How will we measure progress in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action? What will our "measures of success" be? Is the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA) really making a difference in the lives of women who are most in need? What are the obstacles? What are the emerging trends? What next? These are the questions that are being asked as we assess actions taken in the past five years to implement the PFA.

As preparatory work progresses, it is clear that one of the more exciting outcomes of this Beijing Plus Five review process is the surge of new approaches for measuring progress. It is matched by a growing interest in forging tools for accountability that are constructive, participatory and promote ownership of the process by women and the institutions involved at the community and country level.

Preview 2000 #3 looks at the question of measuring progress and raises the issue of establishing benchmarks for the Platform for Action as another tool to use in holding governments accountable. It features regional scoreboards of selected information including a comparison of how women fared between l995 and l999 using as a basis the gender development indicators (GDI) and the gender empowerment measurement (GEM) in UNDP's annual Human Development Reports of l995 and l999 (see pages 13-21). These scoreboards are easily adaptable to looking at progress using other sets of indicators. IWTC plans to make these scoreboards available on-line as a template to encourage adaptability to other subject areas.

A number of excellent new books give evidence of these new approaches. For instance, IWTC's new publication Moving Policy, Taking Action: a Community Advocacy Guide to the Beijing Platform for Action, will be available in February. Recently released from UN/DAW is The 1999 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development: Globalization, Gender and Work. The UN Statis-tical Division's The World's Women will be available in March, and UNIFEM's new bienniel publication, Progress of the World's Women, will be available in June. These publications and others will all be available through Women, Ink. and their availabiity will be announced in Women, Ink's monthly Booklink.

Back to Issue 3, January 2000 Contents Page