UN Women and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) have published a report that offers a comprehensive assessment of countries’ progress in achieving gender equality based on two indices. The report finds that while “much progress has been made on women’s and girls’ empowerment and equality,” women’s empowerment is low and gender gaps are large in many parts of the world. This, it argues, hampers women’s well-being and advancement as well as overall human progress.

The report uses the Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI) to assess women’s power and freedom to make choices along the dimensions of health, education, inclusion, decision making, and violence against women. It uses the Global Gender Parity Index (GGPI) to measure gender disparities in key dimensions of human development, including health, education, inclusion, and decision making. The indicators selected for the twin indices are “universally relevant,” and 72% of them are reflected in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs.

The report shows that none of the 114 countries studied have achieved gender parity, and fewer than 1% of women and girls live in a country where women’s empowerment is high and the gender gap small. WEI measurements indicate that “globally, women are empowered to achieve, on average, only 60% of their full potential.” The GGPI reveals that on average, women achieve 28% less than men across key human development dimensions such as health and education.

To address these disparities, the report offers “a roadmap for targeted interventions and policy reforms.” Emphasizing the need to address data gaps and identify the obstacles to closing gender gaps and empowering women, it calls for:

• Health policies to recognize the different needs of women and men and to promote universal access to sexual and reproductive health, including family planning programmes;
• More efforts to reach the most marginalized women and girls to achieve parity in access to education at the subnational level and to address gaps in skills and quality of education;
• Greater investment in policies and services that address work-life balance and support families with care needs;
• More efforts to support women’s equal participation across all levels and spheres of public life; and
• Comprehensive measures focused on prevention, changing social norms, and eliminating discriminatory laws and policies to confront violence against women and girls.

The report was released during the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), on 18 July 2023. It seeks to contribute to the SDG Summit in September by providing “vital evidence” needed to achieve the SDGs, including SDG 5 (gender equality). [Publication: The Paths to Equal: Twin Indices on Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality] [Publication Landing Page] [UN News Story]