Stronger accountability needed to move from commitments to results* including achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Women must be included in all oversight processes; gender equality must become standard against which public performance is assessed. Here are some extracts from the report: SANA'A* Sept 27 ? As a halfway point to the 2015 deadline for achieving the MDGs and a week before the High-level Event to examine the world's progress towards meeting the MDGs* the United Nations Development Fund for Women published its 2008/2009 progress of the world's women report under the title: Who answers to women? Gender and accountability. The report revels that implementation still has a long way to go in translating commitments to women?s rights into changes in women?s lives. To date* women are outnumbered 4 to 1 in legislatures around the world; over 60 percent of all unpaid family workers globally are women; women still earn on average 17 per cent less than men* and about one-third of women suffer gender-based violence during their lives. In some parts of the world* 1 in 10 women dies from pregnancy-related causes even though the means for preventing maternal mortality are cost-effective and well known. Gender gaps on this scale are symptomatic of an accountability crisis. Governments and multilateral organizations have a responsibility to do a better job of answering to women. Progress 2008/2009 points out that accountability mechanisms work for women when they can ask for explanations and information from decision makers* and* where necessary* initiate investigations or get compensation. Women must be included in oversight processes* and advancing women?s rights must be a key standard against which the performance of public officials is assessed and* if necessary* sanctioned. ?If any man asks why I support better accountability to women* here?s my response: because a government that answers to women will answer to you too*? said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Progress of the World?s Women 2008/2009 provides an assessment of each of the Millennium Development Goals from a gender perspective and focuses on five key areas where urgent action is required to strengthen accountability to women: politics and governance* access to public services* economic opportunities* justice* and the distribution of international assistance for development and security. In each of these areas the report details means of building state capacity?or good governance ? form a women?s rights perspective. ?Good governance needs women* and women need good governance*? said Anne Marie Goetz lead author of the report. ?Women have a different perspective on accountability because they often experience accountability failures differently from men. This report argues that good governance needs women?s engagement ? just as gender equality requires states that are accountable and capable of delivering on promises of women?s rights.? Key findings and recommendations: ? Multilateral aid and security institutions can do much more to meet their own commitments and standards on gender equality. To date* no agreed system-wide tracking mechanism exists within multilaterals such as the United Nations and the International Financial Institutions* to assess the amount of aid allocated to gender equality or women?s empowerment. ? Public service delivery that responds to women?s needs is the real litmus test of government accountability. Women continue to face barriers to health* education and agricultural support services. They are denied access because health clinics and schools are often too distant or costly* agricultural services are geared towards male farmers* and government services routinely target employed* literate or propertied men. ? One form of accountability failure is corruption* and women?s experiences are different from those of men. In developed countries* 30 percent more women than men perceive high levels of corruption in the education system* and a gendered difference in perceptions of corruption are seen in most other parts of the world as well. Women may also experience corruption differently from men* for instance* when sexual extortion is one of the forms in which informal payments are extracted. ? Even though in the last decade the number of women parliamentarians at the national level has increased by 8 percent to a global average of 18.4 percent* developing countries will still not reach the ?parity zone? of 40-60 percent until 2045. Quotas or other special measures are effective in ensuring progress: women hold an average of 19.3 percent of parliamentary seats in countries that applied some form of electoral quota* compared to 14.7 percent in countries with no quotas. Continued on page 2 ? Real improvement in women?s access to justice needs gender-based changes in law enforcement and informal justice institutions. For example* the presence of an all-female women contingent in Liberia is encouraging women to engage with the police. Similar examples can be found in other post conflict contexts* such as Timor-Leste and Kosovo. ? Women are extremely vulnerable to shifting patterns in global markets in the absence of measures that protect them* such as during the recent food crisis* for they not only assume primary responsibility for feeding their families but also contribute as much as 50-80 percent of agricultural labor in Asia and Africa. Similarly* women?s employment and migration are also shaped by global trends. The ?brain drain? from South to North of people with tertiary education has recently become feminized* with more professional women migrating than men. This has implications for women?s economic leadership in developing....

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