CONTENTS

1. Letter from The Executive Board

2.Beginner’s Guide to Model Un
3.About the Committee
4.About the Agenda
5.Summary
6.Additional Facts

1 | Page
 Letter from the Executive Board
Dear Delegates,
It gives me incredible delight to invite you all to the academic simulation of the
United Nations commission on the status of women at Alchon Youth MUN 2022.
We trust this experience improves your public speaking abilities and that you find
out about a squeezing world issue that convolutes the existence of numerous
individuals in our nation just as abroad. Please consider that the following guide, as
the name suggests, is merely to provide you with the background of the agenda and
cannot serve as a credible source of information. Your real research lies beyond this
guide, and we hope to see some strong content and debate come our way. The agenda
at hand is vast and complex and a successful discussion on it would entail the
collective participation of all of you. It shall be your prerogative to decide the
direction in which you want to take this committee. The background guide is
designed to help everyone to understand the basic things about the agenda, and we
strongly recommend that you research various things on your own. We also suggest
understanding how various rights get affected (legally). Do not feel taken aback on
the research, foreign policy and other details of the allotted country.
Prior to coming for the meeting, it is vital to break the agenda into more modest
subtopics and pose inquiries to yourself about the plan. Making chits and directed
gathering points previously would give you an edge in modestly bigger advisory
committees like the UNCSW. It is also crucial to enhance your leadership skills and
lobbying capacity since we would give equal importance to overall participation in
the committee. We would be using the UNA-USA rules of procedure to facilitate this
simulation. ( https://unausa.org/model-un/ )
Take the initiative to research properly. PLEASE DO READ THE GUIDE. While it is
a clear agenda, it is still open to interpretation and there shall be no direction of
debate that shall be provided by the Executive Board. Delegates are required to direct
the council at all stages, unless stagnation occurs. The agenda of an MUN is a
beautiful experience and is not as difficult as it may seem. We hope to see a great
level of effort and enthusiasm from you all, so that we all can take back a great
experience.

Regards

EXECUTIVE BOARD

(kashishgumber.work@gmail.com)

2 | Page
 Beginner’s Guide to Model UN
Question 1: What is the United Nations?

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 to maintain

international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and
promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights by 51 countries.
United nations have 6 principal organs.

The UN has 4 main purposes

● To keep peace throughout the world;

● To develop friendly relations among nations;
● To help nations work together to improve the lives of poor people, to conquer
hunger, disease and illiteracy, and to encourage respect for each other’s rights
and freedoms;
● To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations to achieve these goals

PRINCIPAL ORGANS OF UNITED NATIONS

3 | Page
Question 2: What is the Model United Nations?

Model United Nations is a simulation of the actual United nation which is done to
enhance knowledge about pressing International issues. It is called Model United
nation not mock United nation because it does not work as an exact replica of the
United Nations, it is just an attempt to understand the working of the United Nations
by practicing some of its working mechanisms. Every person who participates is
given a country to represent and are called Delegates of their respective committees.
There are some rules that we follow in MUNs to facilitate the debate called rules of
procedure. The procedure that is closest to what is followed in the actual UN is
UN4MUN.

Question 3: What is considered to be valid evidence in the Model United

Nations?

Evidence or proof that is acceptable from sources

1. News Sources:
a. REUTERS – Any Reuters article which clearly makes mention of the factor is in
contradiction of the fact being stated by a delegate in council.
http://www.reuters.com/
b. State-operated News Agencies – These reports can be used in the support of or
against the State that owns the News Agency. These reports, if credible or substantial
enough, can be used in support of or against any Country as such but in that
situation, they can be denied by any other country in the council. Some examples are,
i. RIA Novosti (Russia) http://en.rian.ru/
ii. IRNA (Iran) http://www.irna.ir/ENIndex.htm
. BBC (United Kingdom) http://www.bbc.co.uk/
iv. Xinhua News Agency and CCTV (P.R. China) http://cctvnews.cntv.cn/
2. Government Reports: These reports can be used in a similar way as the State
Operated News Agencies reports and can, in all circumstances, be denied by another
country.
a. Government Websites like the State Department of the United States of America (
http://www.state.gov/index.htm ) or the Ministry of Defence of the Russian
Federation ( http://www.eng.mil.ru/en/index.htm )
b. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of various nations like India (http://www.mea.gov.in/),
People’s Republic of China (http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/ ),
France (http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/ ),
Russian Federation (http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng )
c. Permanent Representatives to the United Nations Reports
http://www.un.org/en/members/ (Click on any country to get the website of the
Office of its Permanent Representative)
d. Multilateral Organisations like the NATO
(http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/index.htm ), ASEAN
(http://www.aseansec.org/ ), OPEC (http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/ ), etc.
3. UN Reports: All UN Reports are considered credible information or evidence for
the Executive Board of the Security Council.

4 | Page
a. UN Bodies: Like the SC (http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/ ), GA
(http://www.un.org/en/ga/ ), HRC
(http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/HRCIndex.aspx ) etc.
b. UN Affiliated bodies like the International Atomic Energy Agency
5 (http://www.iaea.org/), World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org/ ), International
Monetary Fund (http://www.imf.org/external/index.htm , International Committee
of the Red Cross (http://www.icrc.org/eng/index.jsp ), etc.
c. Treaty Based Bodies like the Antarctic Treaty System
(http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm ), the International Criminal Court
(http://www.icccpi.int/Menus/ICC )

IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS BACKGROUND GUIDE ISN’T A VALID

SOURCE FOR PROOFS. IT IS JUST FOR REFERENCE, DON’T RESTRICT
YOUR RESEARCH TO SAME.

