© CARE / Josh Estey.Target 1: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015

Where Are We?

Gender equality and the empowerment of women are at the heart of the MDGs and are preconditions for overcoming poverty, hunger and disease. The good news is that many parts of the developing world have seen progress on eliminating gender disparity in education – a key pathway to empowerment. Such progress has been most evident at the primary school level where over the past decade, the gender gap in primary school enrollment has narrowed globally.¹

However, gender parity in primary and secondary education – a target that was to be met by 2005 – is still out of reach for many developing regions.² Gender gaps in enrollment, completion and achievement rates are particularly pronounced at higher levels of education, with only one in five girls enrolled in secondary school in Africa.³ In many countries, such disparities are magnified by poverty, marginalization and exposure to risks such as food insecurity, armed conflict and HIV/AIDS.

Girls from poor, isolated or socially excluded groups face additional layers of disadvantage and vulnerability. Social norms and cultural practices that attach less value to girls and women pose significant barriers to the achievement of this MDG goal.

How Do We Achieve Success?

The empowerment of women and girls is central to achieving gender equality. Education is a cornerstone of women’s and girls’ empowerment and a doorway to realizing their rights.

However, education alone is not enough. CARE’s experience indicates that empowering women and girls requires a holistic approach that addresses all barriers to women’s and girls’ rights at various points in their lives. Such an approach includes, but must go beyond, efforts to provide women and girls with skills, information and resources. It must also involve efforts aimed at altering the relationships and institutions that surround women and girls and shape their choices and ability to make decisions. This includes efforts to address discriminatory practices such as early marriage, gender based violence and other injustices that impede the education, health and welfare of women and girls and limit the opportunities and resources available to them.

To achieve greater progress on MDG 3, CARE recommends that policy makers:

• Base policies on a comprehensive interpretation of women’s empowerment. This includes support for programs aimed at helping women and men uncover, challenge and change traditions, policies, norms and attitudes that limit the lives of women and men during childhood, adolescence, child bearing and the rest of their lives.
• Make long-term commitments to empower women and girls. Addressing deep-rooted issues of inequality, marginalization and discrimination is a long term process that involves social and structural change from the bottom-up. Governments and donors must be willing to support and sustain programs aimed at empowering women and girls over a long-term time frame and support flexibility, learning and innovation within such efforts.
• Create supportive laws and policies, and ensure their effective implementation. Explicit laws and policies aimed at promoting women’s and girl’s rights are only meaningful if they are effectively implemented and enforced. Implementation requires mechanisms for accountability, including support for civil society engagement and advocacy to hold governments accountable, mobilize communities, and build coalitions to champion women’s and girls’ rights.
• Engage men and boys. Women’s empowerment is not solely about them, nor can it be achieved by only engaging them. The engagement of men and boys is critical to achieving positive changes in the relationships and structures that shape the lives of women and girls as well as those of men and boys.
• Incorporate gender analysis and women’s empowerment objectives in programming. Governments, development agencies and civil society actors should conduct gender analyses as part of all programming with the goal of identifying and address gender inequities and barriers. Key efforts include collection of gender disaggregated data and integrating women’s needs and perspectives into program design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
• Support social networks and safe spaces for women and girls. Providing women and girls with a space to build legitimacy and support is an important step in reducing their isolation, and encouraging their participation, collective action and empowerment. Such spaces may include savings and loans groups for women and social networks and clubs for girls.

Lee Webster, CARE's Campaigns Manager.CARE International UK Campaigns Manager, Lee Webster says: “Women are at the hard edge of poverty. They are more likely to be poor, and face bigger barriers to accessing education and achieving their economic potential. Without real equality between women and men, and between girls and boys, the Millennium Development Goals will not be realised, and that means we’re all worse off, regardless of gender.

“There is good news though, and certainly lots of hope. Women in developing countries have the answers to fighting poverty, they just need the support to do it. I’ve travelled recently to Central Africa and met many women working for the future of their families and communities. They do it in an astounding variety of ways – from calling for new laws on violence against women, to setting up small businesses, to ensuring that their daughters go to school.

“In Rwanda, a 46-year-old woman called Annonciata told me how she’d taken out a small loan from a CARE village savings group to rear a cow and increase her yield of grain and vegetables. From the produce and profit she has made, she has seen a marked improvement in the wellbeing of her family, and all her children are able to attend school. In Burundi, CARE trained over 2,000 women to stand in local elections, to represent the views of their communities on local and regional councils. And in Uganda, women activists continue to lobby their government to ensure that laws brought in to protect women from violence are implemented fairly.

“Women are not waiting to be helped out of poverty, they are helping themselves. That’s why CARE calls on global leaders to make long term commitments to empower women and girls. Women in the developing world are doing their bit, we must do ours.”

1. There were 95 girls of primary school age in school for every 100 boys in developing countries in 2007, compared to 91 in 1999. See UNESCO, Education For all: Global Monitoring Report 2010.
2. Gaps in gender parity are most pronounced in parts of South and West Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania. See Millennium Development Goals Report 2010.
3. UNESCO, Education for all: Global Monitoring Report 2007.