UNDP GUYANA

United Nations Development Programme No 2, October 2010

UNDP ANALYTICAL PAPERS

Women Empowerment and Gender Equality in Guyana: What About it?

Preamble A human rights approach to development brings elements of equity in the process of nations maturing through participation and inclusiveness. Guyana, adopting the notion of human development using human rights approaches has come a long way in its turbulent growth cycle since its independence in 1966. As early as the 1970s, and before the Beijing Conference, women empowerment mainstreaming and protection began to unfold in Guyana. Prominent female figures in government and public life, strong advocacy through the NGOs/CSOs movements etc., were critical components of womens development taking shape, while igniting a broader development debate. Later, empowerment as a mechanism for achieving gender equality was catalyzed; examples are the signing and ratification of the CEDAW and establishment of the Women Affairs Bureau in 1981. More recently, efforts at a rights based approach to womens development has been concretized through initiatives such as the Constitutional, Women and Gender Equality Commission, the Domestic violence Act 1996, among other things. In the same way women empowerment is used synonymously with gender equality, this note argues that empowerment has been used as a platform for gender equality, specifically on issues where women are traditionally challenged. Using variables of sex to speak approximately on gender and its parity, complemented by key indicators on results, this informative brief highlights key areas of success on womens development in Guyana. It draws attention to developments in two critical areas of human choices and proposes some response to promote further gender equality through working to crystallize gains, strengthen institutional approaches for debunking socialization and norms that foster gender inequality, and support at the operational level, issues of immediate importance in the local context. Decision-making and Political Representation From a period where female representation, at the highest level of institutional decisionmaking was ad hoc to legislative provisions for representation as a right; today the electoral system of Guyana mandates gender representation of at least one-third for parties submitting lists of candidates for National and Regional elections, a policy adapted since the 2001 elections. This has been instrumental in elevating womens participation in decision-making at the highest level.

(592) 226 4040/8/9 - registry.gy@undp.org - www.undp.org.gy

UNDP GUYANA
United Nations Development Programme

UNDP ANALYTICAL PAPERS

The Guyana UPR submission 2010 provides evidence that show women now comprise 22 of the 65 Members of Parliament1 and 8 of the 18 members of the Cabinet.2 Parliamentary representation of women is diverse across ethnicity and age, though the representation may not be representative to the national dynamics. The gender ratio according to the population census 2002 is one-to-one with very marginal population growth. Given the population dynamics, Renshaw 2006 finds womens representation to be low. Albeit the facts, the transition from ad hoc to legally binding rights approaches is where the deduction of a partial success story can be pronounced. Today, women continue to hold key public spaces, particularly in the judiciary: the Director of Public Prosecutions; The Registrar of the Supreme Court; The Registrar of the Land Registry; and, the Registrar of the Deeds Registry. The Chief

(ag), the Principal Magistrate and 9 of the 16 magistrates are female; 5 of the 17 Judges in the High Court are female as well. These developments are necessary though not sufficient in the grand scheme of women empowerment and gender equality. Human Development, MDGs, and Poverty The Human Development Report 2009 ranks Guyana 53rd of 109 countries on the Gender Empowerment Measures (GEM) and 96th of 155 countries on Genderrelated Development Index (GDI). The 2003 MDG report indicated that the objective of Eliminating gender differences in primary and secondary education, preferably by the year 2005, and in all other levels of education no later than 2015 (MDG goal 3), has been met though not the overall goal. The 2007 report updated that there has been a slight decline in the number of women enrolled in secondary and tertiary education from 1996-2003 and in waged employment from 1992-2001; while there are some improvements in the number of seats held by women in the National Parliament from 1992-2006. On MDG goal 5 the 2007 report highlighted that maternal mortality has been declining from 1991-2006; while the number of skilled personnel attending births improved from 2000-2006. Gradually, overall empowerment of women and equality in gender is positively improving. If one is to use the baseline of the Economic Recovery Programme 1989 to assess some of the results according to how entitlements are distributed by gender, there would be a few gains to

1
2

in the 9th Parliament. This representation does not always translate to concrete equality in decision-making though it is progress on empowerment. Despite no empirical evidence on the correlation between women in Parliament and passing of legislation and policy progress on womens issues, more Constitutional and other provisions are being made to promote gender equality, for example Women and Gender Equality Commission, the Trafficking in Persons Act 2005, Domestic Violence Act 1996, Marriage (Amendment) Act 2006, Sexual Offences Act 2009, Age of Consent Act 2006, Maternal and Child Health Strategy 2008-2012, Women of Worth Finance scheme (fund of G$500 million) for single mothers, extended maternity allowance for working women, inter alia. More recently, however, Guyana slipped in rank on the gender gap index of the World Economic Forum 2010 from 35 in 2009 to 38 in 2010 of 134 countries respectively, mainly due to weakness in economic participation (labour force participation and wage gaps of women in high positions).

