Nurul Islam Hasib
Bangladesh is the “best performer” in South Asia in closing the gender gap, the prestigious World Economic Forum reports. In its Global Gender Gap Report 2020 report, the international organization for public-private cooperation said Bangladesh has closed 72.6 percent of its overall gender gap and ranks 50th on the index. India is ranked the 112th in the index while Nepal 101st and Sri Lanka 102nd.
But, according to the report, Bangladesh’s presence in the top 50 and regional leadership should not hide the fact that there is considerable room to bolster basic rights of women and improve their economic and political prospects. It is the only country in the world where women have had a longer tenure than men at the helm of the state over the past 50 years.
This contributes to the strong performance on the Political Empowerment sub-index (score of 54.5 percent, 7th). But there are only 8 percent of women in the cabinet and only 20 percent in the parliament. In the economic sphere, as of 2018, 38 percent of adult women were part of the labour force (up from 34 percent in 2017), compared with 84 percent of men. Only one in 10 leadership roles is occupied by a woman (139th), and the estimated average annual income of women is 40 percent that of the men.
Bangladesh was in the 91st position in WEF's 2006 report. Iceland remained the world's most gender-neutral country on the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Report followed by Norway and Finland. Pakistan, Iraq and Yemen occupy the last three positions as the least gender-neutral countries in the world.
Over the past 14 years the Global Gender Gap Index included in this report has served as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men on health, education, economy and politics. Through this annual yardstick, stakeholders within each country are able to set priorities relevant in each specific economic, political and cultural context.
This year’s report highlights the growing urgency for action. Without the equal inclusion of half of the world’s talent, we will not be able to deliver on the promise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for all of society, grow our economies for greater shared prosperity or achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
At the present rate of change, it will take nearly a century to achieve parity, a timeline we simply cannot accept in today’s globalized world, especially among younger generations who hold increasingly progressive views of gender equality, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab said.
