UN Report Warns Global Retreat from Gender Equality Could Cost Generations

The world is backsliding on gender equality, and the price is being counted in lives, rights, and opportunities, warns the 2025 SDG Gender Snapshot report launched by UN Women and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs on Monday. With just five years left to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, none of the gender equality targets are on track. This year marks a crossroads: the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the 25th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, and the 80th anniversary of the UN itself. Yet sobering data highlights a world falling short of commitments.

Female poverty remains stubbornly high at around 10 per cent, barely shifting since 2020, with sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia hardest hit. Meanwhile, conflict is intensifying vulnerabilities. In 2024, 676 million women and girls lived within reach of deadly conflict, the highest figure since the 1990s. Beyond displacement, women face hunger, health risks, and surging violence. Gender-based violence persists at alarming levels: one in eight women experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner in the past year, one in five young women was married before 18, and over four million girls undergo female genital mutilation annually, most before their fifth birthday.

Still, the report emphasizes that progress is possible. Maternal mortality has dropped nearly 40 per cent since 2000, and girls are completing school in record numbers. Technology is also creating opportunities: closing the gender digital divide could lift 30 million women out of poverty and generate $1.5 trillion for the global economy by 2030. “Where gender equality has been prioritized, it has propelled societies and economies forward,” said UN Women chief Sima Bahous.

Yet, a growing backlash is eroding progress. Funding cuts have reduced the availability of gender data by 25 per cent, making women invisible in policymaking. Women remain underrepresented in power, holding just 27.2 per cent of parliamentary seats, 35.5 per cent in local government, and 30 per cent of management positions. At this rate, true parity is nearly 100 years away.

The report stresses that accelerating action in care, education, green economy, labour markets, and social protection could lift 110 million women and girls from extreme poverty by 2050, unlocking an estimated $342 trillion in cumulative economic returns. “Gender equality is not an ideology,” the report warns. “It is foundational for peace, development, and human rights.”

As UN Women’s Sarah Hendriks told UN News: “Change is absolutely possible, but it requires political will and determined resolve from governments to make gender equality and women’s empowerment a reality once and for all.” The report identifies six urgent priorities under the Beijing+30 Action Agenda: ending poverty, ensuring digital inclusion, eliminating violence, guaranteeing full decision-making power, securing peace and security, and advancing climate justice.

The choice, it concludes, is urgent: invest in women and girls now or risk losing another generation of progress.