Taking action: achieving gender equality and empowering women

204 Appendix 6
investment in infrastructure designed to reduce time burden, and adoption of
gender quotas and reservations for women’s political participation. The discussion
questions were framed around this request:
• Are the six strategic priorities outlined in the report the best way to
achieve gender equality and empower women? Do you have comments
on these priorities or can you suggest other actions?
• In particular, which level of education is likely to have the greatest payoff
for women’s empowerment: primary or secondary? What exactly do
we mean by “the greatest payoff for women’s empowerment”?
• Is affirmative action the most effective route to increase women’s voices
at the national and local levels? Do quotas and reservations address the
fundamental issues that affect women and create the space necessary to
look at the root causes of gender inequalities?
• Investment in infrastructure designed to reduce girls and women’s time
burden is good. But will this on its own lead to women’s greater decisionmaking
power and ability to negotiate their time and work burdens?
• Does a decrease in women’s time burden necessarily lead to their
increased participation in productive and fulfilling activities?
• Finally, please share examples from your projects that have contributed
to empowering women and minimizing inequalities. Tell us about the
successful strategies and obstacles!
Overall, there was consensus on the need to expand the understanding
of gender equality beyond the education sphere to other areas (reproductive
health, a society free of violence, and the like) because achieving gender equality
in these other realms empowers women and builds on the gains made
through the Beijing Declaration and the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women processes. There was considerable
debate about the task force’s emphasis on postprimary education for girls and
the effectiveness of quotas for women’s political participation.
Strategic priority 1: strengthen opportunities for secondary education
for girls and eliminate gender gaps at that level
Don’t downplay the importance of primary education and the missed 2005 gender
parity target. Some participants urged the task force not to overlook the
importance of primary education. “By shifting the agenda upward to secondary
schooling and outwards to other gender equality issues, we risk losing or overstretching
the powerful consensus that underpins the [Millennium Development
Goals]” (D. Archer, United Kingdom). For example, in the Brong Ahafo
Region in Ghana, enrollment rates decrease as children progress through the
basic education cycle. In 1998/99 the dropout rate in class 2 was 20 percent. For
grade 6 this figure climbed to 30.1 percent for boys and 36.5 percent for girls (J.
Adu-Gyamfi, Ghana). The conflict-riddled northern region of Uganda provides
another example where achieving gender parity in primary schooling is still a