Gender equality
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Empowering women and promoting gender equality is crucial to accelerating sustainable development. Ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls is not only a basic human right, but it also has a multiplier effect across all other development areas.
Since 2000, UNDP together with our UN partners and the rest of the global community has made gender equality central to our work, and we have seen some remarkable successes. More girls are now in school compared to 15 years ago, and most regions have reached gender parity in primary education. Women now make up to 41 percent of paid workers outside of agriculture, compared to 35 percent in 1990.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to build on these achievements to ensure that there is an end to discrimination against women and girls everywhere. There are still gross inequalities in access to paid employment in some regions, and significant gaps between men and women in the labor market. Sexual violence and exploitation, the unequal division of unpaid care and domestic work, and discrimination in public decision making, all remain huge barriers.
Ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health, and affording women equal rights to economic resources such as land and property, are vital targets to realizing this goal. There are now more women in public office than ever before, but encouraging more women leaders across all regions will help strengthen policies and legislation for greater gender equality.
SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
Indicator : 5.1.1 Whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce and monitor equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex
Data Providers : (1) LPAD (2) MoWCA
Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation
Indicator : 5.2.1 Proportion of ever-partnered women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to physical, sexual or psychological violence by a current or former intimate partner, in the last 12 months, by form of violence and by age group
Data Providers : (1) BBS, VAW
Indicator : 5.2.2 Proportion of women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to sexual violence by persons other than an intimate partner, in the last 12 months, by age group and place of occurrence
Data Providers : (1) BBS, VAW
Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation
Indicator : 5.3.1 Proportion of women aged 20-24 years who were married or in a union before age 15 and before age 18
Data Providers : (1) SVRS, BBS, SID (2) BDHS, NIPORT, MoHFW (3) MICS, BBS, SID
Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate
Indicator : 5.4.1 Proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work, by sex, age and location
Data Providers : (1) Time Use Survey, BBS, SID (2) LFS, BBS, SID
Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
Indicator : 5.5.1 Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments and local governments
Data Providers : (1) LPAD (2) LGD
Indicator : 5.5.2 Proportion of women in managerial positions
Data Providers : (1) LFS, BBS, SID (2) QLFS, BBS, SID
Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences
Indicator : 5.6.1 Proportion of women aged 15-49 years who make their own informed decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care decisions regarding sexual relations
Data Providers : (1) BDHS, NIPORT, MoHFW
Indicator : 5.6.2 Number of countries with laws and regulations that guarantee full and equal access to women and men aged 15 years and older to sexual and reproductive health care, information and education
Data Providers : (1) LPAD
Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws
Indicator : 5.a.1 (a) Proportion of total agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land, by sex; and (b) share of women among owners or rights-bearers of agricultural land, by type of tenure
Data Providers : (1) Agriculture Census, BBS, SID (2) Agriculture Sample Census, BBS, SID (3) NHD, BBS, SID
Indicator : 5.a.2 Proportion of countries where the legal framework (including customary law) guarantees women’s equal rights to land ownership and/or control
Data Providers : (1) MoWCA (2) LPAD
Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
Indicator : 5.b.1 Proportion of individuals who own a mobile telephone, by sex
Data Providers : (1) LFS, BBS, SID (2) BTRC, PTD (3) HIES, BBS, SID (4) ICT Survey, BBS, SID (5) SVRS, BBS, SID (6) CPHS, BBS, SID
Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels
Indicator : 5.c.1 Proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment
Data Providers : (1) FD (2) MoWCA
Facts and Figures
77 cents
Women earn only 77 cents for every dollar that men get for the same work.
1 in 3
35 percent of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence.
13%
Women represent just 13 percent of agricultural landholders.
750 million
Almost 750 million women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday.
2 of 3
Two thirds of developing countries have achieved gender parity in primary education
24%
Only 24 percent of national parliamentarians were women as of November 2018, a small increase from 11.3 percent in 1995.
