Source: UN WOMEN
As of 5 April, only 1,000 days remain until the end of the 2015 target date for achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The eight MDGs – which range from halving extreme poverty to promoting gender equality to providing universal primary education by the target date of 2015 – form an internationally agreed blueprint which countries and leading development institutions have signed onto.

Since their adoption in 2000, the MDGs have made a huge difference, helping to set global and national priorities and fuel action on the ground. They have raised awareness and shaped a broad vision for development work across the world.

The MDGs are not just abstract or aspirational targets. Achieving the Goals is about ensuring certain basic human rights for all, and making a real difference in people’s lives. UN Women is actively working on the achievement of the MDGs, for which women and girls play a pivotal role, as well as for MDG3, which specifically focuses on promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Snapshot of Progress: MDG targets for reducing poverty[i], improving access to safe drinking water[ii], and improving the lives of 200 million slum dwellers[iii] have been met. More kids than ever are attending primary school[iv] with parity achieved between boys and girls[v]. Child deaths have dropped dramatically[vi], and targeted investments in fighting malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis have saved millions of lives[vii].

While significant progress has already been made, gaps still remain. Much more needs to be done, particularly when it comes to implementation on the ground, including for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, and addressing the gender dimensions of the all the eight goals. Studies also show that millions of people – particularly the poorest and most marginalized, minorities, women and girls – are being left behind.

We have 1,000 Days to the end of 2015 – 1,000 Days for action.

With 1,000 Days to achieve the MDGs, efforts have to accelerate action and scale up what works – with contributions from Governments, the international community, civil society and the private sector. Focusing on reducing inequalities on many fronts – such as improving food security, maternal health, water and sanitation, rural development, environmental sustainability and responses to climate change – is critical at this juncture.

Evidence shows that gender equality and women’s empowerment is a cornerstone to accelerating and sustaining MDG progress and furthering all the Goals. According to the World Bank, ensuring equal access for women and girls to education, nutrition, basic services, health care, employment, economic opportunities and decision-making at all levels has proven to be one of the most powerful drivers of progress across all the Goals[viii].

Find out more about how women and girls are faring in progress towards each of these goals, and UN Women efforts towards the MDGs.

MDG 1 – Targets include:

 

• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day
• Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people
• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

 

Where are we?

According to the 2012 Millennium Development Goals Report, estimates indicate that the global poverty rate fell in 2010 to less than half the 1990 rate. If these results are confirmed, the first target of the MDGs—cutting the extreme poverty rate to half its 1990 level—will have been achieved at the global level well ahead of 2015. Extreme poverty is also falling in every region.

UN Women’s efforts:

UN Women works to support women’s fundamental role in food security, as the cornerstones of food production and utilization. With more equitable distribution of assets, such as credit, improved seeds and fertilizer, and information and technology, women can achieve significantly higher agricultural productivity.

UN Women also works to eliminate legal restrictions to women’s economic empowerment (such as land and inheritance rights, rights to access credit, ensuring safer migration, etc.) in order to address feminized poverty.

Efforts focus on guaranteeing equal social protection and employment rights for all, whether in the formal or informal economy. UN Women also helps expand paid work opportunities for women, which often ushers shifts in gender relations, greater sense of self-worth and societal respect, a say in critical life choices such as postponing the age of marriage, a greater role in household decision-making and ability to speak out against abuse.

On the ground:

Timorese farmer: ‘Working like a slave, eating like a king’
For women like Veronica Casimira in Timor-Leste, UN Women-supported self-help groups and agricultural workshops are bearing fruit. She is able to feed her family, earn an income and lead by example as a female breadwinner. Read more>>

Women farmers yielding profits and better futures in rural Rwanda
In Rwanda’s Kirehe district, efforts in 15 cooperatives are increasing women’s participation in agriculture and decision-making in their families and communities, along with crop yields. Women farmers are trained in budgeting skills and male farmers and district officials are being encouraged to better include and provide for women. More couples are sharing financial and agricultural decisions, and productivity has increased. Read more »

MDG 2

Target: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

Where are we?

