August, 2011
August 17, 2011
August 13, 2011
Thought of the day
Ensuring women empowerment in the resource-poor settings: The seven strategic priorities.
The concept of empowerment is related to gender equality but distinct from it. The core of empowerment lies in the ability of a woman to control her own destiny (Malhotra, Schuler, and Boender 2002; Kabeer 1999). This implies that to be empowered women must not only have equal capabilities (such as education and health) and equal access to resources and opportunities (such as land and employment), they must also have the agency to use those rights, capabilities, resources, and opportunities to make strategic choices and decisions (such as are provided through leadership opportunities and participation in political institutions). And to exercise agency, women must live without the fear of coercion and violence.
To ensure that Goal 3 is met by 2015, the task force has identified seven strategic priorities. These seven interdependent priorities are the minimum necessary to empower women and alter the historical legacy of female disadvantage that remains in most societies of the world:
1. Strengthen opportunities for postprimary education for girls while simultaneously meeting commitments to universal primary education.
2. Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights.
3. Invest in infrastructure to reduce women’s and girls’ time burdens.
4. Guarantee women’s and girls’ property and inheritance rights.
5. Eliminate gender inequality in employment by decreasing women’s reliance on informal employment, closing gender gaps in earnings, and reducing occupational segregation.
6. Increase women’s share of seats in national parliaments and local governmental bodies.
7. Combat violence against girls and women.
These seven priorities are a subset of the priorities outlined in previous international agreements, including the Cairo Programme of Action and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The recommendations made in these international agreements remain important for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, but the task force sees the seven priorities as areas needing immediate action if Goal 3 is to be met by 2015. Although empowerment and equality should be enjoyed by all women and men, the task force believes that action on the seven priorities is particularly important for three subpopulations of women: • Poor women in the poorest countries and in countries that have achieved increases in national income, but where poverty remains significant. • Adolescents, who constitute two-thirds of the population in the poorest countries and the largest cohort of adolescents in the world’s history. • Women and girls in conflict and postconflict settings. [REF 1]
The Biotech tropicana SMARTprspTECHS alleviates complexity of the "empowerment” and "equality” concepts to make them amenable to the poorest areas of the resource-poor settings. [REF 2]
[REF 1] Task Force on Education and Gender Equality Taking action: achieving gender equality and empowering women
August 12, 2011
Thought of the day
On gender equality and empowerment of women
How can the global community achieve the goal of gender equality and the empowerment of women? This question is the focus of Goal 3 of the Millennium Development Goals endorsed by world leaders at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 and of this report, prepared by the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality.
The report argues that there are many practical steps that can reduce inequalities based on gender, inequalities that constrain the potential to reduce poverty and achieve high levels of well-being in societies around the world. There are also many positive actions that can be taken to empower women. Without leadership and political will, however, the world will fall short of taking these practical steps—and meeting the goal. Because gender inequality is deeply rooted in entrenched attitudes, societal institutions, and market forces, political commitment at the highest international and national levels is essential to institute the policies that can trigger social change and to allocate the resources necessary to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment. Page1.
Like race and ethnicity, gender is a social construct. It defines and differentiates the roles, rights, responsibilities, and obligations of women and men. The innate biological differences between females and males form the basis of social norms that define appropriate behaviors for women and men and that determine women’s and men’s differential social, economic, and political power.
The task force has adopted an operational framework of gender equality with three dimensions:
• The capabilities domain, which refers to basic human abilities as measured by education, health, and nutrition. These capabilities are fundamental to individual well-being and are the means through which individuals access other forms of well-being.
• The access to resources and opportunities domain, which refers primarily to equality in the opportunity to use or apply basic capabilities through access to economic assets (such as land or housing) and resources (such as income and employment), as well as political opportunity (such as representation in parliaments and other political bodies). Without access to resources and opportunities, both political and economic, women will be unable to employ their capabilities for their well-being and that of their families, communities, and societies.
• The security domain, which is defined to mean reduced vulnerability to violence and conflict. Violence and conflict result in physical and psychological harm and lessen the ability of individuals, households, and communities to fulfill their potential. Violence directed specifically at women and girls often aims at keeping them in "their place” through fear.
[REF 1]
Gender equality and the empowerment of women is a sub component of the Biotech tropicana SMARTprspTECHS poverty reduction stratregy program. Our SMARTprspTECHS are aligned with guidelines and recommendations set forth by the task forces under the United Nations Millennium Development Project. [REF 2]
[REF 1] Task Force on Education and Gender Equality Taking action: achieving gender equality and empowering women
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