WUNRN

http://www.wunrn.com

 

Direct Link to NO CEILINGS – FULL PARTICIPATION REPORT – WOMEN & GIRLS

http://noceilings.org/report/report.pdf - 51 Pages

 

When Women & Girls Succeed, Everyone Benefits

 

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that gender equality is not only important to women and girls—it is critical to communities, economies, and societies. When

women and girls are healthy and educated, their children and families prosper. Research shows that investing in women and girls has multiplier effects: Even one extra

year of schooling beyond the average can increase women’s wages by about 10 percent, and a World Bank study suggests that raising the share of women with secondary education is linked to increases in economic growth.3,4 Educating women causes a ripple effect, leading to increased educational attainment across

generations among both girls and boys. Women with more education have a lower chance of dying during pregnancy and childbirth and have healthier children;

half of the reductions in child mortality between 1970 and 2009 can be attributed to increased educational attainment in women of reproductive age.5,6 Women’s

access to quality health information and services, particularly family planning, is essential to broader economic and health development goals.7

 

The benefits of expanding women’s economic opportunities are equally clear. When women participate in the economy, poverty decreases and gross domestic product (GDP) grows. It is estimated that closing the gap in women’s labor force participation across OECD countries will lead to average GDP gains of 12 percent by 2030, including about 10 percent in the United States, almost 20 percent in Japan and Korea, and more than 22 percent in Italy.8 The UN Food and Agriculture

Organization (FAO) forecasts that if women farmers had the same access to productive resources as men, total agricultural output would rise, and the number of hungry

people in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.9

 

There are still major gaps in achievement for women and girls. Security is tenuous for women and girls, even in their own homes. Critical barriers—including legal

restrictions and limited access to resources—undermine women’s economic opportunities. And women’s voices are still under epresented in leadership positions—from

legislatures to boardrooms, from peace negotiations to the media. Even in those areas where we have seen progress, too many obstacles limit the full participation of women and girls. Many countries still lack laws safeguarding women’s rights and even where laws are strong, implementation and enforcement often lag. Social

norms, an equally important influence on gender equality, are hard to change. And recent gains for women and girls have not been shared by all. Geography,

income, age, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and cultural norms, among other factors, remain powerful determinants of a woman’s chance at equal rights and opportunities.

 

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200 Million Fewer Women than Men Online

 

By Lyndal Rowlands

 

UNITED NATIONS, March 10, 2015 (IPS) - Two hundred million fewer women have access to the internet than men, according to a report released Monday.

The report published by No Ceilings also said an estimated 300 million fewer women than men own a mobile phone, with these gaps primarily concentrated in developing countries.

Women’s participation and safety online was a popular topic on the first day of the 59th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations.

The 2015 CSW also coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+20), the historic agenda for women’s empowerment. Women’s participation in media and new communication technologies is covered under Section J of the Platform.

Discussions at the CSW covered both the positive and negative impact of information communication technology on progress towards gender equality.

Jan Moolman, Senior Coordinator of the Association for Progressive Communications spoke about how women have achieved empowerment by using the internet.

She said new media helped individuals to construct and represent themselves online. She also said new media offered women “opportunities for movement building” and the “opportunity to leap over many kinds of barriers.”

Moolman added that threats against women online needed to be treated as a freedom of information issue, because they were used to try to silence women when they spoke up on gender equality.

“If we have 52% of the population unable to express themselves freely that is a freedom of expression issue,” Moolman said.

U.N. Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women) are also increasingly using new media with their campaigns. For example through social media campaigns such as HeForShe, infographics and a new monitor of countries which have committed to step-it-up for gender equality.

Speaking about the HeForShe campaign at Facebook Headquarters in London yesterday, U.N. Women Global Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson spoke about how she herself had received threats after speaking out on gender equality.

“The minute I stepped up and talked about women’s rights I was immediately threatened, I mean, within less than 12 hours I was receiving threats.”

A website was set up with a countdown threatening to release nude photographs of the British actor. Watson said that she knew the website was a hoax, but that the experience helped her friends and family see the need for progress on gender equality.

“I think it was just a wake up call that this is a real thing that’s really happening now, women are receiving threats in all sorts of different forms,” she said.

Watson also said that the threats helped convince her of the importance of campaigning for gender equality.

“If anything, if they were trying to put me off, it did the opposite.”

No Ceilings is an initiative, supported by the Clinton Foundation, which has compiled thousands of data points on gender equality across a range of areas, including access to information and communication technologies.