Celebrating Women’s Day: What Does the UN Have to Say?

Asia-Pacific Human Development Report 2010 has been launched today (March 8, 2010) which coincided with the International Women’s Day. Quite well timed, the report on gender equality titled “Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning point for Gender Equality in Asia and The Pacific” depicts the status of women and the state of affairs across Asia pacific.

The report says, nearly 100 million women across Asia have disappeared because of a huge and growing gender gap that has fatally deprived them of access to health care and food and has led to widespread abortions of female fetuses. China and India each account for about 43 million of those “missing” women, while Pakistan accounts for 6.1 million and South Korea for 200,000.

South Asia often comes in second worst in the world in gender equality measures, just above sub-Saharan Africa, while East Asia often fares better in health, education, and employment. Almost half the adult women in South Asia are illiterate –the world’s worst performance–while East Asian and Pacific women’s literacy rates are above the global average.  South Asian women can expect to die five years earlier than their men. And more women die in childbirth there ―500 for every 100,000 live births— than in any other part of the world except sub-Saharan Africa.

Recommendations:
The following eight recommendations summarize broad directions for action across the three areas (Report focuses on three key areas — economic power, political decision-making and legal rights)  covered in the Report.

1. Make international commitments a reality.

Countries should ratify and use international conventions that promote human rights, respect for diversity and equality for all. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides a foundation that was made specific to gender equality in CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women). Particular attention should be paid to removing the region’s high number of reservations to CEDAW, paving the way for bringing domestic legislation in line with it. Both protective and empowering measures should be integrated into policies and practices.

2. Craft economic policies to support gender equality.

Too often, the gender-blind nature of economic policy-making results in choices that deny women opportunities, even if they are not intended to do so. A more deliberate focus on gender and how it affects women’s economic options is required—particularly in targeting poverty interventions to provide equal opportunities for women and men. Governments should ensure that fiscal and monetary policies help unleash women’s leadership and entrepreneurship. Monetary policy can be attuned to be more supportive of inclusive growth and human development—for example, through directed lending to poor women for productive purposes. Fiscal policy should include gender-based budgeting, covering revenues and expenditures across all budget categories.

3. Make the content of education more gender equal.

Because education systems still perpetuate gender stereotypes, national and local governments should develop awareness of gender in such systems, such as through teacher training. Civil society groups and gender experts can be brought in to guide the assessment and development of textbooks and question materials that overtly enforce stereotypes or do so by omission. Schools should promote female leadership and active decision-making, in part, to provide positive role models to girls.

4. Boost political participation.

Legislatures,political parties and political leaders should recognize the importance of women’s political participation to democracy and equal citizenship. Special actions to boost the number and quality of female representatives and women in upper echelons of government might include quotas, political party reform, gender-orientation and capacity development. All these measures need to be
approached in the spirit of genuine change, avoiding tokenism or manipulation for political gain. National and sub-national political leaders should assure better gender balance in leadership across all aspects of crisis management, whether involving natural disasters, conflicts or a sustained economic downturn.

5. Pursue gender-equitable laws.

Parliaments can benefit from reforming gender discriminatory laws and making new ones where needed. This should include ironing out discrepancies between customary and formal laws that perpetuate discrimination, as well as gaps between laws and constitutional principles. Countries should have gender-specific constitutional provisions on equality and nondiscrimination. This will narrow the wide latitude of interpretation currently enjoyed by courts and law enforcement agencies. Legal systems should be subjected to an overall gender equality review of national legislation, as some countries have done, including for CEDAW compliance.

6. Address legal discrimination and close gaps between laws and legal practice.

The justice system should ensure that legal practices are consistent with laws on the books and that access to justice is broadly available. Professional training for lawyers, judges, magistrates and police should include an orientation around the needs of marginalized groups. Crimes against women should not be treated lightly.

7. Collect better data and strengthen capacity for gender analysis.

National statistical systems should strengthen capacities to collect, report and analyze sex-disaggregated data, especially in overlooked areas such as the prevalence of gender based violence and male-female gaps in asset ownership. Systematic and ongoing assessments should feed into policy efforts to close disparities.

8. Foster new attitudes.

Civil society, the media, academic institutions, religious organizations, businesses and other groups involved in shaping social attitudes should be enlisted in influencing them to support gender equality. Concrete advocacy tools can be developed and new channels of advocacy and communication explored. A strong push should be made to include men in the understanding of gender equality and steps to achieve it, recognizing their transformative role.

For a complete overview, Read Here.

For Sectionwise (Chapters), See Here.

For full Text (Approx 230 pages of text), Read Here

Posted by Animesh Roul on March 8, 2010. Respond »

Podcast: The Lowy Institute and ANU on Asia’s Security Future

Download a podcast of a recent seminar by the Lowy Institute at the Australian National University on “Shaping Up: Order, Change and Discontent in Asia’s Security Future.”

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on March 1, 2010. Respond »

Shanghai Jiaotong University January 2010 CPSIS Letter Now Available

The January 2010 edition of CPSIS Letter by Shanghai Center for RimPac Strategic and International Studies (CPSIS) and Center for RimPac Studies at Shanghai Jiaotong University (CPSSJTU) is now available. It features writings by Center experts on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and reflections on climate change negotiations.

Read it here.

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on February 1, 2010. Respond »

New Policy Briefings from the Ilmin International Relations Institute at Korea University

The Ilmin International Relations Institute at Korea University has released two new papers in its policy briefing series.

In Policy Briefing Number 4, Joel Wit of Columbia University is “Thinking about Contingency Planning.”

In Policy Briefing Number 5, Robert Rotberg of Harvard University writes on “State Failure and State Poised to Fail: Asia and Developing Nations.”

Read them both in our News section.

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on January 5, 2010. Respond »

Newsweek on the Lowy Institute China Poll

In the Newsweek Wealth of Nations blog, Katie Baker reports on the Lowy Institute China poll. Read the Newsweek blog post and the China poll report from the Lowy Institute. Recent Asia Security Initiative blog commentary by the poll report’s authors, Fergus Hanson and Andrew Shearer, can be found here.

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on December 10, 2009. Respond »