Female empowerment is often thought of as a critical aspect of achieving gender equality. Gender equality has been one of the UN’s greatest priorities for a few decades now: the organization has given it strong consideration in the Sustainable Development 2030 Agenda, in the Millennium Development Goals established in the year 2000, and in the still relevant Beijing Platform for Action from 1995. Worldwide, progress has been made, but Sub-Saharan Africa still remains one of the regions further behind in terms of gender equality and related issues affecting women.

Women’s empowerment can be defined in simple terms as “the process of increasing women’s access to control over the strategic life choices that affect them and access to the opportunities that allow them fully to realize their capacities” (Chen and Tanaka 2014). Because of its positive connotations, the word “empowerment” has become a comfortable and indisputable term, which has led to a wide range of institutions, organizations, and governments to adopt it as something they aspire to work towards (Papart, Rai, and Staudt 2003, 3).

So here we are - this is the above-mentioned famous stand-alone goal SDG-5, aiming to achieve gender equality and empower all girls and women by 2030. Among its accompanying targets you will find: "End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere“ as well as „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."

What would you consider the most significant parts to create a healthier planet and to help reverse climate change? Recycling of plastic waste? Increasing our reliance on sustainable energies? Reducing the impact of industrial agriculture? All well and good, but don’t miss one of the most important keys to effective change: women!

When it comes to literacy worldwide, even today girls and women perform far worse than men. In many countries, particularly in West and Central Africa and South Asia, illiterate women far outnumber their male counterparts. 

The Millennium Development Goal 5 of reducing maternal mortality worldwide by 75 % between 1990 and 2015, unfortunately, could not be reached. Although progress has been made, in 2015 about 303.000 women worldwide died from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth. This means 830 women died every day.