The African Gender Development Index Makes its Way to Five New African Countries

09 June 2006

Within the framework of its project to extend the African Gender and Development Index (AGDI) to all African countries, and encouraged by the results of the first trials conducted so far in 12 countries, the Economic Commission for Africa initiated recently the extension process, through its African Center for Gender and Development.

To kick start this process, the Center held in Namibia early this month a three-day meeting to set up the AGDI National Advisory Panel and familiarize different stakeholders with this Africa-specific tool aiming to help member countries measure the impact of their gender policies and identify major gaps between commitment and implementation. The AGDI is also a tool to assist member states in effectively mainstreaming gender in their policies and programmes.

It is to be recalled that all African evaluation processes, namely the Decade Review of the Implementation of Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing+10) stressed the need for Governments to evaluate on a regular basis the extent to which political will with regards to gender equality is translated into concrete results. But because reporting mechanisms need to be informed by reliable sex-disaggregated data and gender sensitive indicators in all sectors, ECA has developed the African Gender and Development Index (AGDI).
This Index was later endorsed by Ministers and experts during the Seventh African Regional Conference on Women (2004) and piloted in 12 countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Uganda.

Senior representatives attended the first meeting of the Namibian National Advisory Panel and came from the National Bureau of Statistics, the Ministries of agriculture, education, health, finance and planning, as well as representatives of the Multidisciplinary Gender Unit of the University of Namibia and independent research institutions operating in the country.

Chairing the meeting, Mr. Victor Shipoh, Acting Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare, emphasized the relevance of the Index as a tool that "is intended to address the lack of adequate indicators for measuring gender inequality and progress achieved with regard to the advancement of women". Welcoming the selection of his country, Namibia, as one of the countries to be covered by this extension process, he reiterated the readiness of the Government and his Ministry to provide full support to the National Advisory Panel and help it discharge its responsibilities.

The newly formed National Advisory Panel is comprised of senior government officials, a coordinating NGO and independent gender experts.
Its task is to support the research institution that will be chosen to collect reliable and accurate gender disaggregated data, facilitate its access to relevant data, review and guide its methodology for collecting data, and validate the national AGDI report that will be prepared by this same research institution.

During the debate that followed the exhaustive presentation made by ECA/ACGD team on the Index, participants discussed in length the specifics of the AGDI itself and made remarks on several issues, namely the scoring adopted so far, the indicators being used and the process to be followed for the selection of the national research institution.

Participants also examined the Gender Status Index (GSI), which is one of the two components that constitute the AGDI, and had a rich exchange of views on the policy interpretations and implications of the average indices for its components and sub-components.

In order to speed up the AGDI extension process, which started with Namibia, ACGD is launching four other National Advisory Panels in the next two months. Panels will be set up in Senegal, Gambia, Botswana and Cape Verde with view to spearheading the data collection for the AGDI.