TO five years from 2030, which the UN has established as the deadline for achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 30, at what point is Objective 5, the one that aims to achieve «gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls»?
Equality: work in progress
If it is a fact that the 2030 Agenda, launched in September 2015, has inspired a multitude of pro-equity actions in every area of the planet – including Italy – and has generated tangible progress and results, at the moment there is not a single country in the world that has achieved equality between women and men. Viewed globally, progress is not sufficient and, in the last five-year countdown, Goal 5 remains a long way off.
According to 2025 Report on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals recently presented by the UN and built, as regards number 5, on the results of 131 countries in four crucial areas for measuring the level of effective equality – laws and public life, violence against women, work and economic benefits, marriage and family -, not one country in the world has achieved the maximum result in all four areas and more than half – 51 percent to be precise – perform poorly in each.
The numbers of inequality
A handful of numbers are still enough, this time in the specific areas investigated, to photograph a situation full of gaps. Just 38 countries – 29 percent of the total – they have set the minimum age for marriage at 18, without exceptions; Only 63 states (48 percent) have sexual assault laws based on lack of consent. Again, a survey of 84 countries reveals that 58 percent lack legal protections for women’s land rights, particularly regarding inheritance and land ownership. As for work, 61 states (47 percent of the total) have at least one restriction that prevents women from doing the same work as men.
Furthermore, in the world, women occupy less than a third of management positions and, in any case, they advance incredibly slowly: from 2015 to 2023, female professionals at the top increased by only 2.4 percentage pointsi, an inertia that projects the achievement of parity to 2125. Naturally, these figures hide a multi-speed reality. Staying with women managers, while Australia, New Zealand, Sub-Saharan Africa have raced and today have more than 40 percent of women in management positions, Asia is even losing ground: from 2015 to 2023, East Asia lost 2.3 percent of women in top management, Central and South Asia 3.5 percent.
The project to close the gender gap has been included as Objective 5 in the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development by 2030. (Getty Images)
The hidden trap
To slow down professional and economic progress everywhere – research certifies – it is the unpaid work of caring for family and home: on the global average, women spend two and a half times as many hours as men every day and, while women in Europe, North America and Oceania work for the family about twice as long as men, those in North Africa and Western Asia do four times as much. In short, the states have done little to untie the knots that hold back gender equality and female empowermentwhen it is now established by every available study that investments aimed at gender equity transform society as a whole and impact the economy with a multiplier effect: «Closing the digital gender gap, for example, could bring benefits to 343.5 million women and girls around the world and generate, by 2030, an increase estimated at 1.5 trillion dollars in global GDP» commented Sima Sami Bahous, the Executive Director of UN Women (the United Nations body dedicated to gender equality).
Even in politics, women advance at a mediocre ratewhich however has slowed down recently: on 1 January this year, they occupied 27.2 percent of the seats in national parliaments worldwide, marking a paltry +4.9 percent compared to 2015, but just +0.3 compared to 2024; as for local governments, they represent 35.5 percent of the total, with an increase of just 0.4 percent from 2020. Only the youngest representatives are opening up a glimmer of hope: among the under 40s, the male/female ratio is 63/37, among the under 30s it is 57/43.
Equality between lights and shadows
Furthermore, none of the 17 objectives set ten years ago by the UN to address the planet’s most urgent challenges – including climate change, environmental crisis, peace and justicepoverty has currently been achieved and just 17 percent of the various sub-targets that make up the Objectives are on track to be achieved by 2030: Covid, wars, economic recessions have contributed to accumulating delays and the next five years, in a planet inflamed by antagonisms, do not promise the necessary accelerations. A few days ago, the Gender Snapshot 2025 report by UN Women and UN Desa (the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs), which is the source of definitive data on equality and on the entire 2030 Agenda read from a gender perspective, have reported yet another picture of lights (few) and shadows (many more).
As for the former, for example, the women present at the tables where climate change is discussed have doubled and rates of domestic violence have fallen 2.5 times in countries where comprehensive measures on gender-based violence have been taken, i.e. laws, policies, human services, together with data research and measurement, as well as investments. Because the point remains precisely this: wanting to act for gender equality and, therefore, supporting it with adequate investments. On this point, the summary of Sustainable Development Goals Report 2025 is sharp: “Achieving gender equality requires integrated, comprehensive and gender-sensitive policy packages that strengthen legal frameworks, reduce economic and structural barriers and increase investment in gender equality at all levels.”
In reality, however, just 26 percent of 121 countries analyzed have complete systems for tracking the allocation of resources allocated to this objective, and this reveals “a persistent gap in capacity in accurately estimating costs and in allocating and spending the resources necessary to enact national laws and policies on gender equality”. Insufficient data and monitoring are also among the causes of inadequate progress. “Without accurate and timely gender data we cannot measure progress or design effective interdisciplinary interventions. However, we receive reports that almost 70 percent of national statistical offices reveal a reduction in funding since the beginning of this year” is the comment of Bjørg Sandkjær, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. “We need renewed political will and reinvigorated international cooperation to accelerate progress towards gender equality.”
When the results arrive
True, more girls around the world are completing school and more countries have enacted laws to reduce inequality, but last year nearly 64 million more women than men experienced food insecurity and 676 million women and girls lived within 50 kilometers of a deadly conflict, the highest number since the 1990s, while artificial intelligence, if not implemented responsibly, risks exacerbating all inequalities.
Commenting on the data from the Gender Snapshot 2025, Sarah Hendriks, Director of the Policy, Program and Intergovernmental Division of UN Women raised the alarm: «The data tells us that the world is regressing in terms of gender equality. I want to reiterate that the consequences of this are not inevitable. They are actually the result of deliberate choices” he comments. And he adds: «We also see what is possible when gender equality is a priority, when it has that political support that guarantees concrete investments. Whether it’s education, which is at an all-time high for the first time in world history, maternal mortality decreased by 40 percent between 2000 and 2023, or the hundred countries that have repealed regressive laws, opening up pathways of action and opportunity for women and girls. These results are the result of governments, civil society, the private sector and citizens themselves pushing for and implementing change. I believe the gender snapshot of 2025 shows how far the world can go. And it calls on world leaders to act now to shape bold investments and commitments that translate words into action.”
The last call
Exactly thirty years after the epochal Beijing Platform – which in 1995, thanks to the push of thousands of women activists who arrived in China from 200 countries, showed the whole world the concrete actions to follow to guarantee women’s human rights and gender equality – last September 22nd the governments reiterated their commitment to equalitythrough the Beijing+30 action agenda, a definitive call to speed up the process. It outlines six priority areas for accelerated implementation of women’s equality and empowerment: freedom from poverty, zero violence, equal power and leadership, climate justice, peace and security, and full participation in the digital revolution. Across these six areas, the voices of young women and girls are amplified and funding is called for equality and the collection and use of gender data. The last call, for those who intend to listen to it.
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