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Gender Equality

Fighting Poverty by Empowering Women

Woman employed in an automobile assembly plant in Brazil. Courtesy: ILO, J. Maillard

• Achieving gender equality in the developing world is one of the most daunting measures to reduce poverty identified by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). MDG Goal 3 — to “promote gender equality and empower women” — specifically includes targets to improve the education of women and girls, advance employment in non-agricultural sectors, and increase the number of seats for women in national parliaments. Yet the larger correlation between unequal treatment of women and global poverty is irrefutable. Women who cannot escape poverty because of pervading cultural constraints often set into motion a cycle of poverty that can extend to children and to generations of families, a phenomenon that increasingly calls for mainstreaming gender issues across development sectors and throughout all 8 MDGs.

• This Cross-Topic Special on Gender Equality coincides with 2004 International Women´s Month in March. The second of Development Gateway Specials to focus on MDG content on the Gateway, it draws attention to the complex cultural conditions that underlie necessary gender-based reforms in education, health and law. Hilda Tadria, co-founder of the African Women’s Development Fund and an advisor for the African Center for Gender and Development at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, gives a first-hand view of the cultural challenges facing Africa in achieving gender equality.

Icon indicates MDG related highlight

Gender and Development
	Mainstreaming gender issues into the work of development agencies will bring more effective results. More

Food Security
	Women's property rights are crucial for attaining food security.More

Capacity Development for MDGs
	Gender equality is an essential step for achieving all the MDGs, from combating poverty to promoting environmental stability.More

Aid Effectiveness
	Lessons for closing the gender gap in education and nonagricultural employment. More

Population & Reproductive Health
	The right to reproductive and sexual health can serve as an entry point to discussing empowerment. More

HIV/AIDS
	Reducing the HIV rate for women will require policy reform, funding, improved health care and cultural change. More

Youth for Development
	An equal ratio of boys and girls in schools is critical for meeting the MDG for gender equality.More

Culture and Development
	Cultural strategies can help narrow the literacy gap for women and girls in poor countries.More

Microfinance
	How microfinance is used to empower women entrepreneurs. More

E-Learning
	The Academy for Educational Development (AED) is making important strides towards closing the gender gap in e-learning.More

Poverty
	A gender and employment expert from Peru sheds light on the challenges that women are facing in the labor market. More

ICT for Development
	How are women using information and communication technologies to generate income?More

Governance
	CAPWIP encourages women in Asia, the Pacific, and worldwide to advance in governance, politics and transformative leadership.More

Afghanistan Reconstruction
	Women's NGOs in Afghanistan talk about their challenges and success stories. More

Iraq: Relief & Recovery
	New constitution allots women 25% representation in Iraq's parliament. More

Urban Development
	Policies are needed to protect unskilled women who work in the informal economy as urban street vendors.More

DG Expert Perspective:
Confronting Gender Inequality in Africa: The MDGs focus on outcomes--but miss cultural causes

Hilda Tadria

Hilda Tadria is a Senior Regional Advisor for the African Center for Gender and Developmentat the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A sociologist and co-founder of the African Women´s Development Fund, Tadria discusses the pervasive cultural ideologies in Africa, from family patterns to political monopolies, that are impeding progress in gender equality for women--and promoting poverty throughout Africa. More

Partners

		UNIFEM — United Nations Development Fund for Women

		FEMNET — The African Women's Development and Communications Network

		Institute for Social Studies Trust, India
		Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics (CAPWIP), Philippines