Gender equality
The Millennium Development Goals commit Countries to promoting gender equality and female empowerment, with a focus on access to education at all levels, on female education in the non-agricultural sector (which is often unpaid) and on parliamentary representation.
To date the efforts undertaken have resulted in gender equality with regard to access to primary education but there are still inequalities when it comes to subsequent educational levels – only 2 out of 130 Countries have achieved gender equality with regard to secondary and higher education.
Much progress has also been made on the employment of women in the non-agricultural sector, with the percentage of women in the total workforce reaching 40%.
Despite these positive results, however, there still remain significant inequalities which are the primary focus of the work being done to draw up the Post-2015 Agenda and to define the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): women continue to be discriminated against in education, at work, in relation to economic independence and to political participation.
The widespread phenomenon of violence against women continues to undermine efforts to achieve the remaining objectives.
Source: UN, The Millennium Development Goals Report, 2013.
One of the main objectives of eni’s local community development projects is to improve the condition of women so that they can fully contribute to the economies of their Countries and to equitable and sustainable global growth. eni has set up a series of activities that will impact directly on women particularly in the propaedeutic areas of health and education.
eni recognizes the importance of access to health, meaning access to quality health services and structures, and recognizes the importance of the gender dimension in its operations. Guaranteeing training and assistance to women means not only reducing the number of women dying during childbirth and increasing the life expectancy of newborns, but also investing in the whole community, since it is women that have the knowledge needed to take care of the home and the children.
After many years of operations in Pakistan, the ongoing community intervention programme in the areas around the company’s plants is strongly focused on the gender dimension and on increasing access to and the quality of basic services.
One of the main objectives of eni‘s local community development initiatives is to improve the condition of women.
