Gendering MDG indicators:

Making Progress Relevant for

Asian Women
Miriam Arnelle Azurin-Abaja
Philippine Legislators Committee on Population
and Development
www.plcpdfound.org

6th Annual Research Conference, Population Association of

Pakistan
National Library, Islamabad
November 29 – December 1, 2005
Why mind gender indicators?
 To make visible what is currently
invisible
 To compare results
 To find out if there is a tendency
toward progress
 To measure the impact of policies,
programs or projects
 To bring commitments into
development plans
Gender Equality and
Women Empowerment
 Gender inequalities stem from relations of
power and authority, class or caste
hierarchies and socio-cultural traditions,
customs and norms
 Empowerment of women thus requires the
process of transforming these structures
and institutions so they can be ensured of
equal access to sources of livelihood,
health, and education, as well as to social,
economic and political participation without
discrimination based on sex
Women in the International Human
Rights Agenda (Before MDGs)
 1993 International Conference on Human
Rights – “women’s rights are human rights”
 1994 International Conference on
Population and Development – reproductive
health
 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women
and BPoA – concrete steps for GE/WE
 CEDAW - detailed guidance on violence against
women, health care and political participation
The Millennium Declaration and
MDGs
 Pledge to peace and disarmament, security,
development, human rights and
fundamental freedoms
 Based on many consensus and human
rights agreements of the 1990s, retargeted
in 2015
 Stress on gender equality
 “Road Map” - 8 MDGs, 18 time-bound
targets, 48 indicators
 MDG indicators choice of UN Secretariat,
the IMF, the OECD, and the World Bank
What’s missing in the MDGs?
 No targets on MD promises to ..
 Combat gender-based violence
 Protect minority groups
 Protect internally displaced persons from war
 Reduce effects of natural and man-made disasters
 Protect migrant workers and their families
 Rights of developing countries to the benefits of new
technologies
 No mention of ICPD
 Reproductive health and rights
 MDG+5 puts “universal access to RH” but not SRHR
 Weak gender-perspective
 Explicit in some but not in all
 to some, “narrow, simplistic, non-participatory and
gender-blind”
The Effects? 2005 MDG report says
 Asia: 70 percent of the world’s poor
 Southern Asia: 1/3 of child deaths , more than 1/3 third of
the world’s child drop outs are also from this region (usually
girls)
 Lowest attendance rate is found among minority groups
 HIV prevalence has increased throughout Asia, infecting
more girls and women
 Women’s share in wage employment has minimal
improvements
 Most women in Asia are still dying from giving life
 Environmental degradation worsens and suffers loss of
habitat and biodiversity
 Women’s representation in Asian parliaments is still minimal
especially in Western and Southern Asia
What are indicators?

 a pointer, a measurement, a number,

a fact, an opinion or a perception that
points to a specific condition or
situation, and measures changes in
that condition or situation over time.
 quantitative or qualitative
 measures the targets and goals we
want to achieve
Gender Indicators
 Not merely data disaggregated by sex
 Measure conditions or situations that affect
men and women differently
 Signal changes in power relations between
women and men over time
 Determine access, use and control of
resources and distribution of costs and
benefits
 Point out changes in living conditions and in
the roles of women and men over time
 Provide important inputs for planning,
implementation, and evaluation of field
projects
Gender indicators in every stage
The Millennium
Declaration

Phase1
The
POLICY

Phase2 The
PLAN

Phase3

IMPLEMENTATI ON
Criteria for Selection

 Policy relevance
 Analytical soundness
 Measurability and availability
 Appropriate level of aggregation
Some Relevant Gender Indicators
 Poverty and Hunger
• Prevalence of underweight children under 5 years
• Percentages of population with access to credit

 Education
• Ratio of female to male gross enrollment rates in
primary, secondary, and tertiary education
• Ratio of female to male completion rates in
primary, secondary, and tertiary education
• Percent of schools with PCs
• Percent of schools with electricity
Some Relevant Gender Indicators
 Sexual and reproductive health and rights
• Proportion of contraceptive demand satisfied
• Adolescent fertility rate
• Proportion of donations allocated for RH drugs and
services, by source
• Number of facilities with functioning comprehensive
essential obstetric care per 500,000 population
• Percent covered by health insurance schemes
packages

 Property rights
• Land ownership by male, female, or jointly held
• Housing title, disaggregated by male, female, or jointly
held
Some Relevant Gender Indicators
 Infrastructure
• Hours per day (or year) women and men spend
fetching water and collecting fuel
• Proportion of population with sustainable access to
solid waste disposal

 Employment
• Percentages of women and men who carry out unpaid
domestic work
• Share of women in employment, both wage and self-
employment, by type
• Gender gaps in earnings in wage and self-employment
Some Relevant Gender Indicators
 Participation in national parliaments and local government
bodies
• Percentage of seats held by women in national parliament
• Percentage of seats held by women in local government
bodies
• Percentage of women in governmental line agencies or
units
• Percentage of women voters of total number of voters

 Violence against women

• Ratio of female to male live births
• Prevalence of domestic violence
• Number of internally displaced persons
• Percentage of women who have ever experienced sexual
harassment in the workplace (country and abroad)
Some Relevant Indicators
 Disaster-Risk Reduction
• Percentage of primary schools certified to be in conformity
with hazard resistant standards relevant for the region
• Proportion of population below $1 per day does not
fluctuate with variations in hydro-meteorological
phenomenon (rainfall, cyclones, floods) and hazard events
like earthquakes
• Percentage area complying with enforcement of no
development or no construction by laws on lands classified
in land use plans to be at high risk as per hazard risk maps

 Systems/Government Responsiveness
• Percentage of obstetric and gynecological admissions
owing to abortion
• Proportion of (program: health, environment, etc.)
expenditure of the total government expenditure and
GDP
Policy recommendations
 Strengthening of statistical capacity
 National MDG reporting participated in by
stakeholders
 Framing of national development indicators to
respond to CEDAW, ICPD and Beijing
 Identify areas where efforts to strengthen statistical
capacity are most needed
 Encourages policy-oriented statistics
 Provide adequate resources for gender indicators

 Oversight committee in parliament – PLCPD

experience, 1st in Asia
 To encourage accountability and expedite
implementation
In conclusion…
 Gender Equality and the empowerment of
women are the cornerstones of a
sustainable population and development
programs
-1995 ICPD

 Development policies and actions that fail

to take gender inequality into account or
that fail to enable women to be actors in
those policies and actions will have limited
effectiveness and serious costs to societies”
- UN Task Force on Gender Equality, 2005