MDG 3 - Promote gender equality and empower women - CIDA

Target

• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015

MDG 3―Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
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Overview

MDG 3, the promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment, is the only Millennium Development Goal that is both a goal in itself and is recognized as essential to the achievement of all other Millennium Development Goals. Evidence compiled by the World Bank from 73 countries shows that the incidence of poverty tends to be lower and that economic growth tends to be higher in countries with greater equality between women and men.

Nonetheless, global progress on achieving MDG 3 is lagging. The target of eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 has already been missed, although progress has been made. In the developing regions as a whole, 96 girls were enrolled in primary school for every 100 boys in 2008, compared to 91 in 1999. Eliminating gender disparity at all education levels by 2015 may still be possible, but the other indicators for MDG 3 show progress to be slow. For example, in parliamentary representation, while global proportion of seats held by women continues to rise slowly, averaging 19 percent as of January 2010, a third of developing countries still have less than 10 percent or no female representation in parliament at all.

MDG 3 - Promote gender equality and empower women - CIDA