This volume of Progress of the World’s Women asks the question “Who answers to women?” at a pivotal moment. It demonstrates that the Millennium Development Goals and other international commitments to women will only be met if gender-responsive accountability systems are put in place both nationally and internationally.

Acknowledging that different groups of women encounter distinct challenges in gaining access to their rights, the publication examines how women, including the most excluded women, are strengthening their capacity to identify accountability gaps and call for redress.

FORWARD
The past decades have seen great advances in terms of commitments to women’s rights, both nationally and globally. However, these are not always matched by actions on the ground. For too many women, poverty and violence are every day facts of life as they struggle to access equal rights with men—in employment, family and property, as well as access the public resources and services.

Progress of the World’s Women 2008/2009 provides examples of how women are demanding accountability for action on commitments to promote gender equality and women’s rights from national governments, justice and law enforcement systems, employers and service providers, as well as international institutions.

Accountability from a women’s rights perspective exists when all women are able to get explanations from those in power for actions that affect them, and can set in motion corrective actions when those responsible fail to promote their rights.

Gender equality advocates have been at the forefront of efforts to democratize power relations in private and informal institutions as well as in the public sphere. Indeed, this report shows that women’s efforts to expose gender-based injustice and demand redress have changed the ways in which we think of accountability.

Accountability cannot result from demand-side pressures alone. Progress of the World’s Women 2008/2009 demonstrates innovative examples of states and international institutions taking steps to increase the supply side of accountability. This implies gender-responsive changes in the mandates, practices, and cultures of these institutions to ensure that there are incentives and consequences for upholding their commitments to women’s rights.

This report presents a framework for understanding accountability from a gender perspective and applies this to different contexts in which accountability systems determine women’s access to resources and power: politics, public services, labour, consumer and trade markets, justice systems, and international aid and security institutions.

Since 2000, women have had a global commitment against which to measure progress in building answerability to women: the Millennium Declaration and its Millennium Development Goals. Gender equality is central to the achievement of the MDGs. Achievement of the MDGs depends increasingly on women benefiting from development investments in education and health, being able to engage in the market on an equal basis with men, and being able to participate in public decision-making at all levels.

This report lays out the rationale for a new accountability agenda for women’s rights and gender equality. It provides evidence not just of an accountability deficit, but of promising government and civil society initiatives and institutional reforms that improve accountability to women.

INES ALBERDI
Executive Director
UNIFEM

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Chapter 1 Who Answers to Women
This volume of Progress of the World’s Women asks the question “Who answers to women?” at a pivotal moment.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed to in 2000 contain a commitment to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, including indicators and concrete targets related to girls’ education and to maternal mortality. The MDGs also monitor progress on women’s ability to engage in economic activity and public decision-making on an equal basis with men.

Halfway to 2015, the year when the MDGs should be met by all countries, progress has been mixed. This volume of Progress of the World’s Women demonstrates that the MDGs and other international commitments to women will only be met if gender-responsive accountability systems are put in place both nationally and internationally. ...

Download Progress of the World's Women 2008/2009: Who Answers to Women?

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CONTENTS
1 Who Answers to Women?
A framework for understanding accountability from a gender perspective and the key elements required to ‘make accountability work’ for women.

2 Politics
There are more women in government today than ever before. Their effectiveness in moving policies into actions depends upon gender-responsive governance reforms.

3 Services
Public services that respond to women’s needs are the litmus test of accountability to women in the public sector.

4 Markets
Women’s everyday lives are increasingly shaped by the dynamics of the market. Accountability in the private sector is based on different principles than those in the public sector.

5 Justice
Barriers of access, mandate constraints and gender bias can limit the effectiveness of formal and informal justice systems in achieving better accountability for women.

6 Aid & Security
Multilateral aid and security institutions must improve their own accountability to live up to the high standards they have set on gender equality.

7 Conclusions
A forward agenda for reform of accountability systems from a gender perspective.

ABOUT UNIFEM
UNIFEM is the women’s fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies to foster women’s empowerment and gender equality.

Placing the advancement of women’s human rights at the centre of all of its efforts, UNIFEM focuses on reducing feminised poverty; ending violence against women; reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls; and achieving gender equality in democratic governance in times of peace as well as war.

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