SDG 5- Gender Equality: A summary of how the FRESH Framework and school programs can help to achieve and monitor this UN Goal

This summary explains how various school-based and school-linked programs support global actions to achieve this goal. The achievement of this goal involves five sectors; including Development Aid, Welfare/Social Protection, Finance/Taxation, Employment and Education & Training, The FRESH Framework and other sources enables us to identify six school programs and four multi-component approaches as well as the indicators related to those school strategies, Five global initiatives. involving schools as a key partner in achieving this goal have also been identified in this summary.

The Global Partnership for Education has noted that "One additional school year can increase a woman's earnings by up to 20%, according to World Bank studies, and Plan International has shown that some countries lose more than $1 billion a year by failing to educate girls at the same level as boys

Excerpts from UN Description of this Goal:

Goal #5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. 

Gender equality and women’s empowerment have advanced in recent decades. Girls’ access to education has improved, the rate of child marriage declined and progress was made in the area of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, including fewer maternal deaths. Nevertheless, gender equality remains a persistent challenge for countries worldwide and the lack of such equality is a major obstacle to sustainable development.

Assuring women’s rights through legal frameworks is a first step in addressing discrimination against them.

Violence against women and girls violates their human rights and hinders development. Most such violence is perpetrated by intimate partners. Human trafficking disproportionately affects women and girls, since 70 per cent of all victims detected worldwide are female.

Globally, the proportion of women aged between 20 and 24 who reported that they were married before their eighteenth birthday dropped from 32 per cent around 1990 to 26 per cent around 2015. Social norms can and do change, however, with the rate of marriage of girls under the age of 15 declining globally from 12 per cent around 1990 to 7 per cent around 2015, although disparities are found across regions and countries.

The harmful practice of female genital mutilation/cutting is another human rights violation that affects girls and women worldwide.

In every region, women and girls do the bulk of unpaid work, including caregiving and such household tasks as cooking and cleaning. On average, women report that they spend 19 per cent of their time each day in unpaid activities, versus 8 per cent for men.

Globally, women’s participation in parliament rose to 23 per cent in 2016, representing an increase by 6 percentage points over a decade. Slow progress in this area is in contrast with more women in parliamentary leadership positions.

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School Appraches and Programs that address this Goal:

There are several school multi-intervention programs and single interventions that promote gender equality. These programs are often grouped and coordinated in these multi-component approaches::

These school-based and school-linked  policies, programs and practices are effective in supporting this goal:


The core components of the FRESH Framework also address this goal in these ways:

Schools help to develop these skills, values within students related to this goal:

Current & Recent Global/UN Initiatives to Achieve this Goal:

Current & Recent Global School Initiatives related to this Goal:

Overview of UN Targets for this Goal:

5.1 End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere

5.2 Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation

5.3 Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation

5.4 Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate

5.5 Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life

5.6 Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences

5.a Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws

5.b Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women

5.c Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels

School-Related Indicators from the FRESH Framework & School Programs/ Approaches

The following indicators are included in the FRESH Framework, its thematic applications on various health, social, safety and economic problems and other sources or updates on the FRESH Monitoring and Evaluation Guidance. The indicators describe the type, frequency and data sources of monitoring that can be done. As well, the FRESH Framework provides suggestions for monitoring at the national and school levels.


As well, the progress being made in relation to the implementation and maintenance of these core components and cross-cutting themes in the FRESH Framework can be monitored in relation to this goal:

These school-related organizational and systems capacities should also be monitored in relation to this goal: