05 June 2019, Geneva
According to a report called United Nation’s development blueprint, no country is on track to achieve the gender equality.
To achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in areas such as education, climate, and gender equality all UN member countries have introduced their own programmes and policies.
But the new report says countries aren’t on the right track to meet the gender equality benchmark, which requires eliminating discrimination and violence against women and ending harmful practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation.
“We’re literally failing to deliver on the gender equality promises made in the (SDGs) for billions of girls and women,” said Alison Holder, director of Equal Measures 2030, which put together the SDG Gender Index report.
“Even more worrying for me is 1.4 billion girls and women live in countries that got a ‘very poor’ failing score on the index,” she said, speaking on the sidelines of the Women Deliver gender equality conference in Vancouver.
Using data from 129 countries, the survey shows that wealthy nations like Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands were making the most progress while poor or unstable countries such as Chad, DR Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Yemen and Niger were falling behind.
There were also “pockets of good news even in struggling countries,” said Holder.
For example, Senegal is closer to achieving gender parity in its parliament than Denmark, even though Senegal’s GDP is 56 times lower.
However, no country has fully achieved gender equality, the report said.
