Doing more for women’s all-round development

DELIVERING a keynote address during the opening ceremony of the Global Leaders’ Meeting on Women, held in October in Beijing, President Xi Jinping rallied the international community to work towards fostering conditions that allow women to realise their dreams in society.

- GIDEON CHITANGA

The Global Leaders’ Meeting on Women renders more impetus to the spirit of the 1995 World Conference on Women, also held in China, which adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Coming just under five years before the lapse of the UN Agenda 2030, and the failure of many countries to meet the SDG target on gender equality, the meeting was crucial in rebooting the attention of world leaders to the societal role of women, their often-overlooked agency, and the continuous struggles they face in living a self-fulfilling life with minimal societal barriers.

Women constitute more than half the global human population. Many women struggle with balancing work and family responsibilities, sometimes worsened by gender-based bias in the workplace and in society. With only four years left for the world to fulfil the promises made to girls and women under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a report by UN Women and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, highlights that many countries may not be able to meet their commitments toward gender equality.

Despite significant progress in the advancement of women in various sectors, including education, business, and political leadership, most women continue to be marginalised, disproportionately bearing the brunt of domestic work while their male counterparts negotiate their career prospects with minimal societal obstacles.

Women face structural, cultural, and societal barriers that inhibit their prospects to take leading roles in society, including gender-based violence, discrimination, and the gender pay gap. Other challenges include under-representation in business and political leadership, the burden of unpaid care work, and a lack of adequate healthcare and reproductive rights, which aggravate poverty among women and girls.