Aiming high for women

The United Nations wants to achieve full equality for women over the next 15 years. By aiming so high, it risks ignoring the smaller steps necessary to improving women's lot, especially in poor countries.

When it comes to defining well-being, where a woman stands on the issue can depend on where she sits; specifically, where she sits geographically. A survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on behalf of Merck Consumer Health, and presented in the recently released study Women's health and well-being: evolving definitions and practices, finds that definitions of well-being can vary a great deal based on geography and level of economic development.

In particular, while most women (64%) in the survey equate “feeling well” with “feeling healthy and physically fit”, a difference of opinion emerges based on where the women live. A decisive majority of women in Germany - 77%--link well-being to physical health and fitness, while smaller proportions of women in Brazil (49%) and in Mexico (49%) give the same answer.

Beyond geography, a woman's definition of well-being is influenced by many other factors, including income and immediate circumstances. While professional women in rich countries worry about juggling their careers and family life, women in poorer countries tend to focus on immediate necessities, sometimes as basic as adequate food supplies, access to education and a measure of independence in daily life.

Against this backdrop, the United Nations is taking aim at the problems interfering with women's well-being. For example, it targeted high maternal and infant mortality rates in its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs—see Box 1) for the years 2000-15. This year, in its recently released Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs—see Box 2) for 2016-30, the UN aimed even higher, setting ambitious goals for achieving worldwide gender equality and empowerment—that is, self-determination in decision-making—for women and girls.

There are good reasons for a focus on the broader idea of empowerment alongside the attention given to meeting basic requirements of food, shelter and health. Catrin Schulte-Hillen, who leads Médecins Sans Frontières' working group on reproductive health and sexual violence, says “the women we talk to [in developing countries] emphasise that access to better healthcare is not necessarily a main measure of well-being. They emphasise a lack of empowerment, and immediate crises over money and lack of food.”

Measurable progress
This may explain the shift in emphasis between the earlier MDGs and the current SDGs. In general terms, the Millennium goals, and in particular MDGs #3, #4 and #5, set a series of concrete pledges in education access and child and maternal health. These pledges were ambitious and the targets were generally missed, although they did help to force some progress.

Under the new SDGs, in contrast, governments must actually achieve (rather than just promote) gender equality and empowerment for women and girls by 2030. In the space of 15 years, all violence against women must end, harmful practices must be eliminated, the value of unpaid care must be recognised, and women must be given equal access to economic resources and full participation in decision-making.

Purna Sen, head of policy at UN Women, the United Nations organisation dedicated to gender equality, says that the ambitious goals in the SDGs correctly match the magnitude of the challenges facing women in developing countries, “although these are issues in all countries”.

Setting such lofty global goals “creates the momentum for change,” she says. “It is an important shift for governments to accept that they must achieve these things and that discrimination against women must stop.” For example, Dr Sen points to concrete progress made so far in repealing laws that discriminates against women, and she is confident the task will be completed over the next few years.

Beyond that, Dr Sen argues that aiming high is necessary in order to create a general environment that fosters progress for women in developing countries. She summarises the challenges facing women globally, and notably in developing countries, as “having inadequate control over their lives; a lack of visibility, and limited perception of their complicated roles.” In its hugely ambitious SDG drive, the UN now wants to create momentum towards changing these conditions.

Setting specific targets such as those in the MDGs helps to force progress in the specified areas, while the broad sweep of SDG goals aims to build a more general momentum for change. The SDG goals of ending violence against women and ending all forms of discrimination by 2030 are certainly laudable. But in setting such high goals, the UN risks giving too little attention to the small steps and concrete targets necessary to achieve the broader ambition.