The United Nations wants to achieve full equality for women over the next 15 years. By aiming so high, it risks ignoring the smaller steps necessary to improving women’s lot, especially in poor countries.

1. 1© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals:
Aiming high for women
The United Nations wants to achieve full equality for women over the next 15 years. By aiming
so high, it risks ignoring the smaller steps necessary to improving women’s lot, especially in
poor countries.
When it comes to defining well-being, where a woman stands on the issue can depend on where she
sits; specifically, where she sits geographically. A survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence
Unit (EIU) on behalf of Merck Consumer Health, and presented in the recently released study Wom-
en’s health and well-being: evolving definitions and practices, finds that definitions of well-being can
vary a great deal based on geography and level of economic development.
In particular, while most women (64%) in the survey equate “feeling well” with “feeling healthy and
physically fit”, a difference of opinion emerges based on where the women live. A decisive majority
of women in Germany—77%--link well-being to physical health and fitness, while smaller propor-
tions of women in Brazil (49%) and in Mexico (49%) give the same answer.
An article by The Economist Intelligence Unit
Feeling emotionally secure
and balanced
Feeling a sense of accomplishment
or satisfaction
Feeling healthy and physically fit
Full-sample results to the question “Which of the following best describes your
understanding of the phrase ‘feeling well’? Please select up to three.”
How do women worldwide define well-being?
Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit.
(% respondents)
64%
45%
39%
Feeling financially secure
Feeling connected to others
21%
16%
Sponsored by

2. 2 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Beyond geography, a woman’s definition of well-being is influenced by many other factors, includ-
ing income and immediate circumstances. While professional women in rich countries worry about
juggling their careers and family life, women in poorer countries tend to focus on immediate neces-
sities, sometimes as basic as adequate food supplies, access to education and a measure of indepen-
dence in daily life.
Against this backdrop, the United Nations is taking aim at the problems interfering with women’s
well-being. For example, it targeted high maternal and infant mortality rates in its Millennium De-
velopment Goals (MDGs—see Box 1) for the years 2000-15. This year, in its recently released Sustain-
able Development Goals (SDGs—see Box 2) for 2016-30, the UN aimed even higher, setting ambitious
goals for achieving worldwide gender equality and empowerment—that is, self-determination in
decision-making—for women and girls.
There are good reasons for a focus on the broader idea of empowerment alongside the attention giv-
en to meeting basic requirements of food, shelter and health. Catrin Schulte-Hillen, who leads Mé-
decins Sans Frontières’ working group on reproductive health and sexual violence, says “the women
we talk to [in developing countries] emphasise that access to better healthcare is not necessarily
a main measure of well-being. They emphasise a lack of empowerment, and immediate crises over
money and lack of food.”
Measurable progress
This may explain the shift in emphasis between the earlier MDGs and the current SDGs. In general
terms, the Millennium goals, and in particular MDGs #3, #4 and #5, set a series of concrete pledges
in education access and child and maternal health. These pledges were ambitious and the targets
were generally missed, although they did help to force some progress.
Under the new SDGs, in contrast, governments must actually achieve (rather than just promote)
gender equality and empowerment for women and girls by 2030. In the space of 15 years, all vio-
% of women answering “feeling healthy and physically fit”, by country
How do women in specific countries define well-being?
Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit.
(% respondents)
MexicoBrazilFranceIndiaGermany
77%
73%
67%
49% 49%
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals:
Aiming high for women

3. 3© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals:
Aiming high for women
lence against women must end, harmful practices must be eliminated, the value of unpaid care must
be recognised, and women must be given equal access to economic resources and full participation in
decision making.
Purna Sen, head of policy at UN Women, the United Nations organisation dedicated to gender equal-
ity, says that the ambitious goals in the SDGs correctly match the magnitude of the challenges facing
women in developing countries, “although these are issues in all countries”. Setting such lofty global
goals “creates the momentum for change,” she says. “It is an important shift for governments to
accept that they must achieve these things and that discrimination against women must stop.” For
example, Dr Sen points to concrete progress made so far in repealing laws that discriminates against
women, and she is confident the task will be completed over the next few years.
Beyond that, Dr Sen argues that aiming high is necessary in order to create a general environment
that fosters progress for women in developing countries. She summarises the challenges facing
women globally, and notably in developing countries, as “having inadequate control over their lives;
a lack of visibility, and limited perception of their complicated roles.” In its hugely ambitious SDG
drive, the UN now wants to create momentum towards changing these conditions.
Setting specific targets such as those in the MDGs helps to force progress in the specified areas, while
the broad sweep of SDG goals aims to build a more general momentum for change. The SDG goals of
ending violence against women and ending all forms of discrimination by 2030 are certainly laud-
able. But in setting such high goals, the UN risks giving too little attention to the small steps and
concrete targets necessary to achieve the broader ambition.
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Halve the proportion of people living on
less than US$1 per day—MET
• Halve the proportion of people suffering
from hunger—[narrowly] MISSED
2. Achieve universal primary education—
[narrowly] MISSED, with net enrolment
increasing from 83% in 2000 to 91% in
2015.
3. Promote gender equality and empower
women
• Eliminate gender disparity in education—
MISSED
4. Reduce child mortality for under-fives by
two thirds—MISSED; mortality rates fell
by half in 1990-2015
5. Cut maternal mortality by three quarters—
MISSED with a 50% fall in 1990-2015
6. Halt and start to reverse the spread and
incidence of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases—MISSED, although the number
of new HIV/AIDS infections fell by 40%
in 2000-13
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
• Halve the proportion of people without
access to safe drinking water—MET
8. Develop a global partnership for develop-
ment—some success, with development
aid from rich to developing countries
increasing by two thirds in real terms in
2000-14
The Millennium Development Goals 2000-15:
The 2015 report card

4. 4 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
(Note: more than 800m people globally still
live on less than US$1.25 a day)
2. End hunger, achieve food security and
better nutrition and promote sustainable
agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being
for all
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality
education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all
women and girls
• End all forms of discrimination against all
women and girls everywhere
• Eliminate all forms of violence against all
women and girls in the public and private
spheres, including trafficking and sexual
and other types of exploitation
• Eliminate all harmful practices, such as
child, early and forced marriage and female
genital mutilation
• Recognise and value unpaid care and do-
mestic work through the provision of public
services, infrastructure and social protec-
tion policies and the promotion of shared
responsibility within the household and the
family as nationally appropriate
• Ensure women’s full and effective participa-
tion and equal opportunities for leadership
at all levels of decision making in political,
economic and public life
• Ensure universal access to sexual and repro-
ductive health and reproductive rights as
agreed in accordance with the Programme
of Action of the International Conference
on Population and Development and the
Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome
documents of their review conferences
• Undertake reforms to give women equal
rights to economic resources, as well as ac-
cess to ownership and control over land and
other forms of property, financial services,
inheritance and natural resources, in accor-
dance with national laws
• Enhance the use of enabling technology, in
particular information and communications
technology, to promote the empowerment
of women
• Adopt and strengthen sound policies and
enforceable legislation for the promotion of
gender equality and the empowerment of all
women and girls at all levels
6. Ensure access to water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sus-
tainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote inclusive and sustainable economic
growth, employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote
sustainable industrialisation and foster
innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among coun-
tries
11. Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and
sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and pro-
duction patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change
and its impacts
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans,
seas and marine resources
15. Sustainably manage forests, combat desert-
ification, halt and reverse land degradation,
halt biodiversity loss
16. Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societ-
ies
17. Revitalise the global partnership for sus-
tainable development
The Sustainable Development Goals:
Setting a standard for 2030
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals:
Aiming high for women