Civil Society Consultation on Global Monitoring Report on Gender Equality and SDGs |
Background to questionnaire
Background
Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a new flagship report of UN Women that will provide a comprehensive and authoritative assessment of progress, gaps and key challenges in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from a gender perspective. The report will be based on analysis of available data to assess global and regional trends in achieving the SDGs for women and girls, as well as an analysis of policies needed to achieve the gender-related goals and targets. By generating high quality data and policy lessons the report will be a key reference and accountability tool to be used by governments, women’s organizations, the UN system and other stakeholders. The report will be published on a biennial basis.
The first edition of the report will focus on data analysis to establish baselines for the gender-related targets as well as setting out a framework of policies to achieve the targets, with a special focus on three strategic priorities. The first report will also analyze the process of defining the gender equality commitments in the new Agenda, including the features of the process at different levels (global, regional and national), the factors contributing to the adoption of the specific gender equality commitments and the role of different actors, particularly women’s organizations. This analysis will provide insights for the process of national implementation.
The first edition of the report will focus on data analysis to establish baselines for the gender-related targets as well as setting out a framework of policies to achieve the targets, with a special focus on three strategic priorities. The first report will also analyze the process of defining the gender equality commitments in the new Agenda, including the features of the process at different levels (global, regional and national), the factors contributing to the adoption of the specific gender equality commitments and the role of different actors, particularly women’s organizations. This analysis will provide insights for the process of national implementation.
Consultation on Data Chapter
Were data already collected and harmonized across countries, the task of monitoring the SDGs for women and girls would be merely a question of compilation and presentation. The reality however is that far from ubiquitous, gender statistics are not widely available – making monitoring the SDGs from a gender perspective a challenge.
Of the 14 proposed indicators to monitor SDG 5 on gender equality, there are only three for which data are regularly collected by most countries. For five of the remaining 11 indicators, capacity to monitor is lacking across many countries. And for the last six, including on women’s rights to land, not only does comparable data not exist for most countries, but as an international community we currently lack agreed standards for measurement. The situation across the goals and targets is the same – for many of the agreed indicators the data and methodological tools to collect the data are currently lacking. In 10 out of the 17 SDG, the indicators selected for global monitoring are not suitable for gender analysis, either because the data is currently not available or because the indicators selected do not lend themselves to a gender analysis.
Please see accompanying document - Figure 1: 'For 10 out of 17 goals no gender related indicators and/or gender data'.
For the purposes of this analysis gender-specific indicators refers to indicators across the framework that explicitly refer to sex, gender, women and girls and/or are specifically or largely targeted at women and girls. The criteria used in this compilation is narrow and meant to capture instances where the indicator is explicitly gender-related. A less restrictive criteria, where all indicators that are relevant for women and girls and can be disaggregated by sex are included would yield a greater listing of gender-related indicators.
Were data already collected and harmonized across countries, the task of monitoring the SDGs for women and girls would be merely a question of compilation and presentation. The reality however is that far from ubiquitous, gender statistics are not widely available – making monitoring the SDGs from a gender perspective a challenge.
Of the 14 proposed indicators to monitor SDG 5 on gender equality, there are only three for which data are regularly collected by most countries. For five of the remaining 11 indicators, capacity to monitor is lacking across many countries. And for the last six, including on women’s rights to land, not only does comparable data not exist for most countries, but as an international community we currently lack agreed standards for measurement. The situation across the goals and targets is the same – for many of the agreed indicators the data and methodological tools to collect the data are currently lacking. In 10 out of the 17 SDG, the indicators selected for global monitoring are not suitable for gender analysis, either because the data is currently not available or because the indicators selected do not lend themselves to a gender analysis.
Please see accompanying document - Figure 1: 'For 10 out of 17 goals no gender related indicators and/or gender data'.
For the purposes of this analysis gender-specific indicators refers to indicators across the framework that explicitly refer to sex, gender, women and girls and/or are specifically or largely targeted at women and girls. The criteria used in this compilation is narrow and meant to capture instances where the indicator is explicitly gender-related. A less restrictive criteria, where all indicators that are relevant for women and girls and can be disaggregated by sex are included would yield a greater listing of gender-related indicators.
Efforts are currently underway to address gaps in the global indicators framework, including methodological work in new emerging areas and regional and country level work to address capacity constraints. In the interim however establishing baselines for gender equality will require complimenting the SDG indicators with thematically relevant indicators for which gender data is currently available.