Human Development Report

[Facilitator's Note: This query is cross-posted on UNDP's HDR Statistics Network and Gender Equality Network.]

Le texte en français suit le texte en anglais
El texto en español se encuentra después del texto en francés

Dear Members,

The Mexico Country Office is elaborating a document on Gender, Violence and Human Development, which is being produced as a sub-product of Mexico’s National Human Development Report 2004.

Human development and violence are strongly interconnected as violence is a factor that may stop human development. UNDP Mexico plans to specifically explore the relationship between violence against women and human development. Violence against women blocks the efforts to advance women's capacities, emphasizing women’s inequities with respect to men.

In this context, UNDP Mexico intends to examine the relationship between the Human Development Index and an index of non-violence against women, which has been constructed with data from a specific survey that has been carried out in Mexico.

We plan to show the relationship between the two indices by incorporating the non-violence against women index as an additional dimension to the GEM and the GDI (with the same weight for all dimensions: 0.25), to see how those indices change the relative positions of Mexican states, when compared to the traditional indices. With support provided through the Gender Thematic Trust Fund, a gender expert will elaborate the conceptual framework, while the National Human Development Report staff will work on statistical issues.

Your comments and suggestions on our project will be very much appreciated. We would very much appreciate any input on how to operationalize the links between GDI/GEM and violence against women. In particular, we would be interested to hear about other NHDRs or studies that have used similar methodologies. In addition, do network members have recommendations on relevant literature on this issue of measuring the relationship between violence against women and HD?

Thank you very much

Kind regards,

Amalia Paredes
UNDP Mexico

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Chers membres,

Le Bureau de Pays du Mexique envisage d’élaborer un document sur l’égalité des sexes, la violence et le développement humain comme un sous-produit du Rapport National sur le Développement Humain (RNDH) du Mexique 2004.

Le développement humain et la violence sont fortement liés comme la violence est un facteur qui peut stopper le développement humain. Le PNUD du Mexique envisage d’explorer le rapport entre la violence contre les femmes et le développement humain. La violence contre les femmes bloque les efforts d’avancer leurs capacités et met en relief leurs inégalités vis-à-vis des hommes.

Dans ce contexte, le PNUD du Mexique souhaite examiner la relation entre l’Indice de développement humain (IDH) et un indice de non-violence contre des femmes, qui a été construit avec des données d’une enquête spécifique conduite au Mexique.

Notre plan est de démontrer le rapport entre les deux indices en incorporant l’indice de non-violence contre les femmes comme dimension additionnelle de l’Indicateur sexospécifique du développement humain et l’Indicateur de la participation des femmes (toutes dimensions ayant le même poids : 0.25) afin de vérifier comment ces indices changent les positions relatives des Etats mexicains en comparaison avec les indices traditionnels. A travers le financement du Fonds d'Affectation Spéciale Thématique sur l’Egalité des sexes, un expert de l’égalité des sexes sera chargé d’élaborer le cadre conceptuel, tandis que l’équipe du Rapport National sur le Développement Humain se penchera sur les questions statistiques.

Vos commentaires et suggestions sur notre projet sont les bienvenus. Nous serons très reconnaissants de recevoir vos idées et input comment opérationnaliser les liens entre l’ISDH/l’IPF et la violence contre les femmes. Il serait particulièrement utile d’obtenir des informations de la part des autres RNDH ou études qui ont utilisé des méthodologies similaires. En outre, nous aimerions savoir si les membres du réseau ont des suggestions sur la littérature clé sur le mesurage du rapport entre la violence contre les femmes et le développement humain ?

Merci à l’avance de vos contributions !

Meilleures salutations.

Amalia Paredes
PNUD Mexique

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[Many thanks to Sarai Nunez Ceron for her translation of the message!]

Estimados Miembros,

La Oficina del PNUD en México esta elaborando un documento de Genero, Violencia y Desarrollo Humano el cual esta siendo producido como un sub-producto del Informe Nacional de Desarrollo Humano de México 2004.

El desarrollo humano y la violencia están fuertemente conectados ya que la violencia es un factor que puede detener el desarrollo humano. El PNUD en México planea explorar específicamente la relación que existe entre la violencia contra las mujeres y el desarrollo humano. La violencia en contra de las mujeres bloquea los esfuerzos para que las capacidades de las mujeres progresen y acentúa la inequidad respecto a los hombres.

En este contexto, el PNUD en México intenta examinar la relación entre el Índice de Desarrollo Humano y un índice de no violencia en contra de las mujeres, el cual ha sido construido con información derivada de una encuesta llevada a cabo en el país.

Estamos planeando mostrar la relación entre los dos índices al incorporar el índice de la no violencia en contra de las mujeres como una dimensión adicional al Índice de Desarrollo Relativo al Género y al Índice de Potenciación de Género (con el mismo peso para todas las dimensiones: 0.25) para ver como los índices cambian las posiciones relativas de los Estados en México, cuando estos se comparan con los índices tradicionales. Con el apoyo proveniente del Fondo Fiduciario Temático sobre Género, un experto en Género elaborará el marco conceptual, mientras el equipo del Informe Nacional de Desarrollo Humano trabajará en asuntos estadísticos.

Apreciamos mucho sus comentarios o sugerencias para nuestro proyecto. Especialmente valoraremos su aportaciones respecto a como operacionalizar los vínculos entre IDG/IPG y la violencia en contra de las mujeres. En particular, estamos interesados en escuchar sobre otros INDH o estudios que han utilizado metodologías similares. Adicionalmente, nos gustaría preguntar si los miembros de la red tienen alguna recomendación respecto a literatura relevante sobre cómo medir la relación entre violencia en contra de las mujeres y desarrollo humano.

