While the world has achieved progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment under the Millennium Development Goals (including equal access to primary education between girls and boys), women and girls continue to suffer discrimination and violence in every part of the world.

Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.

Providing women and girls with equal access to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large.

Facts and Figures

• About two thirds of countries in the developing regions have achieved gender parity in primary education
• In Southern Asia, only 74 girls were enrolled in primary school for every 100 boys in 1990. By 2012, the enrollment ratios were the same for girls as for boys.
• In sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania and Western Asia, girls still face barriers to entering both primary and secondary school.
• Women in Northern Africa hold less than one in five paid jobs in the non-agricultural sector. The proportion of women in paid employment outside the agriculture sector has increased from 35 per cent in 1990 to 41 per cent in 2015
• In 46 countries, women now hold more than 30 per cent of seats in national parliament in at least one chamber.

Goal 5 Targets

• End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
• Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation
• Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation
• Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate
• Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision making in political, economic and public life
• Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences
• Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws
• Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
• Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels

How Your Company Can Advance Goal 5

• Why business should support gender equality
• Women’s Empowerment Principles
• Every Woman Every Child
• Children’s Rights and Business Principles
• From the United Nations Global Compact library
• Additional tools: SDG Compass; SDG Matrix

Links

• UN Women
• He for She campaign
• United Secretary-General Campaign UNiTE to End Violence Against Women
• Every Woman Every Child Initiative
• United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
• UN Population Fund: Gender equality
• UN Population Fund: Female genital mutilation
• UN Population Fund: Child marriage
• UN Population Fund: Engaging men & boys
• UN Population Fund: Gender-based violence
• World Health Organization (WHO)
• UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
• UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
• UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)
• UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Gender Statistics