GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT

Friday, 20th of January 2012

•  

  GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT

Summarized at

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2012/Resources/7778105-1299699968583/7786210-1315936231894/Overview-English.pdf

This year’s World Development Report highlights the role of gender development in social and economic development. See the discussion of mortality, pp. 14-17.

‘The rate at which girls and women die relative to men is higher in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. To quantify this excess female mortality (“missing” girls and women) and identify the ages at which it occurs, this Report estimated the number of excess female deaths at every age and for every country in 1990, 2000, and 2008. Excess female deaths in a given year represent women who would not have died in the previous year if they had lived in a high-income country, after accounting for the overall health environment of the country they live in. Globally, excess female mortality after birth and “missing” girls at birth account every year for an estimated 3.9 million women below the age of 60. About two-fifths of them are never born, one-fifth goes missing in infancy and childhood, and the remaining two-fifths do so between the ages of 15 and 59 (table 1).

‘Growth does not make the problem disappear. Between 1990 and 2008, the number of missing girls at birth and excess female mortality after birth did not change much; declines in infancy and childhood were offset by dramatic increases in Sub-Saharan Africa in the reproductive ages. Part of the increase is because populations increased. But, unlike Asia, where the population-adjusted missing women fell in every country (dramatically in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Vietnam), most Sub-Saharan countries saw little change in the new millennium. And in the countries hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, things got much worse.’

Until governments and partners put enough resources into gender equality, achievement of MDG 3, MDG4 and MDG5 is likely to lag.

--