<p>Despite a renewed global commitment to reduce extreme poverty and achieve gender equality, women throughout the world continue to disproportionately live in poverty.<xref ref-type="fn" rid="fn1"><sup>1</sup></xref> Women in low- and middle-income countries are more likely than men to die, have unequal access to economic opportunities and are marginalised in the home and society.<xref ref-type="fn" rid="fn2"><sup>2</sup></xref> Throughout the world women perform an unequal share of care work within the home which is neither valued nor remunerated, leading to lower levels of education and inability to seek financial independence in the formal labour market or break negative prejudices and stereotypes on the role of women.<xref ref-type="fn" rid="fn3"><sup>3</sup></xref> These gaps are pronounced when gender and poverty combine with other factors of exclusion: ethnicity, caste, remoteness, age, race, disability and sexual orientation.</p>
<p>The causes of women's poverty are complex and interlocking. The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food noted that ‘social norms or customs, linked to certain stereotypes about gender roles’, contribute to women's limited access to productive resources and economic opportunities.<xref ref-type="fn" rid="fn4"><sup>4</sup></xref> It is also crucial to appreciate the role of law in women's poverty through discriminatory personal laws on marriage, divorce and inheritance.<xref ref-type="fn" rid="fn5"><sup>5</sup></xref> It is the combination of legal, customary and social norms based on the inferiority of women that creates and perpetuates women's poverty. This creates a vicious cycle of discrimination, exclusion, disadvantage and disempowerment.</p>
<p>All too often poverty has been addressed from a gender-neutral standpoint. Development policy frameworks have traditionally conceptualised gender inequality and poverty as two separate problems. This invisibility is compounded by the misconception that economic prosperity or an increase in human development corresponds to an increase in gender equality and empowerment. Furthermore, when a gendered perspective has been adopted, it has failed to take adequately into consideration the multifaceted nature of gender-based poverty. In the Millennium Declaration adopted in 2000 the heads of state took rhetorical steps by explicitly recognising the relationship between gender and poverty. They declared a commitment to promote ‘gender equality and the empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable.’<xref ref-type="fn" rid="fn6"><sup>6</sup></xref> The reality, however, fell far short of what was promised. The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger did not pay specific attention to gender-based poverty. The target that was set to promote gender equality and women's empowerment, enshrined in the MDG Goal 3, only focused on educational disparities, non-agricultural employment and women's participation in parliament. This missed the various other factors such as gender-based violence and asymmetrical property rights that contribute to and perpetuate women's poverty. In the new development commitments, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a slightly more nuanced approach has been adopted. The SDGs explicitly recognise the importance of developing gender sensitive poverty reduction strategies and the stand-alone goal on gender equality has nine targets which more holistically address gender-based poverty. While these are all positive developments, given the magnitude and the pervasiveness of women's poverty, much more work remains to be done. Furthermore, as we have seen with development policies in the past, promises should always be taken with a grain of salt. At the inception of this new agenda it is important to highlight the multifaceted nature of the problem, and to emphasise that the approach taken to tackle women's poverty should be comprehensive, integrated and have a holistic gendered perspective. Furthermore, it should be firmly based in human rights. In placing women's rights at the centre, it is crucial to appreciate the substantive and structural gender inequalities that underpin women's poverty. The task becomes one of ensuring the human rights based framework is...</p>
