The African Women's Report Reaches an Advanced Stage

06 June 2005

By Houda Mejri

The preparation of the African Women's Report 2005, ECA's flagship publication on gender and development, has entered its critical phase with the meeting of its Drafting Committee from 27 May-03 June, aiming to discuss the drafting methodology, finalize the outline of the Report and agree on related assignments.

The Committee is made up of ACGD drafting team headed by Ms. Thokozile Ruzvidzo, OIC, in addition to senior consultants who have all worked and published widely on women's economic empowerment, gender planning, labour economics, etc.

This flagship publication, which is a tool for informing regional and global processes on the status of women in Africa, and reviewing the continent's performance in the field of gender and development, is comprised of two sections:

· A technical presentation of the African Gender and Development Index (AGDI) that incorporates the major African and international instruments on women, in addition to a number of variables and indicators that have a particular incidence on the life of African men and women;

· The Synthesis of national reports produced by the 12 countries where the AGDI has already been tested, including a critical review of the results of the field trials undertaken in these countries.

It is to be recalled that the AGDI is a tool that ECA has developed to map the extent of gender inequality in Africa and measure the performance of Member States in meeting their commitments and obligations towards the international and regional conventions on women's advancement they are signatory to. The tool will help streamline reporting on various instruments such as the Beijing and Dakar Platforms for Action on Women, CEDAW, the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, the MDGs, etc.

In developing the AGDI, ECA hoped to democratize statistics and qualitative monitoring tools that are effective and easy to use. The Index consists of a Gender Status Index (GSI) that captures quantitatively measurable issues related to gender equality, and an African Women's Progress Scoreboard (AWPS), which focuses on qualitative issues and fills the gap between purely quantitative indicators, such as those contained in the GSI, and more country-specific or sector-specific indicators.

During the meeting, the Drafting Committee reviewed the 12 national reports and the results of the field trials, thus examining all emerging issues and discussing various commonalities and specificities. It also endeavoured to formulate policy recommendations for each country in light of its respective results as shown in the Gender Status Index and the Scoreboard.

The Committee also agreed on the format of the African Women's Report that will include an introductory section presenting the AGDI and underlining the distinction between the African Women's Report itself and the Index. The ensuing chapters will present and analyze the results achieved in the areas of economic/social /political power/ and rights.

Another chapter will be dedicated to investigating the meaning of the results emerging from the field trials in terms of meeting the MDGs goals and the recommendations of Beijing Platform for Action on Women. The main purpose of this chapter is to see how the AGDI can be used to engender the MDGs indicators.

Drawing on the policy recommendations singled out in previous chapters, the last one will sum up salient issues and indicate the way forward.

According to the Committee, the African Women's Report should focus on the best practices drawn from the 12 national reports, in order to allow African governments to learn from the experiences of other countries in the region and build on them.

Subsequent editions of the AWR will allow for more in-depth analysis of particular indicators and issues as the African Gender and Development Index will be expanded to all the 53 countries in Africa, for the collection of gender disaggregated data and use of these data in monitoring development programmes.