UN Women chief calls MDG progress a "mixed bag"

As the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline is drawing near, the executive director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, categorized the international community's progress as a "mixed bag " filled with many unreached targets.

The MDGs are a set of eight anti-poverty goals that range from halving extreme poverty rates to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The results thus far are a mixed bag, Mlambo-Nguka told Xinhua in a recent interview on the sidelines of the Beijing+20 conference. The conference was held at UN Headquarters in New York last week and was a follow up to the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, which was held in Beijing, capital of China.

EDUCATION FOR GIRLS

Since the Beijing meeting and the establishment of the MDGs, the senior UN official said, "we have seen progress in the legislative framework in most countries and improvement in primary education." However, she said, "progress overall has been slow."

In terms of MDG 2: primary education, girls have been closing in on the gap. "For instance, greater access (to education for) girls. In some countries girls are outperforming boys," she said.

But,"there are 460 million illiterate women in 2014. There is no excuse for that," she said.

Thus, "education, education, education. This is probably the closest thing the world has to a silver bullet," Mlambo-Ngcuka said. But this is only one factor that the world needs to look at.

Right now, "more women are entering the labor force," she said, adding that women are entering at the low end and are still earning less than men.

She emphasized safety and equality as top priorities for the post-2015 development agenda.

A recent report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that there are a lot of countries that still have legislation that discriminates against women, although the MDGs promote equality between men and women, she said.

"So you have a contradiction there," she said.

he new post-2015 development agenda will give the world a " clean slate," she said, referring to an agenda being hammered out by the United Nations and member states to charter global development after 2015.

SAFETY AND EQUALITY

In the post-2015 plan, the female centered agency is focused on engaging national leaders and promoting "S for she and safety."

The issue of safety for women is critical, she said.

Safety is protecting women against violence, she said, adding that the United Nations is firmly against trafficking and child marriages.

It's all acts of aggression," she said.

"These acts take women out of work, cause emotional distress and demonstrate a violent culture to children," Mlambo-Ngcuka said.

The second point highlighted by the executive director is equality. "E is about equality," Ngcuka said.

"We are not asking for women to be appointed when they do not qualify, but we are asking for women to be given an opportunity," she said.

Right now, "when we have (an) opportunity we get overlooked" she said, citing the school system as an example.

"If you think about the education system, most of the people that teach are women."

But, "the school principals in a primary school are men (in most cases)," she said, pointing to the gender bias system that exists within hospitals and the United Nations organization.

"If you look at hospitals, the majority of (staff) and experts . .. are women," she said.

And, if you look at the boards of the health sector including hospitals, the positions are filled by men, she said.

"Even in the UN, how often do you go to a panel and there are all men, talking about the economy as if everyone affected by the economy is a man," she said. "So, it's (the) little things that actually add up."