Laboratory Certification by Association of Medical Technolo

1

• Taking Action on the Millennium Development
  Goals
• Achieving Gender Equality
• and Empowering Women
• CAW Breakfast
• InterAction Forum
• Geeta Rao Gupta, PhD
• June 1, 2005

2
Goal 3 Promote Gender Equality and
Empower Women

• Target for the Goal
• Eliminate gender disparity
• in primary and secondary education
• preferably by 2005, and
• in all levels of education
• no later than 2015

3
Seven Strategic Priorities

• Strengthen opportunities for postprimary
  education for girls while simultaneously meeting
  commitments to universal primary education
• Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and
  rights
• Invest in infrastructure to reduce womens and
  girls time burdens
• Guarantee womens and girls property and
  inheritance rights
• Eliminate gender inequality in employment
• Increase womens share of seats in national
  parliaments and local government bodies
• Combat violence against girls and women

4
What Will It Take to Achieve Gender Equality and
Womens Empowerment?

• Leadership
• Institutional transformation
• Resources
• Accountability and incentive mechanisms
• Strengthening the womens movement

5
Leadership

• Critical mass of leaders at all levels who
  control levers
• of change, and are committed to gender equality
• Identify
• Cultivate
• Inform
• Hold accountable

6
Institutional Transformation Has Gender
Mainstreaming Worked?

• Conditions for success
• Commitment to gender equality at the highest
  level
• Explicit policy with clear objectives,
  benchmarks, financial
• targets, and coherence with overall
  institutional policy
• Clear mandates, responsibilities, and
  accountability
• mechanisms
• Conceptual clarity about gender and availability
  of
• gender expertise
• Availability of instruments and earmarked
  resources

7
An Analogy

• Twenty years ago, every department in our
  organization might have one computer for 20
  people. At that time, there would be one
  technical person for the whole organization...
  Now, twenty years later, everyone has a computer
  on their desks. Computers have been
  mainstreamed. Does that mean we no longer need
  the one or two technical people who were there
  before? Just the opposite! We now need technical
  departments with different types of
  expertisethose who can attend to immediate
  problems and those who are doing the long-range,
  strategic thinking about the path that technology
  will take. So it should be for gender equality
  expertise (Rivington 2004).

8
Resources

• Adequate financial resources for
• Direct interventions by governments and NGOs
• to implement seven strategic priorities
• Building capacity
• Collecting data
• Evaluating outcomes
• Womens organizations to advocate for change

9
Financing Gender Equality A Gender Needs
Assessment

• Advocacy and policy tools to ensure appropriate
• gender interventions are included and budgeted
  for
• in all sectors during budget formulation/PRSP
• discussions
• Estimation of resources needed to implement
• comprehensive gender interventions across
  multiple
• sectors
• Real resource estimates to feed into
  country-level
• needs assessments

10
Estimated Costs for Promoting Gender Equality in
Tajikistan by Main Activities 2005-15 (US
Millions)
Source UN Millennium Project
11
Accountability and Monitoring Mechanisms

• CEDAW a powerful accountability mechanism
• Strong civil society organizations
• Tools (e.g. gender audits)
• Data and indicators

12
Task Force Recommended Indicators

• Education
• The ratio of female to male completion rates in
  primary, secondary, and tertiary education
• The ratio of female to male gross enrolment rates
  in primary, secondary, and tertiary education
• Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
• Proportion of contraceptive demand satisfied
• Adolescent fertility rate
• Infrastructure
• Hours per day (or year) women and men spend
  fetching water and collecting fuel

13
Task Force Recommended Indicators (contd.)

• Property Rights
• Land ownership by female, male, or jointly held
• Housing title, disaggregated by female, male, or
  jointly held
• Employment
• Share of women in employment, both wage and self-
  employment, by type
• Gender gaps in earnings in wage and
  self-employment
• Participation in national parliaments and local
  government bodies
• Percentage of seats held by women in national
  parliaments
• Percentage of seats held by women in local
  government bodies
• Violence against women
• Prevalence of domestic violence

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Strengthen the Womens Movement

• Heart and soul of social change in womens lives
• Yet, severely under-resourced and embattled
• They need allies!

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Time to Act

• Use upcoming policy opportunities
• G-8 Summit (July)
• High Level Millennium5 Review (September)
• Stay focused for the long-term
• Country-level action is key