Top 10 Most Gender Unequal Countries in Africa, 2018 – United Nations

Gender inequality remains a major barrier to human development in Africa. Although Girls and women in the African continent have made major strides since 1990, they have not yet gained gender equity.

The disadvantages facing women and girls are a major source of inequality. All too often, women and girls are discriminated against in health, education, political representation, labour market, etc.—with negative consequences for development of their capabilities and their freedom of choice.

The Gender Inequality Index is an inequality index. It measures gender inequalities in three important aspects of human development—reproductive health, measured by maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rates; empowerment, measured by proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by females and proportion of adult females and males aged 25 years and older with at least some secondary education; and economic status, expressed as labour market participation and measured by labour force participation rate of female and male populations aged 15 years and older.

The Index is built on the same framework as the IHDI (Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index) —to better expose differences in the distribution of achievements between women and men. It measures the human development costs of gender inequality. Thus the higher the GII value the more disparities between females and males and the more loss to human development.

The Gender Inequality Index sheds new light on the position of women in 160 countries; it yields insights in gender gaps in major areas of human development. The component indicators highlight areas in need of critical policy intervention and it stimulates proactive thinking and public policy to overcome systematic disadvantages of women.

This years Gender Inequality Index report by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has shown the worst performing countries in gender equality.

The report rankee 189 countries on their ability to close the gender gap – making sure women are not held back – in four key areas: health and survival, education, politics and economic equality.

With 6 countries, West Africa is the worst performing region in gender inequality in Africa, followed by central Africa, 3 countries. Southern Africa had just one representative in the list ‘Malawi’. while East Africa had no representative at all which ultimately means that women are not held back in the region.

African Regions with the least gender equality gap include East and Southern Africa.

Chad is the worst performing country in Africa in terms of gender equality making them the most gender unequal country in Africa, they are closely followed by Mali, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast and Liberia.

Top 10 Most Gender Unequal Countries in Africa, 2018

For a more detailed report click here