Question 4: How to prepare for the Model United Nations?

General Research and Preparation guidelines

There are three consistently significant parts of representative planning. They are:
useful; meaningful; and positional planning. Practical readiness outfits the
representatives with essential apparatuses, including a comprehension of the
guidelines important to act in board of trustees. The meaningful component gives
preparation of explicit data on the subject regions. At long last, positional planning
requires the understudies to embrace viewpoints that are not their own. In light of
this, the EB gives three instruments to help you: this Guide to Delegate Preparation,
Background Guides, and position papers. Together, these will guarantee you will be
prepared for the gathering. Past perusing and understanding the material we have
given, the more pragmatic experience you can gain through banter, goal composing,
making introductions, and so forth, the more ready you will be.

Meaningful Preparation
The Background Guides are a consequence of broad exploration and exertion with
respect to the Executive Board and are the establishment of considerable
groundwork for every advisory group. We recommend that you read them, talk about
them, and read them once more. On the off chance that an agent has not perused and
ingested the data in the Background Guide, the person won't contribute adequately
to the board. An ambitious beginning on the Background Guides will empower you to
completely comprehend the subjects and start to tissue out your own thoughts.
Advise yourself that you should go about as policymakers, dissecting and shaping the
data you have gotten into arrangements and goals. Conversations with different
representatives will likewise assist you with fostering your thoughts. While the
Background Guide will give a large portion of your meaningful readiness,
autonomous exploration is valuable, fulfilling and important for a fruitful gathering.

5 | Page
Positional Preparation
We expect representatives to receive the situation of a particular country all through
the UN reproduction. This is a vital component of the "global" experience of a model
UN as it powers representatives to analyse the points of view, issues, and
arrangements of one more country at an exceptionally major level. It is additionally
quite possibly the most troublesome parts of MUN on the grounds that understudies
should go up against natural inclinations of their own public viewpoints and
authentic data. The position papers are the focal point of positional planning before
the meeting. Albeit generally short, we request that you invest energy and exertion on
investigating and keeping in touch with them.

Materials arranged by the EB are not intended to fill in for your individual
exploration. All things being equal, they ought to give a beginning stage, motivating
you to ask yourself inquiries about the current issues. The best-arranged agents are
those that accept the given materials as the start of their exploration and dig further
into the theme regions. Past these materials are a large group of data
administrations, starting with United Nations sources. UN's assets regularly have
ordered measurements, outlines, and charts which you may discover supportive in
understanding the issues. Most UN report communities convey records of UN
gatherings; maybe the most ideal approach to comprehend your nation's position is
to see it iterated by its diplomat.

Explicit assets to research include:

•Yearbook of the United Nations: The Yearbook is a decent beginning stage for
your examination. The Yearbook will furnish you with general data on what has been
done on your theme during a specific year. It likewise gives exceptionally
accommodating references to past articles and goals.

•United Nations Chronicle: This magazine gives you general data on the
procedures of the UN. Watch out for exceptional reports on your theme region,
which will advise you about the point and countries' situations on it.

•UN Document Index: This record for all UN reports comes in three distinct
renditions: UNDI (1950-1973), UNDEX (1970-1978), and UNODC (1979-present).
Contingent upon which of the three you are utilizing, you will track down a subject
record, a nation file, and an alphanumeric rundown of all reports distributed (this is
helpful in light of the fact that each panel has its own novel alphanumeric prefix and
accordingly you can track down every one of the records put out by a board of
trustees during a specific year paying little heed to the particular theme.

6 | Page
 UN Resolutions: This arrangement is both significant and extremely simple to
utilize. The record is aggregate from 1946, which implies that you need just check the
most current list to track down every one of the goals on your point that the UN has
at any point passed.

•Other UN Sources: Depending on the subject, there may be extra pertinent UN

sources. Check for books and exceptional reports put out by the WHO. Past United
Nations sources, notwithstanding, are general wellsprings of data. Explore your
school and nearby libraries. Look at diaries, periodicals, and papers for more current
sources. Remember to ask the curators for help.

•Books: Up-to-date books are probably going to give you a profundity and exactness
that is hopeless from UN sources or periodicals. Try to check library postings for
bound materials. Book research, in any case, can take a decent arrangement of time,
so use prudence when choosing books.

•Periodicals: Periodicals are valuable for straightforward, current data on points

(the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and InfoTrack fill in as a record for these
materials). Try not to anticipate that they should supply you with the profundity of
data you will require for the Conference.

•People: A regularly ignored source; individuals can help you extraordinarily in your
exploration. A few groups to remember are: bookkeepers, individual agents,
personnel counsellors, and your board of trustees' Director, Moderator, and
Assistant Directors. Not exclusively can these individuals help you discover what you
are searching for, yet they may likewise suggest new sources that you had not
thought of. Try not to spare a moment to call or email your advisory group Director.
The individual has spent the whole summer investigating for the Background Guide
and will be glad to address any inquiries.

•Embassies and Consular Offices: Contact the government office or consular

office of the country that you are addressing. These spots are happy to help you in
your exploration via mailing factual information and other unclassified data.

7 | Page
 ABOUT THE COMMITTEE

Name: United Nations commission on the status of women

Formation: 21 June 1946
Parent body: United Nations Economic and social Council
Introduction:
The United Nations Commission on the status of women is an advisory
body that was established in 1946 by the economic and social council. It
plays a key role in the principle of Global policy-making on gender
equality and women’s empowerment. It meets to:
1. Evaluate the progress on gender equality
2. Identify changes in trends.
3. Set up Global standards
4. Formulate concrete policies.

It prepares recommendations to the United Nations Economic and social

council on political social economic cultural-educational rights of
women. Every year commission on the status of women
• Focuses on one primary issue
• Reviews another issue
• Discuss emerging themes.
It is one of the four major human rights frameworks for women’s rights
other than the CEDAW (1979), Declaration on termination of violence
against women (1993) and Beijing declaration platform for action
(1996.)

8 | Page
History:
• Out of 160 signatories of the Charter of the United Nations, only four of
them were women who still manage to scribe women’s rights in the
preamble.
• Later on, in the UNGA inaugural meeting in February 1946 the delegate
of the USA read an open letter to women of the world, a post which is a
sub-commission dedicated to the status of women was created under
commission on human rights.
• Later on, the women demanded a full commission (a separate body)
dedicated to them. Considering this the first chairperson who was from
Denmark requested the Economic and social council.
• Later on, on 21st June 1946 this came up formally as the commission on
the status of women which was dedicated to women’s equality and
promotion of their rights.
• The Commission on the Status of Women prepares recommendations
and reports to the Economic and Social Council on the political,
economic, civil, social, and educational spheres. Also, provides
recommendations on an urgent basis.
• Commission on the status of women has always been open with respect
to working with civil society organisations and has also allowed non-
governmental organisations to contribute.
• Commission on the status of women was able to decide on the lines of a
guiding principle in its very first session which is “to raise the status of
women, irrespective of nationality, race, language or religion, to equality
with men in all fields of human enterprise, and to eliminate all
discrimination against women in the provisions of statutory law, in legal
maxims or rules, or interpretation of customary law”
• Commission on the status of women has always taken upper leading
role when it comes to making this world a better place for women,
starting from UDHR where it managed to insert gender-sensitive
language which can be called a ground-breaking achievement, other than
it created some first-of-its-kind international law instruments for
women’s rights in various spheres of life.

9 | Page
 ABOUT THE AGENDA

INTRODUCTION
1.Gender equality (Equality between women and men)
This refers to the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men
and girls and boys. Equality does not mean that women and men will become the
same but that women's and men's rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not
depend on whether they are born male or female. Gender equality implies that the
interests, needs and priorities of both women and men are taken into consideration,
recognizing the diversity of different groups of women and men. Gender equality is
not a women's issue but should concern and fully engage men as well as women.
Equality between women and men is seen both as a human rights issue and as a
precondition for, and indicator of, sustainable people-centred development.

Lack of Access Lack of

and control over Autonomy
resources

Less involvement
in decision lack of control on
making and sexuality
participation

3. Gender discrimination
Gender discrimination is defined as: "Any distinction, exclusion or restriction made
on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the
recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on
the basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms
in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field." [United Nations,
1979. 'Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women'.
Article 1] Discrimination can stem from both law (de jure) or from practice (de
facto). The CEDAW Convention recognizes and addresses both forms of
discrimination, whether contained in laws, policies, procedures or practice.

❖ De jure discrimination E.g. In some countries, the law states that women
(citizens) who marry foreign men lose their citizenship and/or property rights.
On the other hand, men (citizens) married to foreigners do not lose their
citizenship and/or property rights.

10 | Page
 ❖ De facto discrimination E.g. The practice of many immigration officials in
various countries is to find a woman traveling alone with her minor children
"suspicious" while men traveling with their children are seldom questioned.

Women's economic empowerment

Gender equality in the economy refers to the full and equal enjoyment by women and
men of their economic rights and entitlements facilitated by enabling policy and
institutional environments and economic empowerment. Economic empowerment is
a cornerstone of gender equality that refers both to the ability to succeed and
advance economically and to the power to make and act on economic decisions.
Empowering women economically is a right that is essential for both realizing gender
equality and achieving broader development goals such as economic growth, poverty
reduction, and improvements in health, education and social well-being.
Women's economic empowerment involves women's ability to

⮚ Function effectively in the economy

⮚ Participate in labour and product markets on equal terms with men

⮚ Shape the gender division of labour within households and the labour market

⮚ Accumulate their own assets

⮚ Influence structures governing the relationship between market and state.

CURRENT ISSUES

● THE FEMINIZATION OF POVERTY:

The larger part of the 1.5 billion individuals living on 1 dollar a day or less are
women. In expansion, the hole between ladies and men caught within the cycle of
destitution has proceeded to extend within the past decade, a wonder commonly
alluded to as "the feminization of poverty". Around the world, women earn somewhat
more than 50 percent of what men earn. Women living in destitution are frequently
denied basic assets such as credit, arrival and legacy. Their work goes unrewarded
and unrecognized. Their health care and wholesome needs are not given need, they
need adequate get to to education and back administrations, and their participation
in decision-making at domestic and within the community are negligible. Caught
within the cycle of destitution, ladies need to get to assets and administrations to
alter their situation. The Stage for Activity received by the Fourth World Conference
on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, recognized the annihilation of the tireless and
expanding burden of poverty on women. Factors responsible for same are as follows:

11 | Page
Lack of education and training
Did you know that women represent two-thirds of the illiterate population in the
world? Worldwide, the male literacy rate is 89% compared to a female literacy rate of
80%, and amongst adults the rates continue to be higher for men than for women in
all eight regions. The male advantage is minimal in Central Asia - which has reached
gender parity - but remains striking in the Arab States (83% vs. 66%), South and
West Asia (74% vs. 52%), and sub-Saharan Africa (71% vs. 54%). When women do
not have access to education, their ability to earn an income and to be protected from
poverty is significantly compromised.

Discriminatory laws and policies

Divorce, inheritance, land/property laws or institutional policies often discriminate
against women and girls, depriving them of valuable capital and property. Rural
women produce approximately 60-80% of the food grown worldwide, but own less
than 10% of the land. Discriminatory property laws also limit women's ability to
access, for example, irrigation systems, thus reducing the productivity of the lands
owned by women. Efficient irrigation systems are fundamental for food security, as
stated in paragraph 109 of the Rio+20 outcome document.

Lack of access to and control over resources and information

Women typically lack access to the resources necessary to start and grow businesses.
Without capital, women are often unable to obtain credit, an absolute necessity for
business transactions. Less than 10% of credit in the world is extended to women.

Violence
Sexual and physical abuse of women has significant health and economic costs. Apart
from the decline in productivity and the possible loss of employment following abuse,
it can lead to a fear of social exclusion that often leaves women emotionally
disempowered and even less able to improve their socio-economic circumstances

Discrimination in the labour market

Did you know that eight out of ten women workers are considered to be in vulnerable
employment in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia? A lack of career advancement
and disparities in wages governed by persistently discriminatory beliefs that women's
work is insignificant leave women vulnerable in the labour market, and many falls
through the gaps during economic fluctuations.

Household responsibilities

12 | Page
In female-headed households, women are more likely to bear the economic costs of
raising children and become more entrenched in poverty as a result. Even in two-
parent households, women are often assigned primary responsibility for unpaid
housework, which limits time available for paid work.

Traditional gender attitudes

Traditional gender attitudes that govern the division of labour and sharing of power
in households often prevent women from taking an active role in economic decisions,
as they are usually perceived to have a limited understanding of finances. Men are
often considered the primary breadwinner, and therefore the one responsible for
making decisions over resources, whereas women are often confined to the domestic
space.

Unequal access to sexual and reproductive rights

When women do not have the ability to decide when and how they have sex, or the
number, timing and spacing of children, their opportunities for economic
empowerment are limited.

CASE STUDY: OBSTACLES FACED BY WOMEN

Turkey, although internationally commendable steps have been taken regarding
gender equality over the last 10 years, female participation in the labour force has
decreased 10 percent, according to a United Nations official. The labour force
participation rate for women, which was 40 percent in 2000, decreased to 27 percent
in 2012 and in early 2013 has been less than 30 percent, the United Nations Gender
Thematic Group Chair in Turkey and United Nations Population Fund representative
for Turkey, Zahidul Huque, told the Hürriyet Daily News in a recent interview. Lack
of child care facilities and Turkey’s gradual move toward more conservatism may be
reasons behind that, according to the U.N. official. Turkey has made significant
progress in legislation on women’s rights, education and health, but in some areas,
Turkey falls behind, such as the gender inequality index, Huque said. Turkey ranks
77th out of 146 countries, according to the Gender Inequality Index (GII), which
reveals gender disparities in reproductive health, empowerment and labour market
participation. Huque pointed to two primary reasons: “Turkey is far behind in the
political participation of women in the decision-making process. The level of political
representation in Parliament is only 14.1 percent and that of local government is less
than two percent.” ‘Limited opportunities’ the second reason is an inability to engage
women in the labour force, particularly in the upper class, non-agricultural sectors,
he said. When asked the reasons for Turkey regressing in female labour force
participation, Huque addressed the limited scope of opportunities for women in
senior positions. Noting that Turkey once had a female premier, interior minister
and representation in the Supreme Court, Huque said, “But now you have only one

13 | Page
minister and one governor. You can see that women are not really in the top
positions in the country, although the government has declared a positive
discrimination [affirmative action] strategy.” Another argument he put forward for
the decreasing ratio of women in the labour force is that “married women are not
encouraged to come to work due to a lack of childcare facilities.” “Secondly, maybe
Turkey has been moving toward more conservatism, where Turkish men don’t want
their wives to go to work. This is my observation,” Huque said. Turkey has a long way
to go on reproductive rights, and has been regressing on the issue in recent years,
Huque said, recalling that in 1994 Turkey was a leader of the International
Conference of Population Development (ICPD) regarding women’s reproductive
rights and reproductive health. “However, right now, the government is shying away
from talking about reproductive rights. They talk about reproductive health.
Reproductive rights ensure a couple, a woman or a man; it’s up to an individual to
decide how many children they are going to have, when they are going to have them
and how often they are going to have them. It’s being a little bit less talked about
now.” The U.N. official said they have observed that “access to reproductive health
services for young adults is more difficult than it used to be.” “Society is becoming
more conservative; the government is also more conservative. Providers of help are
also becoming less proactive in providing reproductive health education and services
to young adults,” he said. Although in the cities and urban areas it is not such a big
problem, in rural areas there are not enough services, he added.

● UNPAID CARE WORK

From cooking and cleaning, to getting water and kindling or dealing with kids and
the old, women do at any rate over multiple times more neglected family and care
work than men. Subsequently, they have less of an ideal opportunity to take part in
paid work, or work longer hours, joining paid and neglected work. Women's
neglected work finances the expense of care that supports families, upholds
economies and frequently fills in for the absence of social administrations. However,
it is infrequently perceived as "work". Neglected consideration and homegrown work
are estimated to be 10 and 39 percent of the Gross Domestic Product and can offer

14 | Page
more to the economy than the assembling, business or transportation areas. With the
attack of environmental change, women's neglected work in cultivating, gathering
water and fuel is becoming considerably more.

Principal ideas of care work

1. No monetary compensation: it is understood that care is responsibility of women
and is for most part of performed without monetary compensation
2. Not measured Vikas care work is neither paid nor value it is not measured because
it is not visible it is not taken into account in policy making
3 Not in public debate and paid care work often acts as a question that absorbs the
cost of three adjustments in economic system care visibility means that it enters
public debate only when care needs are not being met.
4. Not value economically even though it has been estimated that a care worker
assigned monetary value would constitute 10 to 39% of GDP it is yet to be signed and
economic value.
5. Not valued socially does the burden of caregiving fall upon those who have
decreased ability to make their own choices and decisions this leads to segmentation
biceps ethnicity migratory status that is often found in this type of work specially
when contracted out.

● GLOBAL CARE CHAINS

A global care chain is a worldwide labour market for workers who provide care-
intensive labour, such as childcare, eldercare and healthcare. Global care chains are
created as women migrate to
1. Secure wellbeing of themselves and their family.
2. Worked as domestic worker caretaker of elderly and nannies.

15 | Page
Households transfer care responsibility from one woman to another and in origin yet
other women often the migrant women's mother or sister forming what are called
Global care chains.

CASE STUDY: Global care chain

A Spanish family decides to hire a Dominican woman named Crystal to look after
their grandfather, who requires constant care. The family initially assumed that one
of the daughters-in-law, Carmen, could take on this task, leaving the job she took up
when her children had grown up and left home. However, Carmen did not wish to
return to full-time caregiving, and it turns out that sharing the costs of hiring a
migrant woman between all of the grandfather's children is not that expensive. In
turn, Cristal (the worker they hired) migrated in order to earn enough income to
sustain her family; she left her own children in her mother's care in the Dominican
Republic. Cristal monitors from afar the quality of care that her children are
receiving, and eventually decides that they will receive better care in the hands of her
sister-in-law, who is a teacher. Her children go to live with her sister-in-law for a
time, until she too decides to emigrate. Thus, the responsibility for caregiving is
transferred again, this time to Cristal's oldest daughter, who ends up quitting school
in order to fulfill this responsibility.

❖ Informal employment

The term informal sector refers to employment and production that takes place in
small and/or unregistered enterprises. It includes self-employment in informal
enterprises (small and unregistered enterprises) and wage employment in informal
jobs (unregulated and unprotected jobs) for informal enterprises, formal enterprises,
households or for no fixed employer. Compared to those who work in the formal
economy, those who work in the informal economy is more likely to:
>> Have less access to basic infrastructure and social services.
>> Face greater exposure to common contingencies (such as illness, property loss,
disability and death).
>> Have less access to the means to address these contingencies (such as health,
property, disability or life insurance).
>> Have, as a result, lower levels of health, education and longevity.
>> Have less access to financial, physical and other productive assets.
> Have fewer rights and benefits of employment.
>>Have less secure property rights over land, housing or other productive assets.
>>Face greater exclusion from state, market and political institutions that determine
the 'rules of the game' in these various spheres.
16 | Page
>> Overall a lack of decent work

ROLE OF FISCAL POLICY

Fiscal policy is often thought of as gender-neutral. But economic policy

choices affect women and men differently because of their different
positions in the economy, both market (paid) and non-market (unpaid).
Fiscal policies to date have paid barely adequate attention to the way it affects both
men and women differently and have therefore not been able to allow for a suitable
outcome of achieving gender equality. Fiscal and monetary policies matter for gender
equality because they shape the overall economic environment for realizing women’s
rights by affecting opportunities for paid employment, resources for policies aimed at
reducing inequalities, and the demand for women’s unpaid labor. Globally, it is said
that women spend 2.5 times more of their time on unpaid care and domestic work
than men.

Globally, only half of women participate in the labor force, compared to three-
quarters of men. In developing regions, up to 95 per cent of women’s employment
is informal, in jobs that are unprotected by labor laws and lack social protection.

In OECD-DAC reviews, only 5 per cent of all aid targeted gender equality as a
principal objective in 2012-2013. When it comes to investing in women’s
economic empowerment, the percentage was even lower – 2 per cent – and aid to
economic and productive sectors has remained flat.

Investments in gender equality are vastly insufficient and only a small

proportion of aid addresses women’s specific needs. Women everywhere
need prioritized, dedicated and consistent investment and resources.

There are several reasons for which fiscal and monetary policies
have failed to create an enabling environment for the realization of
women's rights:

17 | Page
 ● Focus on a narrow set of goals
Fiscal and monetary policy typically focus on a narrow set of goals, such as
raising economic growth rates or reducing inflation to extremely low levels
and ignore economic and social rights, distributive outcomes or gender
equality. Economic growth is often assumed to automatically reduce gender
inequality. This narrow approach can increase gender inequalities—for
example, when women are more likely to lose their jobs than men if the
economy slows in response to monetary policy choices.

● Lack of consideration for unpaid care and domestic work

despite its enormous value and women doing most of this work, doing
household tasks, for example, carrying water is not included in the
calculation of GDP or other macroeconomic indicators. Because these
policies do not account for these costs, they reinforce the undervaluation
of women’s work. Not accounting for the costs of unpaid work may also
give a false sense of efficiency gains.

● Bias in the classification of private and public investments

Public and private spending on children represent an investment in
future human capacities and should be accounted for separately from
consumption expenditure. Thus, the total investment is underestimated
and certain forms of investment are undervalued in macroeconomic
analytics and this can bias the fiscal and monetary policies.

● Lack of participation, transparency and accountability.

