Maya Morsy

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Millennium Development Goals And Womens
Empowerment

• Maya Morsy
• UNIFEM Coordinator
• Egypt
• Cairo 10th September

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The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were
adopted by 189 member states in the Millennium
Summit of United Nations in 2000. These states
have pledged to achieve the MDGs by 2015.
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The Millennium Development Goals

•    
• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a global partnership for development

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Analysis ofMDGs

• The MDGs are
• A set of targets
• of a quantitative nature
• that are time-bound
• and express key elements of human
  development

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Analysis ofMDGs

• ? the MDGs fail to specify the developmental
  effect on women despite their important role as
  beneficiaries and contributors
• 2 out of 8 goals directly address women (Goal 3
  and Goal 5). Yet, these goals do not achieve
  fairness to women as they concentrate on the
  quantitative aspect of these goals and their
  indicators

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Analysis ofMDGs
A notable example of the gender-blindness in the
MDGs is regarding the income-poverty eradication
goal  
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Analysis ofMDGs
Nowhere does this goal indicate that the
proportion of poor and hungry women is higher
than men. It is a well known fact that two thirds
of the worlds poor are women, and neglecting to
address this issue means that even if extreme
poverty is halved by 2015, two thirds of the
remaining will be women.
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Analysis ofMDGs
The selective focus of the MDGs presents a
narrower perspective than that of the Beijing
Platform for Action (BPFA) that was influenced by
the advocacy of womens movements. ? Thus, the
BPFA is more relevant to achieving equality and
empowering women than the MDGs
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The MDGs in Arab Countries

• The Arab countries have made progress towards
• many of the MDGs through initiatives that led to
  
• - A rise in life expectancy,
• - A decline in child and maternal mortality,
• - A fall in illiteracy rate,
• - And a large proportion of the people are
  enjoying access to safe water and sanitation

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• However

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The MDGs in Arab Countries

• - The progress towards achieving the MDGs is
  not a constant stable one. Uneven progress,
  ranging from fast to regressing reflects the
  dissimilarity between the countries of the
  region.
• - Differences in human development within
  countries are apparent as well.

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The MDGs in Arab Countries
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The MDGs in Arab Countries

• Based on the available data, the countries
  of the region fall in three groups almost equal
  in size
• ? one-third are on track or ahead of the curve
  for reaching the 2015 targets,
• one-third are stagnant or regressing and are
  unlikely to meet the MDGs without concerted
  efforts
• and one-third lack relevant and reliable data

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MDGs Tracking Indicators in Egypt

• Goals Met
• Percentage of population below 1 per day
• Poverty gap (using national poverty line)
• Ratio of girls-to-boys in secondary education
• Ratio of girls-to-boys in tertiary education
• Prevalence of malaria
• Proportion of population with access to water

• Probable
• Percentage of population under national poverty
  line
• Net enrollment in primary education
• Ratio of illiterate women-to-men (15-24 years)
• Infant mortality rate
• Maternal mortality rate

• Challenges
• Share of women in wage employment in the
  non-agriculture sector
• Percentage of seats held by women in
  Consultative Assembly
• Percentage of seats held by women in Peoples
  Council

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Achieving Goal 3 Promoting
gender equality and empowering women
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• Goal 3 aims at eliminating
• gender disparities in primary and
• secondary education preferably by
• 2005 and to all levels of education
• no later than 2015.

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Achieving Goal 3
Although the region might not fulfill the MDG
target by 2005, indicators strongly suggest that
it will do so by 2015.
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Achieving Goal 3

• The potential for achieving gender equality in
  primary schools varies within the region from one
  country to another.
• Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, and the Occupied
  Palestinian Territory are already close to
  gender parity
• Nine countries are expected to meet the target.
• Another seven need to accelerate their rate of
  advancement,
• And two countries need to reverse declining
  trends.

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Achieving Goal 3

• Gender inequalities are also present in
  employment, where the average share of employed
  women does not exceed 20 in most cases. The
  lowest womens participation is 7 in Yemen, and
  no country surpasses 30
• In the legislative arena, gender equality falls
  short as women have not been able to occupy more
  than 25 of the seats of any parliament in the
  region.

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Achieving Goal 5
Improving
Maternal Health
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Achieving Goal 5

• generally, maternal mortality declines when
  skilled health professionals attend births as
  they can efficiently handle emergencies
• Yet, despite recent improvements, more than one
  third of women in countries like Egypt, Morocco,
  and Yemen still give birth in the absence of
  professional support.
• By contrast, other countries in the region like
  Jordan and Kuwait, less than 5 of births are
  without professional support.

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Status of women and the role of MDGs
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As womens organizations and networks push
forward to strengthen their position and
overcome their vulnerability, they advocate and
actively work towards better recognition and
legislation. For that reason, they have been
utilizing existing developmental tools to enhance
womens human rights.
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And now that the MDGs are formulated, and a
political commitment towards achieving these
goals is expressed by 189 countries, a new tool
to actualize their goals is presented to women
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The MDGs include achieving equality and
empowering women, and improving maternal health.
These two goals offer a direct channel through
which women can reach the status they work
towards
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However
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• Women can embrace the other goals and employ
  them to serve gender equality by
  gender-sensitizing their indicators. And since
  women are important key players in achieving the
  MDGs, this will result in synergy towards
  achieving the goals on a larger scope.

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This can be attained if the MDGs are harmonized
with the provisions of the CEDAW and the BPFA.
? Since these three are synonymous in terms
of human development, this can be done without
negatively affecting the effectiveness of any of
the components
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For example
Goal 1 aims at eradicating extreme poverty and
hunger
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• Due to its large scope, Goal 1 fails to address
  women as a crucial factor since two thirds of the
  poor are women.
• ? Thus, incorporating the provisions of CEDAW and
  BPFA into this goal would result in a more
  inclusive gender-sensitive goal and indicators

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(No Transcript)
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We have a collective responsibility to uphold
the principles of human dignity, equality and
equity at the global level. As leaders we have a
duty therefore to all the worlds people,
especially the most vulnerable and, in
particular, the children of the world, to whom
the future belongs Millennium Declaration, 2000
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Thank you