Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2023
A report titled “Progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): The Gender Snapshot 2023” has recently been released by UN Women and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA).
The report notes that despite global efforts, the world is failing to achieve gender equality.
Gender Equality:
Gender equality refers to equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities for all individuals, regardless of their sex. This includes ensuring that women and men have equal access to resources, education, employment and decision-making processes.
Key points of the report:
- SDG-1 (Poverty Eradication): If global efforts continue at this pace, more than 340 million women and girls will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030. This would be about 8% of the total female population, hence the current rate of progress needs to be accelerated by 26 times to achieve the target of SDG-1 by the year 2030.
- SDG-2 (End hunger): Nearly 1 in 4 women and girls will face moderate or severe food insecurity by 2030. Older women face higher rates of poverty and violence than older men, many of whom do not have access to pensions.
- Addressing gender gaps in agri-food systems can reduce food insecurity. Also, global gross domestic product (GDP) could be increased by about $1 trillion.
- SDG-4 (Quality Education): Only 60 percent of girls have completed higher secondary level schooling. However, this is better than the average of 57 percent boys.
- SDG-5 (Gender equality): Women spend 2.3 hours more per day on unpaid care and domestic work than men.
- SDG-10 (Reducing Inequality): Women are twice as likely to face gender-based discrimination as men. At the same time, the chances of facing discrimination on the basis of marital status are also almost twice that of men.
- SDG – 13 (Climate Action): Up to 158 million women and girls globally could fall below the poverty line as a direct consequence of climate change.
- Apart from this, the gap between labor and earnings continues to remain high. Globally, for every dollar men earn in labor income, women earn only 51 cents. Achieving the Global Goals for gender equality and women’s empowerment requires an investment of an additional $360 billion per year.
Challenges in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals
- Violence against women continues, inequality exists in education,
- Low participation of women in the labor force and inequalities in remuneration etc.
Recommendations of the report:
- The report calls for greater cooperation, funding and policy actions to address gender inequalities.
- Also emphasizes that failure to prioritize gender equality could jeopardize the entire 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- Addressing the gender gap in agri-food systems could reduce food insecurity and boost global GDP by nearly $1
Source – UN Women
