It will take another 137 years for all women and girls to escape poverty. UN: The cost of inaction on gender inequality is too high Women
Gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls is a distant but achievable goal, according to a new edition of the Sustainable Development Goals Gender Review, published today by UN Women and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
The report calls for increased investment, an end to discrimination and the fulfilment of the promises of the 2030 Agenda.
Insufficient progress
According to the report, progress has been made around the world. Women now hold one in four seats in parliament – significantly more than a decade ago. The proportion of women and girls living in extreme poverty has finally dropped below 10 percent after a sharp rise during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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However, the data also show that none of the targets for SDG 5 – the gender equality goal – will be achieved by 2030. At the current rate, achieving gender parity in parliaments remains elusive until 2063. It will take another 137 years for all women and girls to escape poverty. Child marriage also remains a problem – one in four girls worldwide is married as a child.
Global Efforts
As the world prepares for the Future Summit on 22-23 September, the report’s authors call on participants to forge a new global consensus to close the gender gap, achieve equality and empower all women and girls.
“Today’s report reveals an undeniable truth: progress is achievable, but it is not happening fast enough,” said UN Women chief Sima Bacchus. “We must continue to advance gender equality to deliver on the commitments world leaders made at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing nearly 30 years ago and achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda.”
The Cost of Inequality
The report highlights the consequences of gender inequality for societies and governments. For example, the annual cost of countries failing to ensure access to quality education for all their young people is more than $10 trillion. Meanwhile, if low- and middle-income countries do not close the digital gender gap, they could lose another $500 billion over the next five years.
The report’s authors make a number of recommendations across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, they recommend legal reforms, citing data showing that countries with domestic violence laws have lower rates of intimate partner violence – 9.5 percent, compared with 16.1 percent in countries without such laws.
“The costs of inaction on gender equality are enormous, and the benefits of achieving it are too great to ignore,” said Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.