Foreword

Since 2009, the OECD Development Centre has shed light on the structural and multiple barriers affecting women’s and girls’ lives in developing and developed countries through the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). By taking into account formal and informal laws, social norms and practices, the SIGI captures the underlying drivers of gender inequality, with the aim of promoting gender-transformative policies that stem from data and evidence. The SIGI is also one of the official data sources for monitoring Sustainable Development Goal indicator 5.1.1.

For the fifth edition of the SIGI, the SIGI 2023 Global Report: Gender Equality in Times of Crisis measures discrimination against women in social institutions across 179 countries, providing new evidence-based analyses of the setbacks in and progress towards gender equality across the world since 2019.

For the first time, the report includes two thematic chapters. It stresses how discriminatory social institutions curtail women’s and adolescents’ fundamental access to sexual and reproductive health and rights. It also sheds light on the gendered impacts of climate change and underlines how women can play a pivotal role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. The report shows how a gender inclusive response to these challenges, by empowering women as agents of change, could constitute a window of opportunity to put equality back at the heart of the global policy agenda.