Monetary policy formulation is typically seen as a technocratic process and is
carried out with little or no direct participation of the various affected social
groups. Decision-making bodies rarely invite meaningful participation by
civil society, including women’s rights organizations. For example, Women
remain under-represented in leadership and decision-making positions of
central banks, just a handful held governor or equivalent positions. The
accountability of central banks is extremely limited. Economic information
on government priorities is often not available or is presented in a form that
is not useful for evaluating major policy choices.

18 | Page
 Rethinking Monetary and fiscal policy for gender equality:

● Creating gender-responsive macroeconomic policies

Incorporation of distributive impact analysis will allow for the
monetary and fiscal policies to be evaluated based on their effect on
men and women. This will allow for a proper analysis on the effects of
public spending, tax policy and monetary policy on gender equality.
The Government of Nepal had introduced gender responsive
budgeting in the fiscal year of 2007/2008, which involved the analyses
of the allocation of public spending, taxes and public service delivery
to identify gender-specific impacts of the budget policy.

● Supporting gender equality through monetary policy

monetary and fiscal policies often fail to consider trade-offs between
reducing the inflation and supporting new employment
opportunities, with severe consequences for women’s paid work.
Central banks can use their regulatory power to channel credit to
uses that support the realization of women's rights and promote
gender equality. Policies can also help encourage credit to be
extended to improve housing situations, promote easier access to
loans for self-employed workers in informal activities, wherein
most of them are women.

● Linking the obligations of governments to a set of national and

international procedures
Linking the obligations of governments will hold the government to
account. The Governments have an obligation to ensure the
satisfaction of minimum essential levels of social as well as economic
rights for all.
Since women experience greater vulnerability and higher risk of
poverty, Policies need to be formulated in a way that the minimums
are met and this will ensure that gender equality improves.

19 | Page
 Fiscal Policy is not neutral in terms of gender, because it can have a differentiated
impact on men and women. An egalitarian fiscal policy can be a key redistributive
tool to transform this reality and improve the distribution of resources among men
and women. Thus, it impacts women’s lives.

When does fiscal policy become a source of discrimination?

When a tax policy is based on the collection of indirect taxes on basic goods and
services that have a stronger impact on poorer sectors, especially women, due to
lack of infrastructure, time and higher poverty levels than men. This provides
significant income tax deductions, which appear to favor males with more
economic resources than females. It includes differential income taxes levels
according to their source of income (dependent and independent work). This could
mean that a single mother, an independent worker, would pay more taxes than a
wage- earning male, a mere nuclear family provider. This discriminates against
single-parent families, primarily led by women, and is a disincentive for wage-
earning workers' spouses to enter the labor market. When public spending is spent
on traditionally male labor-intensive industries, neglecting investment in care
facilities that would enable women to switch from reproductive to productive
jobs.is implemented through cash transfer programs that entail strict conditions to
participating women, which disincentives their insertion in the labor market, and
discriminates against women as compared to other groups that receive subsidies
and fiscal benefits without equivalent requirements.

PAST ACTIONS FOR WOMEN

ICPD +5

● 43. Governments should establish mechanisms to accelerate women’s

equal participation and equitable representation at all levels of the political
process and public life in each community and society and enable women
to articulate their concerns and needs and ensure the full and equal
participation of women in decision-making processes in all spheres of life.
Governments and civil society should take actions to eliminate attitudes
and practices that discriminate against and subordinate girls and women
and that reinforce gender inequality.
● 44. Governments should take measures to promote the fulfilment of girls’
and women’s potential through education, skills development and the
eradication of illiteracy for all girls and women without discrimination of

20 | Page
 any kind, giving paramount importance to the elimination of poverty and
ill health. Governments, in collaboration with civil society, should take the
necessary measures to ensure universal access, on the basis of equality
between women and men, to appropriate, affordable and quality health
care for women throughout their life cycle.
45. Governments should take every possible action to remove all gender
●
gaps and inequalities pertaining to women’s livelihoods and participation
in the labour market through the creation of employment with secure
incomes, which has been shown to advance women’s empowerment and
enhance their reproductive health. Legislation ensuring equal pay for equal
work or for work of equal value should be instituted and enforced.
FWCW, Beijing, 1995

● 181. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has
the right to take part in the Government of his/her country. The
empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of women's
social, economic and political status is essential for the achievement of
both transparent and accountable government and administration and
sustainable development in all areas of life. The power relations that
prevent women from leading fulfilling lives operate at many levels of
society, from the most personal to the highly public. Achieving the goal of
equal participation of women and men in decision-making will provide a
balance that more accurately reflects the composition of society and is
needed in order to strengthen democracy and promote its proper
functioning. Equality in political decision-making performs a leverage
function without which it is highly unlikely that a real integration of the
equality dimension in government policy-making is feasible.
● 69. … Equality of access to and attainment of educational qualifications is
necessary if more women are to become agents of change. Literacy of
women is an important key to improving health, nutrition and education in
the family and to empowering women to participate in decision-making in
society…
● 196. National machineries for the advancement of women have been
established in almost every Member State to, inter , design, promote the
implementation of, execute, monitor, evaluate, advocate and mobilize
support for policies that promote the advancement of women. National
machineries are diverse in form and uneven in their effectiveness, and in
some cases have declined. Often marginalized in national government
structures, these mechanisms are frequently hampered by unclear
mandates, lack of adequate staff, training, data and sufficient resources,
and insufficient support from national political leadership.
UN Conference on Environment and Development +5

● 100. Capacity-building efforts should pay particular attention to the needs

of women in order to ensure that their skills and experience are fully used
in decision-making at all levels.