Enrolment in primary education in developing regions reached 90 per cent in 2010, up from 82 per cent in 1999, which means more children than ever are attending primary school. But even as countries with the toughest challenges have advanced, progress on primary school enrolment has slowed since 2004, dimming hopes for achieving universal primary education by 2015.

But gender gaps persist. Girls represent 53 per cent of the primary-age out-of-school population, slightly down from 58 per cent in 1999. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest rate of girls out of primary school, i.e., 26 per cent. And other regions with better overall enrolment have wide gender gaps as well. In Southern Asia, Western Asia and Northern Africa, girls account for 55, 65 and 79 per cent respectively of the total share of primary-age out-of-school children.

UN Women’s efforts:

UN Women focuses action on girls’ school completion rates and improving school conditions for girls, i.e. the environment that makes it conducive for girls to attend schools. From making roads and public transport safer through the Safe Cities Initiative, to addressing the lack of female teachers as role models, to the lack of separate sanitation facilities, and school fees continuing to be deciding factors for whether a girl goes to school, UN Women works to focus on these issues.

Reports show mothers with at least a few years of formal education are considerably more likely to send their children to school. UN Women works to advance women’s empowerment through education and economic opportunities, which facilitate greater decision-making by women in their household, including the decision to send children to school. UN Women also works on campaigns that address attitudes and behaviours, including concerns about female modesty, safety, and the lack of economic returns to girls’ education, factors which often hamper girls’ school attendance.

On the ground:

Giving young children access to school and moms a chance to find jobs in rural Moldova
The Hincauti community in northern Moldova, where poor infrastructure has left many children without access to education, is one of several examples of where UNDP and UN Women have teamed up to expand a school and improve its heating system, creating jobs and enabling dozens of preschoolers to go to kindergarten. Read more>>

Escaping the scourge of female genital mutilation in Tanzania: a Maasai girls’ school provides scholarships for those at risk
At a school near the town of Arusha, 86 girls –many of whom would otherwise have been married or subjected to FGM– have been given scholarships with full board to ensure they complete a minimum level of education. Read more>>

MDG3
This the overarching gender equality goal, which encompasses parity in education, political participation, and economic empowerment

Target: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015
Indicators: These include the share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector and the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament.

Where are we?

Gender parity in primary schooling worldwide has officially been achieved. The ratio between the enrolment rate of girls and that of boys grew from 91 in 1999 to 97 in 2010, for all developing regions (97 falls within the 3-point margin of 100 per cent, the accepted measure for parity).
Women’s share of paid employment outside the agricultural sector has increased slowly from 35 to 40 per cent between 1990 and 2010. But women still enter the labour market on an unequal basis to men, even after accounting for educational background and skills. Globally, women occupy only 25 per cent of senior management positions.

Women account for approximately 20 per cent of all parliamentarians worldwide and progress towards equal representation is slow. At the pace witnessed during the last 15 years, it will take nearly 40 years to reach the parity zone in parliaments.

UN Women’s efforts:
UN Women works with partners to promote the education of girls and women and overcome barriers to schooling for girls.

Advancing women’s political participation and leadership and economic empowerment are two of the central goals of UN Women. This ranges from initiatives to get more women on the ballot as well as getting more women to the ballot. Boosting proportional representation to increasing the number of women in politics, to more transparent political party selection, training of female candidates and getting more women to cast their votes, are part of the efforts.

In countries around the world, women in politics are strengthening the credibility of democracies through their participation, reinvigorating political accountability, and contributing to improved efficiency in policymaking through bringing their diverse perspectives. In India for instance, in areas with female-led local councils the number of drinking water projects was 62 per cent higher than in those with male-led councils, while in Norway, evidence shows a direct relationship between the number of women in municipal councils and childcare coverage they enacted.

UN Women works to enact and implement equal economic rights for all. Legislation on equal pay for equal work, better access to employment opportunities, equality in hiring and promotions, leave and unemployment benefits, freedom from sexual harassment in the workplace, and other critical rights are increasingly being legislated. But serous lag in implementation of the laws continues to constrain women’s equality and empowerment.

On the ground:

Young Uruguayan women aim to boost their role in politics
In Uruguay, a 2009 law guarantees at least 30 per cent of candidates on electoral lists are women. To prepare for national elections next year, UN Women has been training a group of 25 young leaders from four political parties through tutorials. Read more>>

Women shareholders in Jamaica’s board rooms achieve their fair share
Globally the numbers of women in corporate boardrooms are limited. In Jamaica, a new coalition group has decided to break through the barriers through an innovative strategy, and move the number up. Currently the number of women on private sector boards stands at 15 per cent in the island nation. Read more>>

MDG 4

Target: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

Where are we?
Global child mortality rates have declined by 35 per cent, from 97 to 63 deaths per 1,000 live births, between 1990 and 2010. Physiologically, boys are less likely to survive than girls.

Still, Southern Asia provides exceptions to this trend as mortality rates still reflect practices related to son preference in some countries.

UN Women’s efforts:

UN Women works with partners to prioritize care of mothers. Adequate nourishment and care during pregnancy and childbirth could prevent three of the four million infant deaths in the first four weeks of life.

UN Women works to ensure that women’s voices and concerns are reflected in budgetary planning processes, including for health and education programmes that respond adequately to their needs and to those of their children. A mother’s education is a main determinant of child mortality. Studies show better-educated women space childbirths over longer periods, ensure their children are immunized, are better informed about children’s nutritional needs, and adopt improved sanitation practices. Literate mothers are more likely to bring sick children for treatment at an earlier stage and seek medical services. All of these practices lower infant and child mortality rates.

UN Women also focuses on fighting discrimination against girls– which can include female infanticide and systematic neglect. Working with UN Partners, UN Women focuses on changing attitudes and laws to address this practice. More commonly, unequal sharing of food and resources fuels higher under-five death rates for girls than boys.

Ensuring equitable access for the most vulnerable women and girls to health services is also key to bringing down child mortality Particularly vulnerable groups, such as girls who live away from their parents or who are out of school as well as women and girls who have recently migrated to cities or are domestic workers, often fall outside the attention of social service delivery and protective social networks and must be targeted to reduce child mortality.

On the ground:

Women in Uganda’s villages influence local budgets and policies
After attending workshops by UN Women, women in 16 villages are learning to organize and have a say in health policies, which have yielded improvements in the health of their children. In one community, their advocacy resulted in a health centre which provides immunization and free essential medicine for children. Read more>>

Rural Women Take on a New Role in Delivering Services in Tajikistan
A programme to improve access to social protection in rural areas is creating Women’s Watch Groups, which monitor the situation of the most vulnerable households. We bring you the story of Savrukhon Kholmatova, who had to care for her own four children and three orphaned disabled nieces and nephews. Read more »

MDG 5 – Targets include:

 

• Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio

 

• Achieve universal access to reproductive health. Inadequate funding for family planning is a major failure in fulfilling commitments to improving women’s reproductive health

Where are we?

Goal 5 is the MDG which is least likely to be achieved, as currently decreases in maternal mortality are far from the 2015 target. There have been important improvements in maternal health and reduction in maternal deaths, but progress is still far too slow. Reductions in adolescent childbearing and expansion of contraceptive use have continued, but at a slower pace since 2000 than the decade before. Making maternal and reproductive health care services and adequate family planning available could prevent up to 70 per cent of maternal deaths, but since 1990, maternal mortality has only decreased 2.3 per cent per year.

UN Women’s efforts:

Women’s empowerment is a prerequisite to forward progress on this stalled goal.

UN Women works to end practices that bring danger to mother and child. Child marriage, female genital cutting, dietary restrictions, and all other forms of violence and discrimination against women must end if maternal mortality is to be reduced. Early marriage has an important bearing on women’s autonomy and reproductive health. Girls who marry young have fewer opportunities to go to school, less say in household decision-making, and are more likely to experience domestic violence. They are exposed to the risks of early pregnancy and childbirth, the leading cause of death for girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries.

Women die for lack of family planning, inability to negotiate the number and spacing of their children, lack of money to pay for transport to and for skilled birth attendance or emergency obstetric care, and from violence. One in three maternal deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth could be avoided if women who wanted effective contraception had access to it. Evidence further shows that in societies where men traditionally control household finances, women’s health expenses are often not a priority. UN Women works to ensure women’s greater decision-making and position in families and societies, so that they can have more access and voice in issues such as healthcare as well.

UN Women also seeks to increase the share of women in decision-making positions in the health sector. Women at all levels of health services can make sure the specific health needs of women and girls are not neglected, can ensure attention to local health care provision, the front line providers of health care to most women, and can help to redress inequalities in health outcomes and access that exist in every region.

On the ground:

Ensuring mothers do not die when giving life
A programme in seven countries advances efforts to reduce maternal and child mortality highlighting the links between violence against women and maternal health, and training midwives and community health workers to bring long-term change. Read more »

Through film and life, rural women address poverty and early marriage in Egypt
An innovative workshop explores ways for rural women how to tell their own stories about their participation in agriculture and barriers to their development in Upper Egypt, which include child marriage. Read more »

MDG 6

Targets include:

 

• Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS

 

• Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it

Where are we?

HIV is the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age worldwide. Every minute, a young woman is infected with HIV.
Access to treatment for people living with HIV has increased in all regions. At the end of 2010, 6.5 million people were receiving anti-retroviral therapy for HIV or AIDS in developing regions. This total constitutes an increase of over 1.4 million people from December 2009, and the largest one-year increase ever. The 2010 target of universal access, however, was not reached.

UN Women’s efforts:

UN Women is working with governments on enactment and enforcement of legal measures against discrimination that drives the spread of HIV and AIDS among women and girls. Efforts focus also on measures that address gender-based violence, which perpetuates the spread of AIDS. Rape, trafficking of women, forced marriage, and sexual exploitation of women and girls in situations of conflict are all recognized as significant risk factors for HIV transmission. UN Women also supports HIV-positive women and girls and advocates for their leadership and full participation policies that affect them.

UN Women advocates equality in society, including marriage and family relations. Gender equality is the foundation by which girls and women acquire negotiating power, confidence, and information to insist on safe sex in marriage and to be an equal partner in family planning decisions. Resources must be directed to the needs of the most vulnerable populations, which in many cases are adolescent girls and young women. Working with men and boys to fight violence against women and the spread of AIDS, is also part of the efforts. Women’s greater economic independence can reverse the spread of AIDS and other epidemics through increasing women’s self-esteem, negotiating power and reducing women’s vulnerability to being sexually exploited.

Caring for sick family members is seldom paid, rarely recognized, and most often done by women. Women, who are more likely to be employed in jobs with little sick leave and other benefits than men, pay a heavy price in terms of lost labour and skills-building opportunities, overwork, and less time for other responsibilities. And for women who are at home full-time looking after their family members, the burden of care prohibits not only seeking paid opportunities, but also any other activities, such as seeing a doctor for their own medical issues, and other such necessities.

On the ground:

Activists fight for the rights of HIV-positive women living in Peru
After contracting HIV and losing her son to the disease, Guiselly Flores became an activist. As the Director of the Peruvian Network of Women Living with HIV (RPM+), over the last 15 years she has demonstrated unflinching commitment to the rights of HIV-positive women. Read more>>

In Zimbabwe, women with HIV leading change, claiming their rights
In Zimbabwe, HIV-affected women are finding support and solace in a programme that connects them with their property and inheritance rights, and with each other.
Read more>>

MDG 7 – Targets include:

 

• Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources

 

• Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

Where are we?

