* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Fifteen years ago, the United Nations put forth an ambitious set of goals to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. These goals, called the Millennium Development goals (MDGs), took effect in 2000 and “expire” at the end of this year. The MDGs called for bold advancements by the global community, including eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, reducing child mortality, and combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and a handful of other diseases. Over the past 15 years, NGOs, governments, foundations and philanthropists, and multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations focused their energy and conributed funding toward achieving these goals.
As we close out the final chapter on the MDGs, it’s important to take a look at where the goals succeeded and where they fell short. Sadly, we find the biggest failure of all to be the lack of progress on MDG3, the global goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
This is not to say the MDGs were unsuccessful. In some ways, the goals – and efforts from the global community – proved to be successful in tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges. For example, research shows that global poverty has been cut in half, more children are living past the age of five thanks to advances in health care and nutrition, and maternal mortality has significantly decreased around the world.
This progress should indeed be celebrated as critical toward creating a fairer, more equitable world. But on “Promoting gender equality and empower women,” the stated aim of goal three, we fell woefully short.
This goal was measured largely by whether or not we increased the number of girls enrolled in primary school – to be on parity with boys enrolled in primary school – and on this measure, we succeeded. Now, more girls than ever before in history are enrolled in primary school, a huge accomplishment indeed. But many girls aren’t making it on through secondary school, and even more simply aren’t gaining the skills and support they need to enter the workforce and become active, contributing members of their communities. They’re enrolled in school, but aren’t getting the education they deserve—targeted for violence en route to or, worse still, within the classroom; dropping out entirely due to pregnancy, marriage or heavy chore burdens at home.
And while we’ve made significant strides on increasing gender equality in political representation, another area that was measured under the MDGs, only one in five members are women, according to the Secretary General’s recent report.
We still have a way to go. Women and girls are still more likely to live in poverty than men, still face discrimination in public and in their homes, and still face disadvantages in the labor market. As the Secretary General’s report states:
The fundamental causes of inequality between women and men must be rectified. While much progress has been made towards women’s and girls’ equality in education, employment and political representation over the last two decades, many gaps remain, particularly in areas that were not addressed in the MDGs. To achieve universal realization of gender equality and empowerment of women, it is critical to address the key areas of gender inequality, including gender-based discrimination in law and in practice; violence against women and girls; women’s and men’s unequal opportunities in the labor market; the unequal division of unpaid care and domestic work; women’s limited control over assets and property; and women’s unequal participation in private and public decision-making. Gender perspectives should be integrated fully into all goals of the post-2015 development agenda.
We’re at an important turning point, one in which we’re reflecting on what we got right and what we got wrong in 2000, and what we absolutely must do to ensure the next set of goals are a resounding success and that progress will be shared equally, by all people, everywhere. A big part of that will be ensuring we have the right tools to measure our progress, measuring our successes – or failures – correctly.
To ensure we’re measuring what’s most important to girls around the world, ICRW, in collaboration with other global institutions, is calling for relevant and quality statistics that are, at a very minimum, disaggregated by sex, in five-year age bands, income, disability, marital status, race and ethnicity. Additionally, we are pushing governments to commit to funding, collecting and preparing these statistics as a matter of standard practice.
We know that the MDGs missed a critical opportunity to tackle some of the biggest challenges faced by women, and especially by adolescent girls--early and forced marriage, gender-based violence, and female genital mutilation, and sexual and reproductive health and rights to name a few. ICRW has worked with other leading international NGOs to put forth a host of recommendations that would tackle these and other challenges, which have limited global progress for far too long. For we know better than anyone that investments in global health and development, in world peace and sustainable growth, will be for nothing if they do not benefit the half of the global population that has been left behind for too long.
This September, when the UN General Assembly convenes to mark the passing of the MDGs and usher in the next global development framework, we will be joining with our partners and women and girls around the world in calling for equality and human rights to be at the center of the next agenda. Because we know from experience that excluding them will not only miss the mark, it could inhibit our efforts for decades to come.
