THE AFRICAN GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT INDEX
AND THE AFRICAN WOMEN'S REPORT 2002/2003
Third
Meeting of the Committee on Women and Development
9-11 October 2002, Johannesburg, South Africa
Abbreviations
1. Overview
2. Why the need for an African Gender and Development
Index ?
3. Objectives of the AGDI
4. The African Gender and Development Index
4.1 Description of the AGDI
4.2 Methodology of the development of the AGDI
and production of the AWR
5. Conclusion
6. Recommendations for consideration by the meeting
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ABBREVIATIONS
AWMP African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians
CCA Common Country Assessment,
CEDAW The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms
of Discrimination Against Women
GAD Gender and Development Approach
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GEI Gender Equality Index
GEM Gender Empowerment Measure
GDI Gender-related Development Index
GRF Gender Roles Framework
GSI The Gender Status Index
HDI Human Development Index
HDR Human Development Report
IDS Institute of Development Studies of Sussex University
POA Programme of Action
PPP Purchasing Power Parity
SIGE Standardised Index of Gender Equality
SRF Social Relations Framework
WEM Women's Empowerment Matrix
WID Women in Development
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1. OVERVIEW
In the wake of Beijing+ 5, the international community including
national governments and civil society organizations are weighing
the effectiveness and sustainable impact of women's global and
regional forums against their costs and frequency. Twenty-five
years after Mexico and five years after Beijing, it is obvious
that the overall goal of the global process for "Development,
Gender Equality and Peace" has not yet been achieved. Poverty
is on the rise and so is the feminisation of poverty. Women
constitute 70% of the world's poor, especially in Africa. Maternal
mortality rate figures are increasing (80 to 100 deaths for
1000 births) in Africa due to poor access to proper health care,
poor life conditions and the burden of a heavy workload. Domestic
and gender-based violence against women is also on the rise
especially in those countries under conflict situations. Gender
disparities in basic rights, resources and economic opportunities
are pervasive around the world - in spite of recent gains.
Over the years, it has become apparent that one of the reasons
behind women's continued marginalisation is the fact that gender
concerns have not been fully and/or systematically incorporated
into national policy and programme formulation processes, or
in their implementation. In addition, women's contributions
are not included in national accounting systems. As a result,
women tend to be excluded from the mainstream.
The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), together with other
Regional Commissions, has been mandated by the UN General Assembly
to organize in collaboration with Member States, periodic evaluations
of the implementation of the Global and Regional Platforms for
Action on the advancement of women and to report on the progress
made.
Africa, under the auspices of ECA, has sought to integrate
the global mechanisms of sensitisation, monitoring and evaluation
by organizing periodic regional conferences on women (Nouakchott-1977,
Lusaka-1979, Arusha-1984, Abuja-1989, Dakar-1994 and Addis-Ababa-1999).
These regional and international meetings have enabled women
systematically to review national policies and strategies in
line with the respective objectives of the Platforms for Action.
At these forums, it has been possible to introduce and undertake
a gender analysis of issues related to poverty, agriculture,
peace building, trade, transport, industrialization, globalisation,
etc.
One immediate shortcoming of these global and regional processes
is that they suffer from an inherent gender bias as they are
considered "women's" events. The other is that conferences
alone cannot monitor what is happening on the ground. Effective
monitoring calls for close collaboration with both national
governments and NGOs who, because of proximity, are in a better
position to monitor and evaluate progress made in the implementation
of regional and global platforms for action. In addition, there
is a need to document the different experiences occurring on
the continent and subsequently to disseminate best practices
on the advancement of women in Africa.
To facilitate a more effective monitoring mechanism, ECA's
African Centre for Gender and Development (ACGD) is developing
an African Gender and Development Index (AGDI) which will be
published in the African Women's Report, 2002/3. The Report
is an important tool for informing regional and global processes
on the situation and the status of women in Africa.
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2. WHY THE NEED FOR AN AFRICAN GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT INDEX:
A number of indices have been developed to assess the situation
of women in all sectors of development and decision-making.
Perhaps the most well known are the Gender-related Development
Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) developed
by UNDP in 1995, prior to the World Conference on women. These
measures are now commonly used in the UNDP Human Development
Report. However, both the GDI and the GEM cover only what is
measurable and therefore do not cover other dimensions that
are important for gender equality, such as participation in
community life, consumption of resources within the family and
others. The GDI is strongly correlated with the GDP and thus
measures general welfare rather than gender (in) equality in
itself. Dijkstra and Hanmer (2000) computed a scatter plot of
GDI against the natural log of real GDP (per capita) for 137
developing countries. Their findings demonstrate that GDI and
GDP are closely correlated. This means that the level of gender
equity is substantially 'explained' by the income level of a
country and yet gender equity is more than income.
There are also a wide variety of other indicators that have
been developed by different institutions. However, their coverage
of gender specific issues is still somewhat limited. For example
the GEM focuses on three variables that reflect women's participation
in society: political decision-making, access to professional
opportunities and earning power. The GEM looks at women's representation
in parliaments, women's share of positions classified as managerial
and professional, and women's participation in the active labor
force and their share of national income. In short, it attempts
to capture women's political, economic and social participation.
