Pacific Regional Millennium Development Goals Specialist
UNDP Pacific Sub-Regional Centre (PSRC)
2nd Flr, YWCA Bldg, Ratu Sukuna Park, Suva
Tel: 679-3300399
Fax: 679-3301976
PACIFIC REGIONAL WORKSHOP ON ADVANCING WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENTS
19-21 April 2006
Rarotonga,
Cook Islands
Objective
- Enhance awareness of the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs
- Highlight some of the dimensions of inequality addressed under Goal 3 + way forward
- Hopefully, this will link the workshop discussions to the MDG achievement framework
- Commitment by 189 Heads of States & Governments at the Millennium Summit
- Focus on specific dimensions of human development
- Peace & security
- Human Rights
- Reproductive Health
- Governance
- Issue of countries in crisis & post-crisis
8 Major Goals … 2015
- 1.Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- 2.Achieve universal primary education
- 3.Promote gender equality & empower women
- 4.Reduce child mortality
- 5.Improve maternal health
- 6.Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases
- 7.Ensure environmental sustainability
- 8.Develop a global partnership for development
MDG Goal 3: Promote gender equality & empower women
- Target: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015
- Indicators:
- Ratio of boys to girls in primary, secondary and tertiary education
- Ratio of literate females to males 15-24 years old
- Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector
- Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament
Global observationson gender equality & women empowerment
- Generally, economic and non-economic inequality has increased in many parts of the world
- Certain forms of inequality have become more profound and more complex in recent times
- There is no country that treats its women the same as men
- Women do not have the same opportunities as men
- Despite some headway, women are still disadvantaged in economic and political life
- Persistent gender gaps in:
- Access to education
- Decent employment
- Fair & equal remuneration
- > women in the workforce masks the deterioration in employment conditions of women, resulting in jobs with lower pay
General observations
- Women’s unequal access to economic & non-economic opportunities :
- lead to their lower status in society
- Often results in abuse and sexual exploitation, and making them voiceless on issues that impact on their lives
- Focus on the availability of statistics to address gender concerns
- Include disaggregated statistics on health, population, education and work
- New focus on statistics on such aspects as violence against women, poverty, power & decision-making and human rights
- Overriding concern in the Report about the large number of countries who do not report by sex on wages, births and deaths
Gender inequalities are often exacerbated by:
- Lack of Economic well-being, relating to poverty & hunger (Goal 1)
- Lack of Social development, such as
- unequal access to education (Goal 2)
- Fewer employment opportunities / decision-making (Goal 3)
- Lack of adequate health services (Goal 4 & 5)
- vulnerability to infectious diseases such as STI and HIV/AIDS (Goal 6)
Gender inequalities exacerbated by:
- Lack of Sustainable development (Goal 7)
- limited access to safe drinking water
- Unequal access to improved sanitation
- Low control over environmental and energy resources
- Slum dwellers / squatter settlements
- Extreme inequalities and scarce resources often result in conflicts (women and girls more affected)
- Gender imbalances and inequalities across sectors and society
- Women are hit harder by poverty and hardship
- Low access to paid employment for women; poor working conditions, limited access to ICT and low control of trade & market forces
- Under-representation of women in leadership positions, with men continuing to dominate in decision-making at the highest level
- Issues of
- Gender-based violence
- access to reproductive & primary health services
- HIV/AIDS, STI, NCDs
- The goal of social justice and equity must be explicitly incorporated in policies, programmes, legal frameworks
- Increase awareness of the importance of, and provide education
- Enhance equal access to and treatment in work and property rights (more and better employment opportunities for women,
- Decent working conditions: equality, security and dignity
- Legislate to protect women’s equal rights to property, assets, etc, taking account of cultural norms & values
- Improve awareness of and access to women’s reproductive health services and rights
- Prevent practices that are harmful to girls’ and women’s sexual and reproductive health and promote rights through legislation in compliance with international conventions (CEDAW, Beijing Platform of Action)
- Address the plight of women migrant workers
- Effective monitoring and implementation of laws protecting women’s human rights
- Mobilization of stakeholders
- Institutional strengthening & reform (mechanism for adequate women representation at all levels of government + training)
- Support to national women’s machineries / appropriate budget
- Lobbying & advocacy (awareness campaigns)
- Address violence against women
- Data collection & monitoring (gender disaggregated data)
- Address systemic issues
Conclusion
- If more women are better educated,
- and have better health care,
- There can be more women in better jobs,
- Increasing higher levels of decision-making
- If there is more support and training opportunities, it is possible to have more women in Parliament …
Thank you …
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