UN OWG Proposed Target 5.a
RATING: GOOD. This goal is linked strongly to general development; the first step is to ensure women have opportunities to access assets and therefore gain income.
Additionally, there is evidence that improving property and ownership rights of women would increase aggregate economic benefits. For example, if women were able to better enforce property rights they would have more incentives to increase the value and productivity of land they manage (if a crop or plot of land becomes valuable, there is the risk of appropriation by men in the household).
Giving access to financial services is PHENOMENAL, especially if we take into account the success of microfinance in empowering women and getting them out of poverty.
Setting the Right Global Goals
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You can read about our prioritization project, setting smart, cost-effective goals in this op-ed published around the world including Turkey, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Uganda, South Korea, Costa Rica and the Philippines.
Download the entire report
In our recent report, not just the target above, but all 169 targets have been assessed by 60 teams of the world’s top economists. The targets have been categorized into five ratings based on evidence of economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits. While we applaud that the UN Open Working Group's final outcome document contains 43 fewer targets than the previous document, we are concerned that many targets have simply been combined, therefore reducing the number of both phenomenal and poor targets assessed according to our cost-benefit analysis. Our new assessment includes suggestions for how these can be improved as reported in this article by the Financial Times.