As co-directors of the Francophone Observatory for Inclusive Development through Gender (OFDIG), we are highlighting the day after International Women’s Rights Day the creation of a new observatory that will bring together Francophone researchers from here and elsewhere around the fundamental issue of gender equality. Question that is still not acquired in Quebec.
Posted at 10:00 a.m.
OFDIG’s mission is to promote, on an international scale, the autonomy and agency of women and girls in the three crucial sectors of inclusive development: the medium of higher education and research, education systems and the economic sector. The situation remains worrying in these three key areas. For example, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), if current trends continue, it will take us 202 years to close the economic gap between women and men on the planet. Worldwide, one in eight girls of school age still does not attend primary or secondary school and, according to the UN, only 62 out of 145 countries are achieving parity goals in education systems. In the field of research, women researchers are under-represented in… all the countries of the world, including within our Quebec and Canadian universities.
OFDIG will produce reliable data to document and see inequalities in these areas. It will develop actions and advocacy to promote better participation of women and girls in inclusive development processes. To achieve this, OFDIG relies on a network of academics, experts and groups of active women in Quebec and Canada, in the Maghreb, in Central Africa and in West Africa.
An international observatory for gender-inclusive development and its actions in favor of gender equality are necessary to transform these situations, both internationally and, closer to home, in Quebec and Canada.
Indeed, it would be reassuring to think that gender inequalities mainly concern women “abroad” and that the relevance of OFDIG is first and foremost for its partners on the African continent. This is unfortunately false and to think so is like putting our heads in the sand. Inequalities between women and men persist in Quebec and Canada, even if they are often less visible than in other regions of the Francophonie.
In Quebec, sexual and family violence disproportionately affects women, which is sadly illustrated by the too many feminicides that made the headlines in 2021 and 2022. In the wake of March 8, we would like to recall that according to the Institut de Quebec statistics show that poverty still affects more women than men in the province, while 58% of people who work at minimum wage are women, earn an average of $3 an hour less than men and that they are proportionally more likely than their male counterparts to have to live on an income of less than $15,000 a year.
The issues of representation and representativeness of women in sectors considered “traditionally male” remain just as present. Women are still largely under-represented in politics, as well as in certain fields of university studies and research such as engineering, architecture, computer science, physical sciences or mathematics. In economic circles, women are still too little present at the head of companies and on the boards of large organizations, especially when it comes to so-called “masculine” fields such as the mining, oil and gas industry. , where the latter represent only 7% of board members.
In the aftermath of International Women’s Rights Day and in the wake of the launch of our OFDIG, we are committed through our work to go beyond borders and engage in common struggles so that gender equality becomes the most shared reality of Francophonie !