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The fact that the development and advancement
of women play a crucial role in national development
needs no further emphasis. The importance of
collection and dissemination of statistical
information relating to gender issues has been
increasingly recognized. The topic of gender
statistics was prominently discussed at the
Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 4-15
September 1995), where the World's Women
1995: Trends and Statistics was one of the
official Conference documents. It was prepared
by the Statistics Division and involved a collaborative
effort of 11 United Nations programmes. Among
other things, the conference highlighted the
importance of gender-disaggregated data and
information for planning and evaluation. Also
in 1995, at its twenty-eighth session the Statistical
Commission emphasized the value of time-use
statistics for a range of national and international
socio-economic statistics, including gender
statistics, and requested that a draft classification
of time-use activities be prepared by the statistics
Division as a basis for further research and
special studies.
The paid and unpaid economic contributions
include work that takes place within the household
or community as well as those that are ultimately
reflected in market transactions. Although this
work is crucial to sustainable economic and
human development, it has not been adequately
and systematically captured in national statistics
and used for the formulation of people-centered,
gender-sensitive public policy and private decision-making.
The work is performed both by women and men,
with women predominating in unpaid, non-market
economic contributions, such as rearing children,
nursing the sick and elderly, managing household
resources and consumption, protecting the environment
and providing assistance to vulnerable individuals
and groups. Acknowledging the need for promoting
statistical work in this area, senior policy
makers, statisticians and gender experts from
21 countries in the Asia and Pacific region
met in Seoul, Republic of Korea, on 28-30 May
1997. They determined that it was important
to define and implement an action plan to integrate
paid and unpaid work into national policies
as a means to promote sustainable and equitable
economic growth and human development. Through
a project with UNDP, work is now under way to
develop a classification of activities for time-use.
Depending on the availability of funds, the
classification will be reviewed at an expert
group meeting to be convened in 1997.
The experience of the national statistical
offices in providing statistics for the country
reports for the Fourth World Conference on Women
showed that progress in the region in developing
statistics on gender issues has been varied;
some countries have been able to introduce new
data collection programmes, while others have
adjusted existing programmes to accommodate
the requirement for gender-based statistics.
While some statistical data related to women
already exist in many countries, they are often
they are collected on a piecemeal basis and
are scattered across various sectors, neglected
or underutilized. To improve the availability
and quality of statistical data disaggregated
by sex, and to promote the analysis and use
of those data in the region, the ESCAP secretariat
has been implementing two projects on gender
statistics, under which regional publications,
several statistical profiles on women and national
statistical booklets on women and men have been
published. Efforts will continue to encourage
countries to give priority to the development
of statistics in several specific areas of gender
issues, especially for those important areas
for which direct measurement remains difficult
or where the information collected is still
not reliable, such as gender equity, time-use,
violence against women and maternal mortality.
Under the project on Improving Statistics
on Women in the ESCAP Region, funded by the
Netherlands Government, sixteen country profiles
on the situation of women and men are being
published by the secretariat. The profiles present
available statistical data, information and
analysis concerning women in the family, at
work, and in public life. They are intended
to highlight the areas where action is needed,
and to raise the consciousness of the public
about issues concerning women and men. At the
time of preparing this paper, eight profiles
have already been issued for: Bangladesh, Nepal,
Pakistan, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands,
Thailand and Vanuatu. The other eight, under
printing and preparation processes, are for
China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic
of Iran, Japan, Republic of Korea and Sri Lanka.
Another project of the Statistics Division,
on Improving Statistics on Gender Issues, funded
by the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
and the Swedish International Development Agency
(SIDA), is an attempt to promote and develop
more and better statistics and indicators on
gender issues by working closely with the national
statistical offices in a number of countries
to encourage and involve them as main actors
in the project activities. Since the national
statistical offices (NSOs) play a central role
as providers of official statistics, it is believed
that any effort to improve the availability
of data must start with their active participation.
To ensure government support and awareness among
policy makers and planners, the project also
involves participation of high-level government
officials from various ministries, national
machineries for women and other data users.
The networking set up through this project and
the work involved in producing the national
reports, including compilation and dissemination
of statistics on gender issues, have played
an important role in promoting greater awareness
of the issues faced by women relative to men
and in highlighting the need to improve the
availability of relevant statistics which are
timely and of good quality. The findings, conclusions
and recommendations arising from these two projects
have also been brought to the attention of the
Commission and its subsidiary bodies. It is
hoped that Governments are now better informed
and able to incorporate gender issues and concerns
in national development plans.
As an output of the activities under the UNIFEM/SIDA
project, each of the project's six participating
countries has published a national statistical
booklet on women and men in English. These publications
have also been translated into national languages.
While implementing this project, the ESCAP secretariat
received very strong support from the national
statistical offices of the participating countries,
which showed great interest in implementing
various activities initiated under the project.
The success of the project can be attributed
to the efforts by the national staff implementing
it and the support the project received at a
very high level of Government officials. In
several instances, the national workshops organized
under the project were opened by Ministers and
involved participation from many disciplines.
On its part, the ESCAP secretariat staff provided
intensive support and attention to the national
activities. All the six countries intend to
institutionalize the production of the booklet
on women and men in their statistical systems,
which greatly benefitted from the intensive
interaction of the users and producers of statistics.
A project proposal for Phase II of this project,
focusing on a new set of six countries, has
been formulated and submitted for extrabudgetary
support and possible initiation of implementation
in 1998.
The Working Group of Statistical Experts is
invited to review and provide comments and recommendations
on the work of the secretariat in the field
of gender statistics. |
