Ahead of next month’s annual stocktake of progress on women’s rights-the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women-the Goal of the Month editorial takes a close look at Sustainable Development Goal 5 (gender equality). The world has seen encouraging progress on women’s rights and empowerment in some target areas, but large gaps persist. The first quarter of the year offers excellent opportunities to accelerate action towards the achievement of this objective and build momentum towards the SDG Summit in September.
Progress
Over the past several decades, the global push for gender equality has gained momentum. In 1970, no country had laws specifically addressing domestic violence, but today more than 150 countries do. The developing countries, as a whole, had achieved the Millennium Development Goals target to eliminate gender disparity in primary, secondary and tertiary education by 2015.
Further, since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, encouraging progress on gender equality had been made in some areas. Girls’ learning outcomes have, on average, caught up to those of boys and in some cases surpassed them. Young women now outnumber young men in tertiary education. As of January 2022, the global share of women in lower and single houses of national parliaments reached 26.2 per cent, double the level in 2000.