21 | Page
 ● 105. …The core themes of education for sustainability include lifelong
learning, interdisciplinary education, partnerships, multicultural
education and empowerment. Priority should be given to ensuring
women's and girls' full and equal access to all levels of education and
training.
World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, 1995

● 26(o) Recognize that empowering people, particularly women, to

strengthen their own capacities is a main objective of development and its
principal resource. Empowerment requires the full participation of people
in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of decisions
determining the functioning and well-being of our societies;
● Commitment 5. We commit ourselves to promoting full respect for
human dignity and to achieving equality and equity between women and
men, and to recognizing and enhancing the participation and leadership
roles of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life and in
development.
To this end, at the national level, we will:

(b) Establish structures, policies, objectives and measurable goals to

ensure gender balance and equity in decision-making processes at all
levels, broaden women's political, economic, social and cultural
opportunities and independence, and support the empowerment of
women, including through their various organizations, especially those of
indigenous women, those at the grass-roots level, and those of poverty-
stricken communities, including through affirmative action, where
necessary, and also through measures to integrate a gender perspective in
the design and implementation of economic and social policies;

(c) Promote full and equal access of women to literacy, education and
training, and remove all obstacles to their access to credit and other
productive resources and to their ability to buy, hold and sell property and
land equally with men;

m) Promote international cooperation to assist developing countries, at

their request, in their efforts to achieve equality and equity and the
empowerment of women;

World Summit for Social Development +5

● 80. Strengthen national efforts, including with assistance from the

international community, to promote the empowerment of women, inter ,
by:
(a) Closing the gender gap in primary and secondary education by 2005
and ensuring free compulsory and universal primary education for both

22 | Page
 girls and boys by
2015;

(b) Increasing the access of women and girls to all levels and forms of
education;

(c) Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015,

especially for women;

(d) Increasing the participation of women and bringing about a balanced

representation of women and men in all sectors and occupations in the
labour market and closing the gender gap in earnings;

(e) Ensuring the reduction of maternal morbidity and mortality as a health

sector priority;

(f) Eliminating all forms of violence against women, in the domestic as well
as in the public sphere;

(g) Promoting programmes to enable women and men to reconcile their

work and family responsibilities and to encourage men to share equally
with women household and child care responsibilities.

World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, 1993

● 18. …The full and equal participation of women in political, civil,

economic, social and cultural life, at the national, regional and
international levels, and the eradication of all forms of discrimination on
grounds of sex are priority objectives of the international community.
● 36. The World Conference on Human Rights urges the full and equal
enjoyment by women of all human rights and that this be a priority for
Governments and for the United Nations. The World Conference on
Human Rights also underlines the importance of the integration and full
participation of women as both agents and beneficiaries in the
development process…
● 37. The equal status of women and the human rights of women should be
integrated into the mainstream of United Nations system-wide activity.
These issues should be regularly and systematically addressed throughout
relevant United Nations bodies and mechanisms. In particular, steps
should be taken to increase cooperation and promote further integration of
objectives and goals between the Commission on the Status of Women, the
Commission on Human Rights, the Committee for the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women, the United Nations Development Fund for

23 | Page
 Women, the United Nations Development Programme and other United
Nations agencies. In this context, cooperation and coordination should be
strengthened between the Centre for Human Rights and the Division for
the Advancement of Women.
● 43. The World Conference on Human Rights urges Governments and
regional and international organizations to facilitate the access of women
to decision making posts and their greater participation in the decision-
making process. It encourages further steps within the United Nations
Secretariat to appoint and promote women staff members in accordance
with the Charter of the United Nations, and encourages other principal and
subsidiary organs of the United Nations to guarantee the participation of
women under conditions of equality.

The Millennium Declaration, 2000

● 6. Equality: No individual and no nation must be denied the opportunity

to benefit from development. The equal rights and opportunities of women
and men must be assured.
● 19. To ensure that, by the same date, children everywhere, boys and girls
alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling and that
girls and boys will have equal access to all levels of education.
● 20. To promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as
effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate
development that is truly sustainable.

SOLUTIONS

A well-rounded schooling can support personal satisfaction and open ways to good
work openings. It can give women and young ladies the fundamental abilities they
need to know and guarantee their privileges, to face separation and brutality, to turn
out to be completely drawn in residents and to settle on choices about their medical
care, including their sexual and conceptive wellbeing. It additionally benefits
youngsters, families and social orders all the more extensively through destitution
decrease and improved financial development.

We need people working one next to the other to destroy the boundaries to sexual
orientation balance. Perhaps the most serious issue is the inconsistent division of
family work to really focus on the home and relatives. Women spend on normal 18%
of their day on this neglected work, versus 7% for men. In certain nations that hole is
a lot more extensive. Regardless of whether it is a young lady who is pulled out of
school to get water or a lady who works all day and afterward gets back home to a
"second shift", when men venture up and do something reasonable, women are
empowered to seek after paid business, initiative and recreation exercises.

Governments and private area pioneers can assume a basic part in settling on these
decisions simpler, by executing strategies that help paid parental leave, moderate

24 | Page
youngster care and adaptable work courses of action. We can likewise do an
incredible arrangement to adjust attitudes through working with accomplices on
changing the generalizations of people that show up in promoting, advertising and
numerous types of media and amusement. Something as basic as changing the
quantities of women who are portrayed in promoting as experts, as opposed to just as
careers, can make a significant commitment to changing what we view as ordinary –
and to shape a more driven future.

