Presentation of 2009 Social Watch Gender Equity Index

The launching event is scheduled on Tuesday 9 March at Conference Room C (TNLB) from 3.00 - 4.30. 

The Social Watch Gender Equity Index (GEI) 2009 will be launched as a contribution to contribution to the 54th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women on International Women´s Day (March 8th 2010). The GEI has been developed by Social Watch to measure inequities in different areas of women's and men's everyday lives around the world. The 2009 GEI ranks 157 countries by measuring women's relative economic activity, education and empowerment, and evaluates their progress or regression in achieving gender equity over the period of 2005-2009 . The GEI provides a concrete platform from which to analyze the effects of the global financial crisis with gender desegregated data and through the lens of a human rights based approach. A panel of speakers from the Social Watch network will address the GEI´s findings. 

Social Watch is an international network of citizens´ organizations in the struggle to eradicate poverty and the causes of poverty, to end all forms of discrimination and racism, to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth and the realization of human rights. We are committed to peace, social, economic, environment and gender justice, and we emphasize the right of all people not to be poor. Social Watch holds governments, the UN system and international organizations accountable for the fulfillment of national, regional and international commitments to eradicate poverty. The international secretariat of Social Watch is housed at the Third World Institute in Montevideo, Uruguay.