to 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 an example, 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 rights standards. 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 approach means challenging the notion that indicators and statistics are the domain only of numbers specialists. No doubt, we need the specialists to help determine what is possible. But we also need other voices that speak to womens actual experience and challenge us to gather data which better reflects that experience. OHCHR commends the efforts presented today as critical steps for ensuring better indicator selection in the post 2015 framework. For OHCHR, this is crucial -- we will spend an inordinate amount of time agreeing on goals and targets -- but if we do not get the indicators right, especially for women and girls, there can, or will be, be serious human rights consequences. 12. Thank you.

Indicators for monitoring gender equality: Lessons learned from the MDGs

Commission on the Status of Women New York, 12 March 2014

Criteria for selecting indicators

Criteria Relevance of indicator to theme Saliency/ communicability Questions How closely does a proposed indicator reflect the theme? 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?
Are the data reliable, valid and externally verifiable? Would the target/indicator signal appropriate policy choices and provide a useful standard for active monitoring? Does it require fair progress by all countries or, if not, is a complementary target/indicator available for other countries? Do the proposed indicators, taken as a whole, help to measure the actual commitment and fiscal and policy effort that Member States dedicate to achieving agreed post-2015 outcomes? Does it have an equality focus or disaggregated targets? Does it create perverse incentives and, if so, can a complementary target/indicator be adopted to overcome this?

Robustness, reliability, validity Action-orientation

Universally applicable Measure effort as well as outcome

Equality-sensitivity Absence of perverse incentives

Indicators for monitoring gender equality: Lessons learned from the MDGs Bruce Campbell Director Technical Division UNFPA

Per cent 100

Support for gender equality by region 2004-2009

University education Business executives Political leaders
Russian Federation Romania Ukraine Moldova Bulgaria Poland Serbia Slovenia Jordan Iran Malaysia Georgia India Turkey Indonesia South Korea Viet Nam China Thailand Cyprus Argentina Brazil Mexico Trinidad and Tobago Uruguay Peru

Support for gender equality

90

80
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Egypt Mali Ghana Burkina Faso Morocco South Africa Japan United States Australia France Spain Great Britain Italy Finland Germany Canada Netherlands Switzerland Norway Andorra Sweden

Right to a job

Africa

Asia

Eastern

LAC

West Europe &

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 job many countries disagree.

Men make better political leaders than women Proportion who disagree - 1995-2005

Support for gender equality

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).

Trends in mens attitudes towards wife beating

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Sources: Demographic and Health Surveys, all countries with available data for at least 2 timepoints, retrieved from www.measuredhs.com on 15 November 2013.

Zambia

Kenya
Uganda LesothoEthiopia

Burkina Faso Tanzania Zimbabwe Ghana Armenia Malawi Madagascar

Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) increased ~ 10% world-wide, 1990-2010

Percentage of married (or in union) women 15 49 years who are using modern method of contraceptive, 1994 and 2014
80

North America Latin America/Caribbean

60

Asia Europe

World
Oceania

40

Africa
20

1994

2014

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

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 collection analysis, dissemination and utilization are incorporated across all development efforts Meanwhile, support more rigorous analysis and utilization of existing data for a stronger evidence based policy engagement