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Unequal progress 4. Research suggests a significant correlation between the education of girls, healthier families and stronger gross domestic product (GDP) growth. 8 The entry of women into the export manufacturing sector in Eastern and Southern Asia, among other factors, has been a key driver of economic growth and contributed to a shift in the concentration of global wealth from West to East. 9 Gains in the educational attainment of girls are also contributing to the success of Asia and Latin America in the knowledge-based economy. 10 5. Nevertheless, belief in and commitment to gender equality is not universal, 11 and gender-based discrimination and violence continue to plague most societies. 12 Beyond the discrimination experienced by women and girls are persistent inequalities faced by those with disabilities, indigenous peoples, racial and ethnic minorities and persons of diverse sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. While a core message of the International Conference on Population and Development was the right of all persons to development, the rise of the global middle-class 13 has been shadowed by persistent inequalities both within and between countries. While important gains in health and longevity have been made, they are not equally shared or accessible to many. 6. Despite considerable advances in maternal and child health and family planning in the past two decades, 800 women died each day from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth in 2010, 14 and an estimated 8.7 million young women aged 15 to 24 in developing countries underwent unsafe abortions in 2008. 15 The advent of antiretroviral drugs has averted 6.6 million deaths from HIV and AIDS, including 5.5 million in low- and middle-income countries, but in far too many countries the number of new infections continues to rise, or declines have stalled. 16 In general, __________________ 8
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United Nations Millennium Project, Task Force on Education and Gender Equality, Taking action: Achieving Gender Equality and Empowering Women (London, Earthscan, 2005). United States of America. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 2008). Ibid. The World’s Women 2010: Trends and Statistics (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.10.XVII.11). Data analysed from the World Values Survey (www.worldvaluessurvey.org). C. Garcia-Moreno and others, WHO Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women: Initial Results on Prevalence, Health Outcomes and Women’s Responses (Geneva, World Health Organization, 2005); C. Garcia-Moreno and others, Global and Regional Estimates of Violence against Women: Prevalence and Health Effects of Intimate Partner Violence and Non-partner Sexual Violence (Geneva, World Health Organization, 2013). H. Kharas, “The emerging middle class in developing countries”, OECD Development Centre Working Paper No. 285 (Paris, OECD Publishing, 2010); F. H. G. Ferreira and others, Economic Mobility and the Rise of the Latin American Middle Class (Washington, D.C., World Bank, 2013). WHO and others, Trends in Maternal Mortality (see footnote 6 above); United Nations Population Fund, “Giving birth should not be a matter of life and death”, UNFPA Factsheet (December 2012), available from www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/factsheets/srh/ENSRH%20fact%20sheet-LifeandDeath.pdf. I. H. Shah and E. Ahman, “Unsafe abortion differentials in 2008 by age and developing country region: high burden among young women”, Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 20, No. 39 (2012), pp. 169-172. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Global Report: UNAIDS Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic 2013 (Geneva, 2013).
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