PRESENTATION ON THE AFRICAN GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT INDEX (AGDI)

 

By: Josephine Ouedraogo
Representative of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and Director, African Centre for Gender and Development

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. Why a new Index on gender disparities?

As you know, since the holding of the First World Conference on Women, in Mexico in 1975, the regional commissions of the United Nations have had the mandate to coordinate, support, monitor, assess and report on the implementation of the international platforms for action on the advancement of women.

Since then, the African region, under the auspices of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), organizes reviews every five years, of the progress made in the implementation of these platforms by governments. These reviews are made through African regional conferences on women, of which the seventh begins its work this afternoon to review the decade of the Beijing Platform for Action.

These periodical reviews have always been made on the basis of self-assessment reports prepared by governments and complemented by non-governmental organizations, regional and subregional institutions.

The reviews are generally characterized by the desire to show by all means that major efforts have been made towards the implementation of the platforms, that remarkable initiatives have been made in this or that area, and that outstanding progress has been registered in regard to the status of women.

However, no study has been undertaken on the impact of government policies on the advancement of women at the continental level, which would at the same time enable an assessment of the relevance and effectiveness of government strategies and those of other agencies.

Our periodical reviews, of course, through quantitative indicators, give us an insight into the positive changes that have been realized in some of the sectors such as education, health, access to resources, the level of participation in decision-making organs, and the promotion of women’s rights for example.

Up to this point, however, it has not been possible for us to view these changes in a differentiated perspective as between women and men.

I will give an example: if, in an ideal situation, we observed a leap forward, say, in the availability of microcredits to women, that information did not enable us to measure the progress made in terms of reducing the gap between men and women in terms of salary distribution, availability of credit from banks, and other financial sources of income.

Apart from that setback, there was also some degree of lethargy in the periodical release of a range of conventions, instruments, platforms and plans of action for submission to various mother agencies. In most cases, these reports are not published at the country level.

Must Africa therefore continue to report to others rather than to itself in the first instance, rather than following its own needs and its own standards? This situation has highlighted the need and the imperative to develop a common tool of assessment for the continent as a whole.

We have therefore devised a tool that should make it possible for us to measure disparities between men and women in all areas that we consider to be priority areas because of their strategic nature. Thus, the Index is a series of indicators on the basis of which disparities in terms of capacities, opportunities and the power to bring about change, can be gauged.

The new Index is designed to address various imperatives of the moment, such as for example:

(a) Measuring gender inequalities on the one hand, as well as governmental efforts for the advancement of women; the Index should serve as a means of correlating the two;

(b) We were looking for an Index that is specific to Africa: even though it draws on other instruments, we have selected those indicators which appear to us to be pertinent to our concerns at the continental level. We have included instruments and policy commitments emanating from African States in their entirety. For Africa, these include the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, and the Abuja Declaration of HIV/AIDS. To these we will soon add the very latest African Heads of State Declaration on Gender Equality;

(c) We were looking for an Index that is anchored on gender-disaggregated statistical data, available at the country level and produced by member States themselves;

(d) In other words, we were looking for an Index drawn from analysis and computations that are within the scope of national capacities. In contrast to other instruments, the African Gender and Development Index relies on first-hand, readily available data. Thus, it promotes the democratization of statistics;

(e) The objective of the African Gender and Development Index is not to classify countries, but rather to provide a common platform for gauging actual progress on the ground, taking into account the social, economic, political and historical context in each country.

2. Methodology

The AGDI was developed over a three-year period, from 2001 to 2004, in three stages:

(a) Formulation of a theoretical framework on the basis of an evaluation of existing indices, and a profile of international and regional conventions and other instruments. The AGDI draws amply upon the gender-disaggregated development indicator and the women’s empowerment index prepared by UNDP;

(b) Establishment of a technical-support and quality-control mechanism, both internal and external. Within ECA, we have set up a working group involving other divisions of the Commission. Externally, we have established a Regional Consultative Committee comprising representatives of 12 African countries, and representatives of United Nations agencies. We have also involved member States through national consultative committees to coordinate the trial run of the Index in 12 pilot countries;

(c) This trial run was a crucial stage in that it served to ascertain the existence and accessibility of gender-disaggregated data, and information in each of the areas. The trial run was also expected to ascertain the accuracy of the data, and confirm the usefulness of the Index through the reactions of government departments and NGO members of the national consultative committees. The 12 pilot countries are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda. The national consultative committees, made up of various ministries and NGO liaisons, under the direction of ministries responsible for the advancement of women, also have the objective of fostering ownership of the Index by member States themselves;

(d) Most of the research institutions that carried out trial runs of the Index at the country level were selected on a competitive basis;

(e) After the initial analysis by research institutions, computations on the Index was conducted by ECA and endorsed by the same research institutions. What we intend to do today is to present to you the Index itself in order to elicit your endorsement in the form of comments. The results of the trial runs in the 12 countries cited will be published in March 2005.

3. The results and their usefulness

The results of the Index highlight conditions that speak volumes. The results will be made available to governments and may serve as a basis for them to readjust their priorities and place themselves in a better position to negotiate assistance with partners. It is in this sense that the AGDI is a support tool for good governance.

The results of the Index can boost advocacy actions of parliamentarians and their follow-up of legislation and government policy.

Additionally, the Index will highlight the gaps in national statistics and so facilitate their improvement.

The Index may also serve as a common framework for evaluating the status of women across the continent. ECA will henceforth consider it as the main item of its Report on Women in Africa which is a component of the Economic Report on Africa and the Report on Governance.

We would like, this morning, to familiarize ourselves with the AGDI by listening to an in-depth presentation of its structure and components by my colleague Thokozile Rudvidzo, who has been coordinating the project. She will base her presentation on the preliminary results of the trial run in one of the 12 countries, and this will highlight the scope and importance of the Index.

For this task, we have benefited from the assistance of two high-level international experts, Ms. Saksia Wieringa and Mr. Jacques Charmes.

Thank you for your interest.