A Gender Top Ten List for 2011

Dileni GUNEWARDENA

A list of top ten gender issues for 2011 is bound to be contentious. In whose eyes are they the most important issues? Why these and not some other burning issues that have been omitted? The biggest obstacle to constructing a list of gender issues for 2011 is that many of the important issues highlighted this year have been around for years, if not decades. Awareness has built up slowly, and incrementally, building on existing knowledge.

So apart from highlighting a pool of issues that have gathered interest and importance over the last few years, I shall not tread further into those waters. A list of important gender-related issues would include well-known linkages such as gender and the access to education, health, resources and assets, equal opportunities to employment and equal wages for equal work. Gender and HIV is an issue that has received more attention in recent years, while gender-inequality at the workplace and gender disparities in agriculture are issues of a perennial nature. Gender and demography issues have moved from family planning and reproductive rights to issues relating to sex-selective abortions, women and ageing, and 'missing women' at all stages of the life cycle. Gender and the environment is another area that in recent times has given rise to several issues from gender and climate change to gender and disaster risk reduction. Conflict and peace-building are relative recent areas where the role of women and gender implications have been more recently explored, while the age old issue of violence against women remains on the agenda, highlighted by the "16 days of action" against it, held annually.

A top ten list of the best gender-related resources that came out this year is less controversial. The list below is not in any particular order. It displays this writer's bias toward economics and development related gender issues, but she is willing to assert that few, if any, good gender resources that have been missed in this list.

1. World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report

This report and its showcase global gender gap index are now in their sixth year. Gender-based disparities are tracked over time and across almost 270 countries by calculating indices based on gender gaps in economic, political, education and health based criteria. Part I of the report explains the composition of the index and its four sub-indices which relate to economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. The overall index is computed for each country and country comparisons are presented for the last six years. Part II presents single-page country profiles that present indices as well as additional data on key indicators in the four areas in which gender disparities are examined. The report shows that Sri Lanka was ranked 30th in 2011, down from 16th position in 2009. http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2011

2. WDR 2012 and 3. State of Food and Agriculture 2011.

Two flagship publications of international organizations featured gender as their theme for the first time this year. A key feature of both reports is that they argued for gender equity on intrinsic as well as on instrumental grounds. The World Development Report (WDR) 2012 prepared by the World Bank, focused on gender disparities, analyzing through an economics lens how economic growth, households, markets and institutions promoted (or impeded) improvement in gender outcomes relating to human capital (education and health), voice and agency, and access to economic opportunities. http://go.worldbank.org/CQCTMSFI40 The Food and Agricultural Organisation's annual State of Food and Agriculture report focuses on closing the gender gap in agriculture. Women in developing countries make a significant contribution to agriculture, but have less access to resources-land, livestock, farm labour, education, extension services, credit, fertilizer and mechanical equipment. The report claims that closing the gender gap in access to these resources could raise total agricultural production by 2.5 - 4 percent which in turn will reduce the number of hungry people in the world by about 100 to 150 million. http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1638e/i1638e00.htm

4. HDR 2011 Sustainability and Equity

The UNDP's flagship publication, the Human Development Report came out with its first report on Gender 16 years ago. A statement made by the thinkers behind that report, the economists Sudhir Anand of Oxford and Amartya Sen of Cambridge, illustrates the conceptual underpinnings of this year's report on Sustainability and Equity: "Not working towards guaranteeing the basic capabilities to the future generations would be scandalous, but in the same way, not working towards bringing those elementary capabilities within the reach of the deprived in the present generation would also be outrageous." And this report makes it clear that among the deprived in the present generations are women, who in addition to suffering the most from deprivations like poor access to water and safe sanitation, are often the hardest hit by the impacts of environmental degradation and global threats to the environment. http://hdr.undp.org/en/

5. Progress and Justice.

UN Women is the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Its biennial flagship publication since 2000, Progress of the World's Women is described as an "investigation of progress made towards a world where women live free from violence, poverty and inequality". Past volumes have been devoted to the MDGs, women's role in peace-building, work and poverty, and accountability to women. This year's report In Pursuit of Justice focuses on how the rule of law often rules women out. The report shows how justice institutions including the polic and the courts deny women justice. It also showcases successful responses to gender discrimination including female representation in parliament and the judiciary and gender-sensitive law reform. http://progress.unwomen.org/

6. Little Data Book on Gender

This resource is probably the least deserving to be on this list, but it is especially for those who are old enough to remember when we looked for information in reports in library stacks, and not on computer screens. These people will remember the World Bank's "Little Data Book". It is a diary-sized collection of 50+ indicators for around 200 economies. Despite the easy availability of this information through online retrieval systems, the book still exists, in paper (and in .pdf!). It has also branched out into such offshoots as The Little Green Data Book, The Little Data Book on External Debt and so on. The Little Data Book on Gender contains information on demography, education, family planning and maternal health, labour force and employment dynamics, and women's political participation. http://data.worldbank.org/products/data-books/little-data-book-on-gender

Gender Portals But in this electronic age, men-and women-do not live (or get their information) on reports alone. Several gender resources are websites or portals that focus on gender-related issues.

7. ELDIS and 8. Guardian

Two examples of this type of resource are the gender page of a knowledge service, ELDIS, from an academic institution, the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex and the gender page of a UK newspaper, the Guardian. The former contains news and research on a range of gender-related topics and links to key Gender Websites, while the latter focuses on news, and includes links to gender related websites, when they are newsworthy. http://www.eldis.org/gender/ and http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gender

9. CENWOR and 10. Women and Media Collective

Two of the best home-grown examples of gender portals are from the Centre for Women's Research (CENWOR) and the Women and Media Collective. CENWOR's mission-to promote research, training, lobbying, advocacy and monitor gender related issues-is well displayed on its website. Since its inception in 1984, it is probably Sri Lanka's most prolific source of research on gender issues. Both CENWOR and the Women and Media Collective archive gender-related issues from the Sri Lankan print media on a regular basis.

In closing this column for this year, let me paraphrase from both these websites, wishing readers a year that will bring us closer to a society in which women are empowered and gender equality is the norm, "free from violence and militarization which would pave the way for a balanced representation of men and women in decision-making and governance".

The writer is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics and Statistics at the University of Peradeniya.