Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
We’re a third of the way through the lifetime of the Sustainable Development Goals, which were set to transform the world by 2030. But when it comes to SDG 5 on gender equality, global progress towards targets remains either unmeasured or too slow.
Why should countries invest in human capital? As emerging technologies impact economies and societies, how can we ensure that the most vulnerable are protected? Who will step up to finance the SDGs? Next week’s Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the IMF will convene 13,000 global policymakers, private sector executives, academics, and civil society members in Bali, Indonesia as they work to address these questions and more.
Gender data are essential. How else are we going to monitor progress in the wellbeing of women and girls? Below, we provide background on data shortage, and outline three key steps that countries and the international community should take in order to produce better data and close gender gaps.
The world’s elite—plus a few ringers like me—gathered last week in the small Swiss village of Davos to discuss the state of the world at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Although not formally on the agenda, the issue of tropical forests infiltrated a number of discussions. But first, a quick recap of the meeting’s big themes that provided the broader context.
How do we make sure aid investments are efficient, services provided are accessible and affordable, and results are sustainable? These are all tall orders to be sure, but one clear solution emerged from our event in New York last week: donors need to make gender equality a central priority.
If you thought there was one Sustainable Development Goal about gender, you’d be right, but not entirely. SDG 5 is the “gender goal” (“Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”), but gender equality and women’s empowerment are crucial to development aims throughout the 17 global goals.
The importance of ID for empowering women and girls is spot-on, but so far discussions about identification and gender haven’t given equal attention to the other side of the equation. And new data shows that when it comes to identification and gender equality, we encounter a two-way street. Identification isn’t just critical for achieving gender equality; addressing underlying gender discrimination is essential to making sure that all people have identification and the benefits that come along with it.
We are dealing with a sexist data crisis. We know that poverty hits women and girls hard, but current data cannot precisely measure their poverty independently of that of families or households.
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