Women are one-half of the world’s population and evidently deserve equal access to health, education, economic participation and earning potential, and political decision-making power. However, it is pertinent to note that gender parity is equally fundamental to whether and how societies thrive.
The theme of the International Women’s Day 2017, Be Bold for Change; call for a better working world – a more inclusive, gender equal world.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, asserts that gender equality is not only as a human right, but also a necessary foundation for a peaceful and inclusive world. Ensuring the healthy development and appropriate use of half of the world’s total talent pool has a vast bearing on the growth, competitiveness and future-readiness of economies and businesses worldwide.
Overview of women’s reality across PPD member countries:
PPD is the alliance of 26 member countries that account for 59% of the total population of the world; 50% of those 59% are women.
Violence against women is one of the prominent indicators that generally reflect the status of women in a particular society. The following table reveals two major indicators; one is the percentage of women who have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner at some time in their life and the second one is political representation of women in national parliaments (OECD, 2016)
Source: OECD 2016
The Global Gender Gap Index introduced by the World Economic Forum captured the magnitude of gender-based disparities revealed the following picture for the PPD member countries. The Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, education, health and political criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons worldwide (World Economic forum, 2016)
Source: World Economic forum, 2016
The rate of labour force participation of female is poor in comparison to their male counterpart across PPD member countries. In most of the countries, it is not more than half. Economic empowerment is crucial and it is imperative for women empowerment. Under-investing in women limits development, slows down poverty reduction and economic growth (UNDP 2015).
Source: Human Development Report 2015
PPD with Every Women Every Child: PPD is mandated to ensure the Sexual Reproductive Health Rights for adolescent and young women living across the member countries. Moreover, PPD is fully committed to the spirit of unprecedented global movement ‘Every Woman Every Child’ to address the major health challenges facing women and children across the world. It would foster intergovernmental partnership efforts in pushing the agenda for eliminating all preventable maternal and child death. It is facilitating this commitment, in the frame work of South to South cooperation through transfer of knowledge and capacity building, policy dialogue and population diplomacy. Currently, PPD is working with government of Bangladesh and constituted a national taskforce on EWECEA. It has organized an international inter-ministerial conference on EWEC in 2015. The taskforce is working with key stakeholders for identifying national needs and address the needs through developing and assisting implementation of a national plan on EWECEA
PPD is working rigorously to make a difference through south-south approach. It is high time to think globally and act locally for the women. It is crucial time to do the maximum for the future of girls to make it bright, equal, safe and rewarding. Be Bold for Change; let’s fight for an inclusive, gender equal world.
Reference:
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD ( 2016), Violence against women, page accessed https://data.oecd.org/inequality/violence-against-women.htm#indicator-chart
World Economic forum (2016), Results and analysis Country Coverage, 2016, page accessed http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/results-and-analysis/
UNDP (2015), Human Development Report 2015: Work for Human Development Gender Inequality Index (GII), page accessed http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-gii