Gender-sensitive indicators for media

Gender equality and women’s empowerment is one of the overarching priorities of UNESCO, the other being priority Africa. ‘Equality’ as used here is meant to ensure that the potential of women/girls and men/boys is fully unleashed and that the value of each person is recognized without prejudice. Increasing attention is being placed on gender equality issues globally, buoyed by several legal and normative instruments: conventions and declarations. Chief among these are the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

UNESCO’s Communication and Information Sector has fully embraced this commitment and has engaged globally in a wide range of gender-specific initiatives across its divisions and main actions. The two perspectives, equality between women and men working in the media and equality in news reporting on women and men, are of equal importance and are being stridently pursued.

The welcoming of the GSIM initiative by the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) attests to the importance of this topic to UNESCO Member States.