WOWEM

Women’s Open World Empowerment Movement

communication and community

The Foundation for Building Sustainable Communities is initiating a project focusing on gender equity and open source. The Women Open World Empowerment Movement (WOWEM) is a timely project addressing the needs of women in technology, with a focus on equity and empowerment.

The project’s initial focus is hearing from women in the field. The submissions will be compiled in a book and presented at the technology conference to be held in Peru. We look forward to your response and as well as a successful launch of the book.

The first phase won the United Nations World Summit Information Society Award (WSIS) for content and creativity.

Efforts are being made to relauch and create a book with the submissions of the women in the technology sector. Proposed date is August 16, 2010.

The editors are Lady Murrugarra and Stacy Gildenston.

Report from the UNited Nations in 2005:Department of Social Affairs, Statistics Department.

Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals,1990-2005

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

The Millennium Declaration resolves to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as basic human rights. The Declaration also maintains that giving women their fair share is the only way to effectively combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable. Progress towards this goal is assessed by measuring gender equality in three areas: education, employment and political decision-making.

How the indicators are calculated

Gender equality as a prerequisite to achieving the other MDGs

Throughout the world women play a critical role in national economic growth and development. Their contributions have a lasting impact on households and communities, and it is women who most directly influence family nutrition and the health and education of their children. Giving women equal rights and opportunities can only serve to enhance this contribution and to bring us closer to the goal of eliminating poverty, hunger and disease.

Bridging the gender gap in education, for example – especially at the secondary level – is essential to developing skills and competencies necessary to compete in a global economy and to enable women to participate fully in public life. Reducing gender inequality in the labour market will increase women’s economic security and contribute to economic development and growth. Furthermore, ensuring women’s equal right to property and access to resources is fundamental to the fight against poverty. The full participation of women at all levels of decision-making is a basic human right, one that is critical to peace and development.

In other words, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women is an effective strategy to ensure that the other Millennium Development Goals are achieved. Conversely, if women lack the education, influence and resources to care for their families and to fully participate in the development process, it is unlikely that the MDG targets can be met.

In assessing progress towards goal 3, it should be noted that the indicators used measure only certain aspects of reality (that is, gender equality in the spheres of education, work and political participation). True equality for women involves much more. Similarly, gender is a specific focus in three of the Millennium Development Goals – those concerning gender equality, maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS. However, governments and their partners must seriously and systematically consider the gender aspects of all the goals, or risk falling short of the mark.

Target 4. Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015

Gender equality in education

Gender equality indicators for education Progress towards equality in education is measured for all three levels of education – primary, secondary and tertiary – based on the ratio of girls’ gross enrolment ratio to boy’s gross enrolment ratio. Literacy among youth is monitored by the ratio of women’s to men’s literacy rates for the age group 15 to 24 years.

Education, especially for girls, has social and economic benefits for society as a whole. Educated women have greater wage earning potential and more opportunities to participate in public life. They tend to marry later and to have fewer and healthier children who are more likely to go to school. Education for girls is also an effective prevention weapon against HIV.

Seven out of 10 regions are close to parity in primary school enrolment

Gender equality in primary school enrolment has been nearly achieved in seven out of ten regions in the developing world and the CIS, with a ratio of girls’ to boys’ enrolment of 93 per cent or higher. Southern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia lag behind, with ratios that remain low – from 85 to 89 girls per 100 boys – in spite of progress between 1990 and 2002. These regions will most likely miss the target of closing the gender gap by the end of 2005.

Table 1. Ratio of girls’ to boys’ enrolment at the primary school level (GER, gender parity index, 1990-2001
	Girls’ gross enrolment ratio divided by boys’ gross enrolment ratio (per 100)
Regions	1990/91	1998/99	2001/02
Developed regions	99	100	100
Commonwealth of Independent States, Europe	100	99	99
Commonwealth of Independent States, Asia	99	98	98
Northern Africa