But there is a reliability problem of political power as measured
by women's share of parliamentary seats. Parliaments are not
always the locus of power in a country, and the use of a quota
system, as in the former socialist countries, can hide underlying
power mechanisms (Wieringa 1977). Women's power base did not
decrease dramatically for instance when, after the fall of the
Berlin Wall, women's share in parliamentary seats decreased
dramatically in various former socialist countries. Rather the
number of seats women previously occupied masked the extent
of women's subordination.
Apart from the reliability of particularly the income indicator,
the major problem of the GEM lies in its validity as a measure
of empowerment. The crucial question is on what understanding
of power is the GEM built? How is empowerment conceptualized?
The GEM is not concerned with issues related to the body and
sexuality, nor to religious, cultural or legal issues. Also
left out are issues of ethics, women's rights and care. The
lack of consideration of the human rights dimension is striking,
as other UN bodies, such as UNIFEM, do pay attention to this
issue. The GEM is not concerned with the violation of women's
rights and does not measure, for instance, whether CEDAW is
ratified or adhered to. This is covered in the matrix boxes
under the headings of legal combined with international and
national. The 1995 Human Development Report does list the countries
that have ratified the CEDAW, but the GEM itself does not include
it (UNDP 1995:43).
The African Women's Report will have an introduction discussing
other indicators currently being used and their weaknesses.
However, it is important to note that the GDI and the GEM are
valuable policy instruments, particularly because they allow
a global comparison.
The UNIFEM Biennial Report of the Progress of the World's Women
points out to the complexities of measuring gender equality
and women's empowerment due to the tangible and intangible dimensions
that have to be addressed in these areas. The task is even more
difficult in Africa where statistics and gender-disaggregated
data are limited.
Six years after the Beijing World Conference on women, the
challenge is to develop an index that measures the implementation
of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms of Action and that incorporates
issues such as participation, empowerment, equality and equity.
This calls for the definition of the relevant variables that
will capture the experiences and achievements in the Africa
Region.
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3. OBJECTIVES OF THE AGDI
The AGDI is expected to achieve a number of objectives.
· Firstly, it is hoped that it will provide African policy
makers, gender planners and politicians with an appropriate
tool to measure the extent of gender inequality in their countries,
as well as the effects of their gender policies in the reduction
of women's subordination.
· Secondly, most African countries have ratified the
CEDAW and other international documents, such as the International
Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) and the
Platform for Action drawn up after the 1995 Fourth Women's World
Conference in Beijing. The AGDI will help in monitoring the
progress made in this respect.
· Thirdly, the AGDI will not only facilitate the democratisation
of statistics, but will also provide gender planners and NGOs
with a monitoring tool that is effective and easy to use. In
this way the AGDI will stimulate the process of community participation
and enhance political awareness of gender concerns, which is
vital to processes of women's empowerment.
The development of the AGDI will be incremental, building on
and also bringing new variables to work that have been implemented
elsewhere.
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4. THE AFRICAN GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT INDEX (AGDI)
4.1 Description of the AGDI
As earlier indicated, the development of the AGDI arises from
the apparent inadequacies of the conventional indices to capture
and comprehensively measure the realities of women in Africa.
The African Gender and Development Index that is being proposed
consists of two parts:
i) The Gender Status Index (GSI):
This is a measure of relative gender equality that captures
those issues related to women's empowerment that can be measured
quantitatively. It is divided in three blocks of indicators:
social power, economic power and political power, which are
supposedly readily available or easy to calculate on an annual
basis.
· "Social power" includes indicators on education
and health;
· "Economic power" includes indicators on income,
labour force, time use and access to resources; and
· "Political power" includes indicators on
senior or higher political and management positions.
Each block is divided into various variables that are again
subdivided into a number of indicators. Only flow indicators
will be used, so as to enable policy makers and activists to
see direct results of particular interventions. The indicators
will only deal with gender issues i.e. only those that relate
to the relations between women and men. For that reason, for
instance, maternal mortality is not included, as that only applies
to women.
The various indicators receive equal weight within their variable,
and this same principle is upheld for the variables within each
block. The three blocks receive an equal weight in computing
the AGDI. The proposal is to use simple arithmetic averages
of women compared to men, while ignoring population-weighted
harmonic means as a basis of computation. In this way the AGDI
has been kept as simple as possible, as one of the aims is to
democratise statistics, so NGO's can use it as well. In countries
where there is a serious demographic problem and where the balance
between women and men is heavily distorted it may be considered
to adapt the AGDI to weigh the averages between women and men.
For the 11 countries in which AGDI will be tested, the intention
is not to use weighed averages.
ii) The African Women's Progress Scoreboard:
This will complement the GSI. The Scoreboard will capture the
more qualitative elements of women's empowerment, as contained
in the boxes under legal, ideological and religious issues of
the WEM. Together, the GSI and the Scoreboard capture a large
part of the WEM. The Scoreboard is designed in such a way that
the most pressing issues pertaining to African women's empowerment
are included. A country first computes the maximum nationally
possible score and then assigns points to the various boxes
indicated. The total score of the scoreboard is the percentage
of points scored against the maximum nationally possible score.
