New Database Additions  Short Summary Title Gender and the MDGs: A Gender Lens is Vital for Pro-poor Results Author Jones, N., Holmes, R. and Espey, J. Publication Date September 2008 Publisher Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Summary Source Summary adapted from source Summary Greater gender equality can help to reduce the root causes of poverty and vulnerability and contribute to sustainable pro-poor growth. However, The Millennium Development Goals (MDG), fail to integrate gender dimensions into all the goals. The goal of gender equality is only explicitly addressed in MDGs 3 and 5, which point to the need for equality in education, employment and political participation; and for better sexual and reproductive health, including maternal mortality. This Briefing paper discusses how gender relations underpin MDGs on poverty and sustainable development; service access; care and care-giving; and voice and agency. For instance, if the service-related Goals (2,3, 6 and 7) were viewed through a gender lens, it would be possible to take into account the very different challenges faced by men and women, girls and boys when accessing quality services. These include: women's biological susceptibility to HIV infection and their relative lack of power to negotiate safe sex, the fact that constraints on women's time can prevent them from accessing health care if clinics are far away. The authors argue that social protection policies could help to achieve the MDGs in a gender-sensitive manner provided that they recognised inequalities at the household level, in particular decision-making power and the ownership of resources; the importance unpaid care-giving and household management; and the different experiences of men and women in the labour market. Concrete policy and programme measures could include: community childcare to give women equal access to income generation, education stipends for girls, and care-giver allowances that recognise the costs of care. Complete Document View PDF (Portable Document Format)