(592) 226 4040/8/9 - registry.gy@undp.org - www.undp.org.gy

UNDP GUYANA
United Nations Development Programme

UNDP ANALYTICAL PAPERS

report. Poverty rates have declined from 43% in 1992 to 36.1% in 2006. Per capita income is rising (US$737.9 in 2001 to US$1298.6 in 2009) while inequality3 in consumption has been declining from 0.44 in 1992 to 0.35 in 2006. Increased access by women to economic opportunities has resulted in declining unemployment and increased consumption, though overall labour force participation may not be at desirable levels. The last census (2002) revealed unemployment nationally at of 11.67% (16.77% in 1980), where males experienced 10.14% (15.13% in 1980), and females 15.15(22.0 in 1980). Today, the Women and Gender Equality Commission has equal pay as one of its key areas of focus. The Women of worth Network will benefit from $500 million programmed for single mothers between the ages of 18 to 60 years old who have difficulty accessing finance for small and micro enterprise. The Low Carbon Development Strategy targets the expansion of SME for vulnerable groups including women as a priority area to receive benefits as they accrue. Unpaid domestic work, whose burden falls disproportionately on women and in practice constitute an invisible subsidy to the economic system has not been a significant part of the discussions locally on human

development, inequality.

poverty

nor

gender

Education and Health Expanding peoples choices are essential to human development Two of the more important choices are that of education and health. Education expenditures have been expanding in Guyana, and though there are no disaggregated statistics of expenditure by gender the results speak for themselves. Despite challenges in education quality the MICS report 2006 shows that early childhood education access between males and females are marginally different 47.7% males against 50.4% females, so too is the case for entry into primary school (enrolled in grade 1) 79.9% males as against 77.4% females, and reaching grade five - 98.3% males as compared to 95.3% females. Primary school completion rates are similar too, 71.4% males aganist 71% for females. For those transitioning to secondary school the difference is marginal: 65.4% males in relation to 68.6% reported for females. Gender parity (index, GPI) in primary school was 1:1 in 2000 as compared with 1.0 in 2006; in secondary parity existed in 2006 as a 1:1 ratio. Some of the key developments in health shows women are living longer lives in Guyana, life expectancy among women improved from 66.1 years in 2003 to 69.6 in 2007 as compared with males 60 and 63 years respectively. Earlier we saw improvements of skilled attendant at delivery: 85.6% in 2000, and 83.3% in 2006; while maternal4 mortality rate

Inequality in income was measured using the gini coefficient in 1999 Household Income and Expenditure survey and was reported to be 0.421 (0.413 gini consumption).

4 A National Policy for Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction has been developed.

(592) 226 4040/8/9 - registry.gy@undp.org - www.undp.org.gy

UNDP GUYANA
United Nations Development Programme

UNDP ANALYTICAL PAPERS

declined from 170 in 2000 to 112.5 in 20075. Contraceptive prevalence is still fairly low: 37.5% in 2000 and 34.2% in 2006; while antenatal care access marginally increased from 80.9% in 2000 to 81.4% 2006, according to the MICS 2006. Immediate Concerns and potential responses Having raised salient areas of progress there are continuous challenges in attaining the level of women empowerment that meets both the necessary and sufficient conditions for gender equality. Some of the uphill battles are: Domestic violence continues to be a vexed issue despite all the efforts hitherto. Government statistics 2008 indicated that there were over 3,600 cases of domestic violence reported in 2007 as compared to 1,708 in 2006. Help & Shelter (an NGO) evidence show 1296 perpetrators of violence against women (and children) in 1999, 5087 cumulative over the period 1999 to 2006; while victims for the same period totaled 6414. Noteworthy, is the persistent under-reporting of domestic violence issues. The United States Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2007 flagged domestic violence in Guyana as "widespread". Insanally 2006 pointed out that in spite of the legal framework domestic violence continues to be seen as personal, private or family related.

Potential Response: Working towards debunking norms and socialization associated with fostering domestic violence is critical to any response to this challenge. Conflict resolution must therefore take on small units of focus that can treat such issues. A coalition of the willing must also follow in the path of initiatives such as the Men Empowerment network to arrest the situation. This presents an opportunity to expand work with Faith Based Organization who are essential to this intervention and must be co-opt. Strengthening the coalition between human and discipline services (such as the police and prisons etc.) are critical too. Capacities can be built for some of the aforementioned to work with perpetrators, and intensify men and boys involvement. Economic participation and pay: According to the BoS 2002, 78% of the male working-age population carry out economic activities for pay or are economically active. On the other hand, only 34% of women of working age were involved in economic activities for pay. To highlight the issue even further the BoS indicated The slight undulation within the participation of women .is congruent with the unusual way in which women enter and exit from labour force participation, sometimedue to child-bearing and rearing or marriagesome women enter the labour force for the first time in their thirties, forties, or even later, while others are retiring, and then move into and out again several times in the course of their lives.

Source: Ministry of Health Statistical Bulletin 2007.

(592) 226 4040/8/9 - registry.gy@undp.org - www.undp.org.gy

UNDP GUYANA
United Nations Development Programme

UNDP ANALYTICAL PAPERS

Potential Response: Enhancing work with the private sector, especially in the areas of corporate social responsibility (which also helps with considering unpaid care work) and inclusive models for pro-poor growth are key avenues for improving gender equality and women empowerment. The DENMOR model is already a good local example of how this can be done. Additionally, the poverty alleviation-environment nexus promoted through the Low Carbon Development Strategy presents the right context for such actions. Information and data quality on gender development is deemed weak. Strengthening data collection on gender equality is essential for targeting and evidence based interventions in areas of deficiency. Potential Response: Support from the international community for the next census can be an important feature here, complemented by an intensification of statistical capacity strengthening of core agencies such as the Labour and Human Services Ministry, and the Ministry of Home Affairs as health information systems and education are ahead of the curve.
Author: Mr. Marlon Bristol, UNDP Guyana, Poverty Analyst Reduction

The analysis and policy recommendations of this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the UNDP, its executive board or its member states.

(592) 226 4040/8/9 - registry.gy@undp.org - www.undp.org.gy