The
Women's Empowerment Matrix (WEM)'s elements are as follows:
| |
Physical |
Sociocultural |
Religious |
Political |
Legal |
Economic |
| Personal |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Household |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Community |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| State |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Region |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Global |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The
scoreboard is an improvement of WEM and will be as follows:
African Women's
Progress Scoreboard
| |
Law |
Policy commitment |
Budget |
Training |
Institutional
Mechanisms |
Information |
| CEDAW |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customary/dual law system |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Harmful traditional
Practices |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Family violence |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Land rights (control) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ILO 100
(Ratification and labour code) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Free
contraception |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| HIV prevention
Abuja Agreement
(Sexual health education) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Involvement
of women in
Conflict prevention |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Based
on points
+ yes
- no
n/a ; not applicable
Percentage in relation to maximum
(nationally possible) score
The scorecard is based on a simple measurement system. First
the maximum possible score for any country is computed. As not
all indicators will be relevant to all countries the total score
may differ. Then the percentage of plusses in relation to that
total score is computed. The advantage of the scorecard is that
it immediately measures successes. Another advantage is that
it is based on simple arithmetic.
The AGDI will be published in the ECA Africa Women's Report
of 2002/2003. The AWR is a strategic information and communication
tool for
· The Gender analysis of national, sub-regional and regional
policy frameworks; and
· Monitoring and Advocacy on the implementation of the
Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action for follow up and recording
of progress, best practices and new priorities on the continent.
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4.2 Methodology of the development of the AGDI and production
of the AWR
The methodology being used in the whole project is crafted
in a manner that ensures production of realistic and relevant
indicators as well as the production of a credible AWR. The
process is also transparent and consultative so that member
states are part of the process and own the AGDI rather than
see it as a punitive tool for non-performance. Selected institutions
in eleven pilot countries will be responsible for supervising
the trials in the different countries and inputting the African
case studies into the African Women's Report. The process of
the development of the AGDI as well as the production of the
African Women's Report is as follows:
i. Review of gender indices which will include collection
and analysis of existing indices to be undertaken by ACGD
A desk study has been undertaken and a number of existing gender
indices were reviewed to identify gaps as well as strengths.
The study was used to assist in the development of the framework
of the gender index.
ii. Definition of the theoretical framework of the gender
index
The theoretical framework has been defined and used to develop
the draft AGDI.
iii. Definition of the variables of the gender index by
a working group of experts.
A working group comprising of statisticians, economists, sociologists
and gender and development experts was convened to work on the
framework of the AGDI as well as review the indicators that
were identified as part of the AGDI. The group also reviewed
the African Women's Progress Scoreboard.
iv. Finalisation of the AGDI by ACGD
Currently work is underway to finalise the AGDI based on the
recommendations of the working group.
v. Validation of the AGDI
The final AGDI will be presented to an Advisory group made up
of members of the UN interagency group and resource persons.
The group also includes experts from each of the eleven pilot
countries. The Advisory group will Review the draft African
Gender and Development Index and validate it. The advisory group
will also review the AWR upon its completion.
vi. Field trials in 11 countries
Field trials will be undertaken in the five regions of Africa
in the following 11 countries: East Africa (Uganda, Tanzania);
Central Africa (Cameroon, Gabon); North Africa (Egypt, Tunisia);
West Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana); and Southern Africa
(Mozambique and South Africa).
The objectives of the trials are:
· To put to test both the GSI and the Scoreboard.
· To collect the data for the Gender Status Index
· To collect the elements of the Women's Progress Scoreboard
· To gather case studies that substantiates both the
GSI and the Scoreboard.
· To assemble good practices that can be used to show
progress in addressing the gender inequality
· To prompt a process of national collection and documentation
of gender-disaggregated data that can be used for monitoring
and evaluating programmes in terms of gender
vii. Production of the AWR
Based on the information from the field, the draft AWR will
be produced and this will be validated by the group of advisors.
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5. CONCLUSION
The 2002/2003 AWR will provide information of eleven countries
as a process to test and validate the usability of the AGDI
before its use at a regional level. The next AWR's report 2004/2005
will report on all the fifty-six member states in Africa. ECA
will use the period of the dissemination of the 2002/2003 AWR
to assist and prepare the other countries to start collecting
relevant data. This will also be the period to receive feedback
on the 2002/2003 AWR.
The AGDI is an important challenge to all member states to
make certain that programmes being implemented to narrow the
gender equality gaps are effective. It is a major challenge
to member states to seriously look at where they are through
the African Women's Progress Scoreboard and take measures to
address any imbalances that exist.
The AGDI takes Africa to the next World Women's Conference
and beyond. It is one of the important instruments for Africa
to show the world its serious intention to address gender inequalities.
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6. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE MEETING
The CWD to consider the following:
· The use of the AGDI by member states as a tool to measure
the status of gender equality in Africa and for countries to
measure their progress on the situation of women.
· The adoption of AGDI by member states to be used within
their Economic Development Plans.
· The adoption of AGDI to be used within NEPAD as a measure
of the status of gender equality and women's progress.
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