Gender equality is a human rights issue necessary for achieving sustainable and people-centred development. The Beijing Platform of Action states that:
"empowerment of women and equality between women and men are prerequisites for achieving political, social, economic, cultural and environmental security among all peoples".
Beijing Platform of Action
United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women
Beijing, 4-15 September 1995
Why a Gender Statistics Website
This website aims to bring together both gender statistics and policies. Focus is on the production, dissemination and use of gender related data. In addition to statistics, this site outlines some of the main gender issues relevant to the UNECE region, and provides examples of policies and other initiatives. It also contains thematic pages on topics consisting of important methodologies and examples of survey instruments.
This website links gender issues to statistical indicators developed by the UNECE/UNDP gender statistics Task Force. The UNECE Gender Statistics Database helps to monitor the situation of women and men in all UNECE member countries, and provide evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of policies. The aims of the website and a short overview of the website contents are given in our mission statement.
All information presented in the website comes from the experience of international experts in the areas of gender issues, policies, and statistics, and from past or ongoing work in the development of gender statistics at the country and the international levels.
Who is the site for?
This Gender Statistics website is for everyone:
- Producers and users of statistics
- Policy makers and planners
- Non-governmental organizations
- Gender equality advocates
- Media
- General public
Background
This website was developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, in collaboration with National Statistical Offices in the ECE region. It is a product of the UNDP/UNECE project on "Gender statistics website for monitoring change", which was initiated in October 2000. This project builds on the important work done by countries in the region for development of gender statistics. Its aim was to improve the production, quality and use of gender statistics in countries across the ECE region (with focus on countries in transition) through strengthening national statistical capacity.
Project activities included:
- Regional meetings and workshops to identify a common set of indicators for monitoring gender equality progress in critical areas
- Design and implementation of the regional UNDP/UNECE website including gender indicators and information for monitoring national and international policies
- Guidelines and standards for concepts and classifications
- Developing a network of statisticians - Focal Points with gender expertise at the national statistics offices - to maintain and strengthen the communication among users and producers of statistics on gender issues at the regional and international level.
The Gender Statistics Focal Points from national statistical offices continue to play a crucial role in facilitating the development of the website. In particular, the selection of regionally relevant indicators and the collection and updating of the data. It is largely thanks to their commitment and work that the Gender Statistics Database is now available. The UNECE Task Force for this database has been active in re-evaluating and updating the indicators to reflect the changing situation of women and men.
This initiative was funded by the Regional Support Centre of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS (RBEC) as a part of a broader on-going project on human development statistics and social trends reporting. The UNDP Regional Support Centre based in Bratislava, serves needs of nearly 27 countries situated in Central and Eastern Europe and CIS with the purpose to:
- Bridging the gap between global and national priorities
- Helping country offices deal with trans-border problems, by focusing on regional issues and helping to identify and spread best practices
Since the inception of this website, UNECE continues work in the area of gender statistics, particularly in the area of gender statistics training for statisticians and users of statistics.