Muchas gracias.

Saludos cordiales

Amalia Paredes
PNUD México

Dear Amalia,

WHO has completed a multi-country study on violence against women, linking its impact to women’s health. The report covers ten countries, and is online here:

WHO Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women: Initial Results on Prevalence, Health Outcomes and Women’s Responses:

http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/index.html

Regards,

Bharati

Bharati Sadasivam
Policy Advisor
Bureau for Resources and Strategic Partnerships
Civil Society Organizations Division
Tel: 212. 906 6232. Fax: 212. 906 6814
www.undp.org/cso

Dear Amalia,

Congratulations for this great initiative! Please let us know about your advances.

I hope this information can be useful for you:

The National Human Development Report 2005 of Costa Rica was about security (Proyecto Venciendo el Temor) and I think that the gender consultant Ana Carcedo was responsible for reviewing the situation of violence against women and perhaps she used methodologies that can be useful for you.

The contact in the Costa Rica CO is Lara Blanco, lara.blanco@undp.org . She should be able to put you in touch with Ana. If not, Ana works in CEFEMINA, so you can try to contact her at this organization:  cefemina@racsa.co.cr .

Best regards,

Neus Bernabeu
UNDP El Salvador

 

Dear Amalia,

In Argentina, legislators, judges, and NGO’s have increasingly got together and worked towards an interdisciplinary and integrated approach. “The Inter-disciplinary Conference on Sexual Crimes” (“Las Jornadas Interdisciplinarias sobre Delitos contra la Integridad Sexual y Trata de Mujeres, Niños, y Niñas”) is a good example of this attempt.

Attached you´ll find three legislative projects aiming at preventing and reducing violence against women discussed during this conference. Two of them address prevention and assistance (Programa nacional de prevención y asistencia a las victimas de delitos sexuales; Programa nacional de prevención y asistencia a las victimas de la trata de personas y explotación sexual); the other proposes a specialized prosecution office against sexual integrity crimes (Creación de la fiscalia especializada en materia de delitos contra la integridad sexual).

In this context, “The Greater London Domestic Violence Project” has been closely watched. This project is one of the most innovative and comprehensive efforts dealing with violence against women and access to justice ( for more, please go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/domestic_violence/index.shtml). It directly depends from the mayor of London and a “5 P’s approach” - Prevention, Provision, Protection, Prosecution, and Publicity - is at the core of its integrated perspective.

Among its innovations are: positive action policies, witness mobility, witness care, court witness support service, joint police/court training, specials domestic violence courts, and an aggressive publicity campaign. They also developed an ample data set that allows longitudinal analyses in general, and the measurement of the project’s impact in particular.

Of course, under-reporting is always a present problem in domestic violence crimes. Still, as ECLAC’s Women and Development Series points out, this lack of data availability is particularly worrisome in the Latin American context (“Violence contra la Mujer en la Pareja: América Latina y el Caribe. Una propuesta para medir su magnitud y evolución", #40, 2002).

Hope this info may be useful for your research.

Don’t hesitate to contact us for further feedback.

Gabriela Catterberg
Argentine HDR team

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Gabriela Catterberg
Academic Assistant
Human Development Report
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Dear Amalia, colleagues,

Costa Rica recently launched its 2005 Human Development Report “Venciendo el temor: (In)seguridad Ciudadana y Desarrollo Humano” (Overcoming Fear: Citizen (In)Security and Human Development in Costa Rica).

The Report was aimed at exploring the relationship between (in)security and human development. By citizen security we understood the personal condition, objective and subjective, of being free of violence or threat of violence or dispossession from behalf of other(s). This understanding of security has several important consequences, for instance, it is not concerned only with the notion of crime, but allows to go further into exploring threat and other forms of violence that are not necessarily recognized as crimes (this is the case of many kinds of violence against women) and it is interested in looking at fear, not only victimization. Our starting point was that (in)security is an obstacle to human development because it limits a person´s ability to conceive and to pursue a project of life, but also because it erodes social cooperation and civic life, both necessary to foster human development. We explicitly incorporated a gender approach during all the stages of our research (design of conceptual framework, research tools, analysis etc.), plus, we commissioned a paper aimed to look at how women experiment insecurity and how women´s human development is hindered by (in)security. Our findings proved the importance of having done so. Women and men experiment (in)security differently, both in terms of victimization and in terms of fear. Also, we explored what we called securitability (following the lead of Latvia´s Human Development Report 2003 on Human Security and Human Development), that is, a person´s ability to foresee and prevent threat and to cope with situations of threat and violence. Here again, our findings tell a different story about women and men.

Regarding the indexes, we disaggregated the human development index for the 81 cantones of the country, and corrected it using as a fourth variable a security index we designed. This last index is composed of three variables: rate of homicides, robbery and theft, and domestic violence. The map of human development in the country changes in an important manner and a number of cantones drop places due to the number of domestic violence that they report.

The team is still working on the elaboration of what we are calling a “Human Development Atlas”. We are using this and other information to refine the indexes and we are also planning to continue exploring different ways of showing the impact of violence over women´s human development. For the time being the PDF versions of the Report will be uploaded in the web in next two weeks, and we are enthusiastic about continuing the discussion about our research and findings and what still needs to be done.

Lara Blanco
NHDR Coordinator
PNUD Costa Rica

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Lara Blanco
Programme Coordinator
UNDP Costa Rica