According to a recent UN report, the progress made in the past 20 years towards reducing global poverty is at risk of being reversed because of a failure to combat widening inequality and strengthen women’s rights. The UN’s ICPD Beyond 2014 Global Report, has found that the number of people living in developing countries has more than halved from 47 per cent in 1990 to 22 per cent in 2010, but argues that many of the 1 billion people living in the 50-60 poorest countries will be left behind as the rest of the world gets richer.
Around the world, different groups are marginalised and discriminated against, but discrimination against women is universal. It’s a shocking thought that in 2014, there is no country in the world where women have equal economic and political power to men. As well as holding back billions of women from achieving their full potential, and asserting their right to live full, healthy lives, this is having an impact on the global economy too. Is, as the UN suggests, the reason for global wealth creation shifting from the West to fast-growing Eastern economies in part due to women’s increased economic participation? Most certainly.
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