COVID-19 to push 47 mln women to poverty, widen gender gap: Report

News: UN Women and the UN Development Programme(UNDP) has released a report titled “From Insights to Action: Gender Equality in the wake of COVID-19”.

Facts:

• What the report says: The report says that the coronavirus pandemic and its fallout will likely push 47 million more women into poverty, reversing decades of progress to eradicate extreme poverty.
• The projections estimated that by 2021, for every 100 men aged between 25 and 34 living in extreme poverty, there will be 118 women. The gap is further expected to widen to 121 women per 100 men by 2030.

Additional Facts:

• UN Women: It is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.It was established in 2010.
• Objectives: 
  • To support inter-governmental bodies such as the Commission on the Status of Women in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms.
  • To hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality including regular monitoring of system-wide progress.
• Commission on the Status of Women(CSW): It was established in 1946 as a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council(ECOSOC).It is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
• Beijing Declaration: It was a resolution adopted by the United Nations(UN) at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995.
  • It sets strategic objectives for the advancement of women and gender equality in 12 critical areas of concern like women and health, women in power and decision-making, the girl-child, women and the environment.
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW): It was adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, is often described as an international bill of rights for women.It defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination.