March 2020

Can better data change the fate of India's invisible female farmers?

More than 70% of rural women workers are engaged in agricultural work in India, yet they own only 13.9% of landholdings. The many women who work as unpaid family labor are left out of official statistics entirely.

"Women farmers are invariably invisibilized in data systems since land operations are the criteria by which the census enumeration systems identify farmers, and women's toil on the land tends to be underreported in our patriarchal structures of family, state, and capitalist economy," says Soma Parthasarathy, policy analyst and member of MAKAAM, a forum for the rights of women farmers.

Instead, women are often denied access to land, livestock, assets, technologies, credit, irrigation, and markets. Women's rights groups advocate for a range of solutions to better support women in agriculture — including joint registration of land and a registry of women farmers so that government schemes serve them, too.

Sunaina Kumar explores the roles of data collection and use in the effort to recognize and support India's invisible female farmers.

This story is part of our focus area exploring how data is being used to inform policy and advocacy to advance gender equality. Visit our Focus on: Gender Data page for regular coverage.

Women's rights in review 25 years after Beijing

The Beijing Declaration and the Beijing Platform for Action is the most comprehensive and transformative global agenda for the achievement of gender equality, and 25 years after its adoption, its bold vision for changing the lives of women and girls has renewed relevance. A new report from UN Women takes stock of the progress on implementing the Beijing agenda and finds that, although there have been important gains for women and girls, they have fallen far short of the initial promise.

Even the slow and incremental progress that has been made, notably on education and health, is under threat from rising inequality, runaway climate change, and increasingly exclusionary politics. In this challenging context, the report shows that change is both necessary and possible. It showcases game-changing efforts to scale up public services to meet women's rights, groundbreaking programs to prevent violence against women, and concrete strategies to get more women into power and a seat at the peace table.

In a landmark year for gender equality, the report also celebrates the role of feminist leadership in demanding and shaping a better world for women and girls, for the benefit of all.

COUNTRY SPOTLIGHT: KENYA

2020 is a big year for gender data in Kenya, for at least three reasons:

 First time-use survey. Right now, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics is training enumerators to carry out the country's first time-use survey, with the help of UN Women and other partners. Once completed, it will mean Kenya is no longer the only country in the East African region that hasn't conducted one, according to Maureen Gitonga, gender statistics program specialist for UN Women. Time-use statistics are quantitative summaries of how individuals allocate their time over a specified period — and can shed light on how much time women spend on unpaid care work, for example.

  Poverty profiles. By conducting further analysis of existing household surveys, UN Women, together with UNICEF and KNBS, has been able to derive poverty profiles for women at national and county level. "In essence, for the first time in Kenya, we should be able to know where poor women are," Gitonga said. The partners are also analyzing Kenya's most recent demographic health survey to develop a women empowerment index "so that when you say, 'Maureen is empowered in Kenya,' we know what indicators you are looking at," Gitonga explained. The index should help the country report on women's access to health care, for example, as well as the existence and enforcement of legal frameworks to advance gender equality.

 Tracking gender expenditure. "If you were to ask me what Kenya is investing in women's equality, I wouldn't be able to tell you how much women's programs receive in the ministry of agriculture, the ministry of forestry … I'm not able to tell you the level of investment," Gitonga said. Now, UN Women is working with Kenya's national treasury and UNICEF to help better track allocation and code expenditure on gender across agencies. "The SDGs, you can't work on them in isolation. So the fact that we'll be able to see where the government is investing more or less and then make policies or legislation that will address these gaps … that is progress."

Why averages can't answer crucial questions about women and girls

Seck sits down with Devex to discuss the promises and perils of new data sources and the power of disaggregated data.

NEED TO KNOW: DFAT'S DECADE TACKLING GBV

The Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is considered a leader in delivering programs targeting violence against women and girls in the Indo-Pacific region.

But a review of its programs over the past decade — and data demonstrating the depth of the challenges facing women and girls — reveals there is much more to be done.

ON THIS MONTH

March 9, New York

CSW64, previously scheduled for March 9-20, has been trimmed to a one-day procedural session in light of the threat posed by COVID-19. Delegations are expected to adopt the draft political declaration, but general debate and parallel events have been canceled.

An alternative date may be set to continue the meeting in 2020, a year that marks the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.