SIGI 2019 Global Report
Transforming Challenges into Opportunities
Over the past decade, the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) has consistently shown that governments need to look at discriminatory laws, social norms and practices to achieve gender equality and promote women’s empowerment. This 2019 global report provides an overview of the main outcomes of the SIGI in relation to women and the family, their physical integrity, access to productive and financial resources and their civic rights. Building on these outcomes, this report provides a set of policy recommendations to enhance governments’ efforts to deliver their gender-equality commitments through a three-pronged approach: starting with legal reforms and transformative gender policies, enforcing laws through community mobilisation and empowerment, and learning about the efficiency of policy through monitoring.
The complexity of discriminatory social institutions for sustainable and inclusive growth
This chapter discusses the complexity of discriminatory social institutions and how these create barriers to the achievement of SDG 5 by 2030. It describes how barriers impede economic growth and outlines the economic costs of gender-based discrimination in formal and informal laws, social norms and practices. The chapter analyses gender gaps in social protection as an example of discriminatory social institutions, emphasising how these gaps increase women’s vulnerability. Moreover, it focuses on the importance of acknowledging intersectional discrimination, describing how migrant women and rural women are affected differently by gender-based discriminatory social institutions. Finally, the chapter evaluates the opportunities and challenges that digitalisation offers for women’s empowerment and gender equality.