The MDG target of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water has been achieved five years ahead of schedule. But as of 2010, nearly 800 million people still lacked access to improved water sources. Most of them were poor people in rural areas. Where water sources are not readily accessible, women and girls often bear the burden of collection and must walk long distances to satisfy household needs.

UN Women’s efforts:

UN Women works with governments on development policies and programmes that both respond to the needs of women and are sustainable. This includes promoting gender-responsive budgeting and measures to improve access to safe drinking water for women, who are most often the primary users, providers, and managers of water in rural households, and the guardians of household hygiene. With improved access to safe drinking water, women have more time to earn income, girls are more likely to attend school, family health and hygiene are improved, and women suffer less from the burden of carrying heavy loads.

UN Women works on reforming policies for equitable property and resource ownership. Without title to land, women are often denied access to technologies and resources– such as water resources, irrigation services, credit, extension, and seed– that strengthen their capacity to manage natural resources (of which they are often the primary users as farmers and household managers) in a more sustainable manner.

UN Women advocates for gender equality and women’s empowerment in mitigating and adapting to climate change, and achieving equitable and inclusive sustainable development. Women are disproportionately affected by extreme weather resulting from climate change and their voices must be included, both in household and political decision-making. UN Women is a part of global climate change negotiations and maintains active outreach to ensure that decisions incorporate gender equality, women’s rights and women’s contribution in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

On the ground:

Tanzanian women bring safe drinking water to their communities
In the Kingolwira village in Tanzania, where water is scarce, women’s leadership and the community-wide construction of a small dam is now ensuring an equitable distribution of clean water. Read more>>

Preserving the balance between business and nature in Mexico
Indigenous women are today contributing more to sustainable enterprises and development, due to a partnership with the Mexican Government. A successful eco-hotel, for example, is run entirely by the members of the Maseualsiuamej Mosenyolchicauani tribe, recycling organic waste, harvesting rainwater, creating and using compost, and with dedicated green spaces to ensure clean air. Read more »

MDG 8 – Targets include:

 

• Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system

 

• In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications

Where are we?

The total amount of bilateral sector-allocable aid increased every year between 2008 and 2010. But while the proportion of this aid devoted to gender equality objectives increased in 2009, it decreased slightly in 2010. 

Mobile and broadband technology and services have helped to overcome major infrastructure barriers and brought more people online. But there is an important digital divide, between regions and between developed and developing countries, in terms of capacity, quality and speed.

UN Women’s efforts:

Because of the cross-cutting nature of women’s empowerment for all the MDGs, assistance to gender programmes should be increased in order to pave the way for attainment of the MDGs, from allocation of resources for women’s economic empowerment to ending violence against women, a pandemic of huge proportions, which is not only a gross human rights violation, but also which hampers development and growth.

To advance gender equality and the inter-linked gender dimensions of all the MDGs, UN Women has been working with partners to train women and girls in the use of ICT as a tool for education and economic empowerment.

On the ground:

A call for women: companies join efforts to end violence and empower women
Assisting acid attack survivors in Bangladesh and incorporating mass communications to combat violence against women in Turkey, we profile some of the more than 500 private sector companies around the world that have signed the Women’s Empowerment Principles, some of which specifically use ICT for women’s needs. Read more>>

Closing the science and technology gender gap in the Dominican Republic
Overcoming stereotypes, promoting interest in mathematics among girls, and eventually reducing the gender digital divide in the Dominican Republic is the objective of the project Gender and ICTs: Equality and Equity in E-Dominican, supported by the UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality. Read more>>

Goal 1 | Goal 2 | Goal 3 | Goal 4 | Goal 5 | Goal 6 | Goal 7 | Goal 8 |
Press release I Multimedia I Join the conversation I Post-2015