Global Report on Women’s Empowerment and Development (2023)

The report aims to establish a new framework for evaluating women’s empowerment and development and to examine the status of women’s empowerment and development across countries worldwide using an index-based approach, providing insights to inform policy formulation and support the advancement of relevant agendas. The Women’s Empowerment and Development Index (WEDI) is developed to draw inspiration from key international documents and initiatives, including the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The index is based on the human development concept proposed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), emphasizes consistency in evaluation logic, adheres to a lifecycle perspective, focuses on contemporary women’s development issues, and balances normativity and empiricism. It also considers the dimensions of fairness and development as well as opportunities and outcomes. The WEDI encompasses health, education, economic participation, social participatory condition, and
decision-making participation dimensions. Based on the analysis, the report provides the following recommendations for promoting women’s empowerment and development globally: