Against the background of the difficulties that occur when collecting gender disaggregated data, the CARICOM Secretariat Regional Statistics Programme (RSP), in partnership with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women Multi-Country Office for the Caribbean (UN Women MCO-Caribbean), developed a set of indicators - the CARICOM Gender Equality Indicators Model (CARICOM GEI) - parallel to the Global Minimum Set of Gender Indicators to identify, assess, measure and track the persistent gender equality concerns and disparities across the CARICOM Region, in accordance with the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The remaining SDGs, where gender plays an important role, have also been included in this study.
A related initiative launched by CARICOM and the UN Women MCO - Caribbean, with the support of the Government of Canada and in partnership with United Nations Development Program (UNDP), is the development of a CARICOM Survey Model to measure the Prevalence of Gender-Based Violence. This model, a household-based survey, was agreed by the CARICOM Council for Human and Social Development in May 2014 to be piloted in the region with a view to further revising the model for formal adoption by CARICOM.
Under the overall framework of monitoring the SDGs, the CARICOM GEI Model supports countries in addressing key policy concerns identified in the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and other international commitments that cover national norms and laws on gender equality across 5 domains: economic activity, education, health, public participation, and human rights. These indicators provide a strong tool for monitoring national gender equality commitments to be realized through policy and programme formulation and implementation.
This Situational Analysis can be seen as a way for the national government to draw attention to gender relations in the country. Guiding the study’s approach, is the assessment of progress on gender equality and specifically in the areas of economic activity, education, health, public participation and human rights, using the CARICOM GEI as an analytical tool. Consequently, the Situational Analysis can help assess changes in economic and social institutions, laws and practices.