An Expert Review Meeting to Enhance the Use of the AGDI

Addis Ababa , 23 March 2010 (ECA) - The ECA’s African Centre for Gender and Social Development (ACGS) is reviewing its groundbreaking tool, the African Gender and Development Index (AGDI), to benefit from the lessons learned of the country data collection undertaken in the first AGDI trials. Over 30 statisticians and gender experts from Africa, Europe and Asia, including UN agencies, the African Development Bank and other international agencies such as OECD, as well as the African Centre for Statistics (ACS) in ECA, are participating in this important exercise.

The African Gender and Development Index is an Africa-specific tool that measures gender inequalities in the social, economic, political and human right fields in Africa. It is also a framework for assessing the performance of African countries in their implementation of such instruments as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, the Beijing Platform for Action, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child among many others.  Its architecture is made up of   two components:

- A Gender Status Index (GSI), for the quantitative assessment of social, economic, and political issues that are measured through indicators, which impact differentially on both men and women e.g. (education, income, etc);

- An African Women’s Progress Scoreboard (AWPS), for the qualitative assessment of governments’ performance in their implementation of specific treaties, declarations, and resolutions affecting women’s lives and rights (e.g. violence against women, maternal mortality, etc).
 
The Index has been piloted in 12 African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, United Republic of Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda). These trials confirmed the relevance of the AGDI as a tool for assessing the status of women and monitoring governments’ performance in this regard. The AGDI also identified the paucity of gender and sex disaggregated data in some critical areas of concern such at the economy. This hampers the effective diagnosis of inequalities and often leads to unbalanced policies.  Whilst national and regional statistical systems in Africa have not yet managed to developed adequate mechanisms and operations to generate sex-and gender disaggregated data, ACGS and ACS are working closely together to strengthen the capacity of these institutions in this area.
The review of the AGDI comes as a timely initiative, shortly after the regional review of the implementation of ICPD Plan of Action (ICPD at 15), the 8th Regional Conference on Women (Beijing Plus 15) and the 54 session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). All three emphasized that gender statistics were key in monitoring progress achieved for the implementation of the various declarations and commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The  expert group meeting  will provide  an indepth review of  the indicators used in the AGDI and bring on board emerging issues such as climate change. It will also offer an opportunity for sharing experiences  amongst  pilot countries, which  will enrich the expansion of the AGDI to other countries. Indeed, at the launch in Banjul (Novembre 2009) of the African Women’s Report, an ECA publication that captured the findings of the AGDI trials in 12 pilot countries, twenty three african countries enrolled to be part of the AGDI.

The African Development Index (AGDI) and the African Women’s Report (AWR) are available on:
www.uneca.org/eca_programmes/acgd/

For further information, please contact:

Houda Mejri, Information Officer, ACGS
E-mail address: hmejri@uneca.org

Beatrice Duncan, Social Affairs Officer, ACGS 
E -mail address: BDuncan@uneca.org