UN-ESCWA Launches a Supportive Guide in the Arab Region on Gender in the Millennium Development Goals

On the occasion of the 12th Regional Coordination Mechanism Meeting (RCM), UN-ESCWA Executive Secretary, Bader Omar AlDafa, launched on Sunday a report on “Gender in the Millennium Development Goals: Information guide for Arab Millennium Development Goals reports” at the UN House, Beirut in the presence of representatives of UN regional organizations and media institutions. AlDafa said in his statement that the Guide is the result of cooperation among the various UN organizations, and it came in response to the need to develop a single information gathering monitoring system for gender sensitive indicators and sex-disaggregated data. “It provides a statistical framework for an evaluation and follow-up of international agreements on the matter, such as those contained in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the United Nations Millennium Declaration,” AlDafa said. Head of the Statistics Division in UN-ESCWA, Giovanni Savio, said that the Guide highlights discrepancies in the availability of gender sensitive indicators across the countries, indicating the main challenges for future improvement. The guide summarizes the main gender issues and concerns in the region in the context of each Millennium Goal. It also provides a detailed assessment of the availability of sex-disaggregated data and gender sensitive indicators in the Arab region for gender responsive monitoring and reporting of MDGs. The Guide can be obtained through the UN Information Services.