Gender Issues around the World
Women's Networks
As a consequence of the greater emphasis signaled on human rights over the past decades, many UN summits in the 1990s sought to place issues of democracy, justice and rights on the development agenda. In the context of this worldwide process of democratic consolidation, many women's movements were born and sought to press for more equity between the sexes and address gender disparities.
The term Gender became popular in the 1980's as a replacement for "women and development". Gender is a social construct that asserts that the expectations and the responsibilities of men and women are not always biologically determined. Advocates of this approach claim that gender more easily accommodates race, class, ethnicity and male - female power relationships.Gender theory is applicable from the household to the international economy, but the most frequent applications of the theory are to the household and to employment.
It was established that poverty exacerbates gender disparities, and that gender imbalance in basic human rights, in resources and economic opportunities as well as in political participation hinder development.
In Africa, home to over 410 million women, achieving sustainable economic growth depends also on empowering them and promoting effectively their welfare and productivity so as to lift the continent itself out of poverty.In this section, the users can find data on:
International instruments calling for the promotion of women's rights;