Game can likewise be one of the extraordinary drivers of sexual orientation equity by
showing women and young ladies the upsides of collaboration, confidence and
versatility. It can furnish young girls with social associations and a shelter from
savagery in their homes and networks, and assist them with understanding their
bodies and construct certainty and the capacity to make some noise. This is
especially significant during immaturity, when numerous young ladies desert sport,
regardless of whether constrained to adjust to customarily "female" generalizations,
or due to early parenthood looked by young ladies like Dayane Santos in Brazil,
whose life was turned around by the 'One Win Leads to Another' program.
Comparable pressing factors to adjust to pre-set instructive generalizations can
smother young ladies' commitment in the learning they need to prepare them for
what's to come.

We need to guarantee that women and young ladies are mastering the correct
abilities for the changing universe of work. Quick mechanical and computerized
progresses, including robotization, advanced mechanics and man-made reasoning
are prompting a deficiency of occupations, and raising the potential for increased
imbalance, particularly sex disparity. Community oriented drives like the African
Girls Can CODE program are combating this difficulty and building uniformity,
through preparing members like 15-year-old Eno Ekanem, from Abuja, Nigeria with
the advanced proficiency and self-awareness abilities they need to seek after
schooling and vocations in ICT and coding.

Women's Empowerment Principles (WEP)

>> Principle 1: Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality.
>> Principle 2: Treat all women and men fairly at work – respect and support
human rights and nondiscrimination.
>> Principle 3: Ensure the health, safety and well-being of all women and men
workers.
>> Principle 4: Promote education, training and professional development for
women.
>>Principle 5: Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing
practices that empower women.
>>Principle 6: Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy.
>>Principle 7: Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality.

25 | Page
CASE STUDY: Gender Division of Labour in Cameroon
In Cameroon, the traditional division of labour situates women in roles based on
providing emotional support and household maintenance, while men are primarily
responsible for economic support and contact with the world outside the home
(community politics role). Women participate in reproductive activities such as
cooking and child care, community managing activities such as fetching water, and
subsistence farming, all of which are outside the cash economy and concentrated
around the household. Men are primarily involved in cash crop production of
commodities such as cocoa, coffee, and cotton on small land holdings also owned by
men. However, since the economic crisis of the 1980s when world commodity prices
collapsed, women have begun to focus on productive activities such as food crop
farming for sale in the market in order to supplement declining household income.
Women’s participation in paid productive work has increased their economic power,
and consequently, their ability to participate in decision-making in the home. While
this is an example of empowerment, it is not yet an example of gender equality, since
women continue to work much longer hours than men (double and triple burden),
and men have yet to assume a more equal share of the reproductive work within the
household.

SUMMARY
A key argument is that financing for gender equality can be self -sustaining because
of the feedback effects from gender equality to economy-wide well-being. Among
the tools related to targeted government spending are demand-stimulating

26 | Page
 macroeconomic policies to promote full employment and public investment. Two
types of public investment are explored. Physical infrastructure investment, such
as spending on clean water, sanitation, and health clinics, can reduce women’s
unpaid care burden. Social infrastructure investment, defined as investment in
people’s capabilities, refers to the fundamental social, intellectual, and emotional
skills, and health of individuals—or level of human development—a country relies
on for its economy to function. Both types have public goods quality in that they
generate positive spillover effects on economy- wide productivity. Financing for
gender equality in these areas is more properly seen as an investment that yields an
income stream in the future due to the beneficial development and growth effects.
As a result, both physical and social infrastructure spending has the ability to
create fiscal space. Additional sources of financing for gender equality are
discussed, including the taxation of the financial sector. Monetary policy can also
be harnessed to promote gender equality. A much wider range of policy tools is
available to central banks than are now used. These include capital management
techniques, asset-based reserve requirements, and loan guarantees in the absence
of restrictions on women’s legal title to assets. The review of monetary policy tools
here also suggests that emphasis on low inflation via the policy interest rate is
problematic on two counts. First, higher interest rates dampen aggregate demand
and thus employment. Second, the policy interest rate fails to address the
underlying causes of inflationary pressures in many countries. Those pressures are
often best dealt with through targeted fiscal policies in education, health care, and
investment in strategic sectors, such as agriculture and infrastructure. Government
and central banks cannot

adequately pursue these goals without changing their composition. The lens for
identifying appropriate public investment projects and credit targets needs to be
gendered and ethnically representative, underscoring the important role of
affirmative action in private and public decision- making bodies.

ADDITIONAL FACTS
❖ A study in Brazil show that livelihood of children's survival increased by 20 people when
mother control household income

27 | Page
 ❖ At the global level, the share of vulnerable employment (defined as contributing family
workers or own-account workers) in total female employment was 52.7% in 2007, as
compared to 49.1% for men, which represents a decline of 0.6% over the previous year for
both men and women. The move away from vulnerable employment into wage and salaried
work can be a major step toward economic freedom and self-determination for many
women. Economic independence or at least co-determination in resource distribution within
the family is highest when women earn wages and salaries or are employers, lower when
they are own-account workers, and lowest when they are contributing family workers.
❖ In a majority of countries, women's wages represent between 70 and 90% of men's wages
(representing a gender wage gap of 10-30%), with even lower ratios in some Asian and Latin
American countries. The gender wage gap is also a cause for concern in the Russian
Federation and Ukraine, at 39% and 28% respectively.
❖ The greatest gap in women's labour force participation occurs between the ages of 25 and
49, when domestic and childcare responsibilities culturally assigned to women, combined
with lack of childcare options, make it difficult for them to continue or enter formal wage
labour. For poor women living in rural Nicaragua, for example, the time dedicated to
reproductive work, including the collection of water and firewood, equals more than half a
day-time that could be spent working for pay.

-000-

28 | Page