15 September 2025, UN Women and the UN Economic Development in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) launch the 2025 SDG Gender Snapshot report. The report confirms that 5 years from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) deadline, none of the gender equality targets are on track. The 2025 Gender snapshot report is an important review prior to the UN high-level week and purposely on the world leaders convening at this year’s UN General Assembly. It is important to attract their attention to the evidence and recommendations, importantly their political will and reinvigorated international cooperation to accelerate progress towards gender equality. The report shows clearly that the choice is urgent: invest in women and girls now, or risk losing another generation of progress. The fact shows that we live now in a world that spends $2.7 trillion a year on weapons and yet fall short on the $420 billion price tag to advance and achieve gender equality and women’s rights.
The highlights are as follows:
Bjørg Sandkjær, UN-DESA Assistant Secretary-General, said, the report shows profound gaps persist. At current trends, more than 350 million women and girls could still be living in extreme poverty by the year 2030. Last year, in 2024, nearly 64 million more women than men experienced food insecurity. Again, talking about leadership, women hold only 27 per cent of parliamentary seats globally, while more than 100 countries have never had a woman head of state or government. Ms Sandkjær stressed that under a worst-case scenario, climate change could push up to 158.3 million more women and girls into extreme poverty by 2050. On top, emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, risks deepening inequalities if this matter is not harnessed responsibility. A problem raised now she said that close to 70 percent of national statistical offices reported reduced funding since the start of this year. It means it correlates directly to accurate and timely gender data. It reflects direct in measuring the progress or design effective intervention.
Sarah Hendriks, director of UN Women’s Policy Division, said, in essence, this year’s Gender Snapshot sounds a very clear and urgent alarm: Not even one of the SDG 5 indicators have been met, and none are on track. The truth is quite stark, as we see from this data that the world is backsliding when it comes to gender equality. It is taking quite significant steps back, and the cost is measured in life, as well in rights and lost opportunities. She highlighted the outcomes are not inevitable. They are the result of deliberate choices. They are, in fact, the result of disinvestment, the result of institutional erosion and the result of systems that prioritize war over rights, war over equality. We live now in a world that spends $2.7 trillion a year on weapons and yet fall short on the $420 billion price tag to advance and achieve gender equality and women’s rights.
Papa Alioune Seck, chief of UN Women’s Research and Data, noted that nearly 1 in 3 women will experience physical and or sexual violence in her lifetime. This is a crisis of pandemic proportions. Yet, we also know how to change this: Financial inclusion is a powerful tool. For every 10 percent increase in women’s financial inclusion, violence declines by approximately 2 percent. The Gender Snapshot report is the world’s most authoritative source on gender and the Sustainable Development Goals, drawing on more than 100 data sources to track progress across all 17 Goals. Female extreme poverty has hovered at 10 per cent since 2020. If current trends continue, the world will reach 2030 with 351 million women and girls still living in extreme poverty. Conflict is getting deadlier for women and girls. Already, 676 million women and girls live within reach of deadly conflict — the highest recorded since the 1990s. On the other fact, where gender equality has been prioritized, it has been delivered. Girls are now more likely to complete school than ever before, and maternal mortality has declined by nearly 40 percent between 2000 and 2023. Rates of intimate partner violence are 2.5 times lower in countries with comprehensive measures on violence compared to those with weak protections. Closing the gender digital divide alone could benefit 343.5 million women and girls worldwide, lift 30 million out of poverty by 2050, and generate an estimated $1.5 trillion boost to global GDP by 2030.
Related link:
Gender Snapshot 2025: none of the global gender equality targets are on track | United Nations
