Problem Statement
According to the UN’s Progress on
SDG: The Gender Snapshot 2023 report 158 million women and girls globally may
be pushed into poverty as a direct result of climate change; food insecurity
caused by climate change. An additional
USD$360 billion per year is needed to achieve gender equality and women’s
empowerment across the key global goals in 2030.[1]
Emerging data is showing that insufficient
data and evidence to monitor advances and incentivize policy actions are other
major impediments to achieving gender equality; as countries lack 44% of the
data required to track SDG5.[2]
It is against this backdrop, we ask the
question, what are the tools for measuring WEE and how can governments institutionalise
compliance in monitoring and evaluation impact of WEE and Gender Equality
across sectors including private sector?
What are the tools for measuring WEE?
There are several widely used tools
and indicators for measuring women's economic empowerment. Some of the recent
and prominent ones include:
1. Africa Gender Development Index (AGDI) - The African Gender Development Index (AGDI) was
introduced by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in 2004 to measure gaps
between the status of African men and women and assess the progress made by
African governments in implementing gender policies. The AGDI consists of two complementary parts:
the Gender Status Index (GSI) and the African Women’s Progress Scoreboard
(AWPS). The GSI covers the aspects of gender relations that can be measured
quantitatively, while the AWPS captures qualitative issues in relation to the
performance of gender policies of African Governments. The GSI consists of three blocks: the social
power, which measures human capabilities; the economic power, which measures
economic opportunities; and the political power, which measures voice or
political agency. The components and sub-components of the three blocks are
measured using 44 indicators, divided into seven components and 11
sub-components.[3]
The AWPS focuses
on issues such as women’s rights that cannot be quantified using conventional
statistics. It tracks government progress in ratifying regional and
international conventions, documents and treaties regarding gender equality and
women’s advancement and empowerment, and also in incorporating the principles of
these conventions and documents in national laws, programmes and policies.[4]
These regional conventions, documents and treaties are: the 1990 African
Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child; the 2001 NEPAD Framework
Document; the 2003 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights
on the Rights of Women in Africa; and the 2004 Solemn Declaration on Gender
Equality in Africa.[5]
The key international instruments included are: CEDAW; the 1989 Convention on
the Rights of the Child and its optional protocols adopted in 2000; the ICPD
Programme of Action; the Millennium Declaration of 2000, which defined eight
Millennium Development Goals; the Beijing Platform for Action; the 1999
optional protocol to CEDAW; and the 2000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and
Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children.[6]
The AWPS also tracks progress made by countries in implementing three Security
Council resolutions on Peace and Security: resolution 1325 of 2000, resolution
1820 of 2008, and resolution 1888 of 2009, and Conventions 100, 111 and 182,
adopted by members of the International Labour Organization. The AWPS is
composed of four blocks: the three GSI blocks, plus women’s rights.[7]
2. Extractive Industries and Transparency
Initiative (EITI) - The EITI is a global
mineral resource governance framework aimed at promoting transparency
accountability and good mineral resource governance in resource extracting
economies and in the process act as a tool to fight corruption, mismanagement
of natural resource wealth, poverty, weak corporate and public governance and
opaqueness.[8] Multi-stakeholders
groups at national level groups are responsible for implementing EITI at a
national level in member countries.
3. Gender-related Development Index
(GDI): The GDI measures gender inequality in
three dimensions - health (measured by female and male life expectancy at
birth), knowledge (measured by female and male expected years of schooling),
and command over economic resources (measured by female and male estimated
earned income). It provides an overall
measure of gender disparities in a country.
4. Gender Inequality Index (GII): The GII measures gender inequalities in reproductive
health, empowerment, and economic status. It takes into account maternal
mortality rates, adolescent birth rates, educational attainment, representation
of women in economic and political decision-making roles, and labour force
participation rates.
5. Women's Economic Empowerment Index
(WEEI): The WEEI is a composite index that
assesses the economic empowerment of women based on indicators such as labour
force participation, educational attainment, representation in decision-making
roles, and access to financial resources and assets. It provides a
comprehensive measure of women's economic status.
6. Social Institutions and Gender Index
(SIGI): The SIGI measures discrimination
against women in social institutions across various dimensions, including
family code, physical integrity, civil liberties, access to resources and
assets, and ownership rights. It provides insights into the structural barriers
that women face in achieving economic empowerment.
7. Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI): The GGGI measures gender-based gaps in four key areas -
economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and
survival, and political empowerment. It provides an overall ranking of
countries based on gender equality.
These
tools and indices help track progress in women's economic empowerment and
identify areas that require attention and intervention. However, it is not exhaustive as new tools
keep emerging in response to complex dimensions in society.
