Published on: 2026-09-18
Source: United Nations – United Nations –
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September 17, 2026 Women
According to a new UN report, achieving gender equality at the current pace of progress will take 171 years. At the same time, institutions established to promote women’s rights and gender equality are facing funding cuts and weakening of their powers.
According to the Gender Snapshot report for 2026, if nothing changes, none of the indicators of Sustainable Development Goal No. 5 (“Gender Equality”) will be achieved by 2030, which is the originally set deadline. These indicators include eliminating discrimination and gender-based violence, eradicating harmful practices such as forced marriages and female genital mutilation, as well as ensuring full participation of women in leadership and guaranteeing their economic and property rights.
Who holds the real power?
Women continue to face systemic barriers to participating in political life. The UN report highlights the ongoing concentration of political power in the hands of men: currently, men lead six out of seven countries worldwide.
The cost of participating in an election campaign can exceed the average per capita income by more than 100 times, which excludes many women from political struggle even before it begins. In addition, in some countries, up to 80 percent of women running for elected office face violence in the public sphere.
Even when women are part of the government, they are disproportionately rarely appointed to positions associated with the greatest influence in security and the economy. Almost 90 percent of defense ministers and more than 80 percent of finance ministers worldwide are men.
A similar situation persists outside the public sector: women occupy only six percent of CEO positions worldwide and lead less than 20 percent of the highest judicial bodies. As a result, decisions determining the development of business, legal fields, employment, and the global economy are still predominantly made by men.
As emphasized in the report, such an imbalance seriously undermines democracy: a country cannot fully uphold human rights and democratic principles if half of its population does not have an equal voice in leadership and decision-making.
Violence and discrimination
Millions of women around the world continue to face extremely severe forms of violence and discrimination. Nearly one in five girls worldwide is married before reaching the age of 18; approximately 230 million women and girls worldwide have undergone female genital mutilation.
Almost one in three women worldwide has experienced partner violence or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime. In the last 12 months alone, 316 million women have been victims of physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner.
According to the report, no country in the world has yet achieved full legal equality between men and women. Moreover, in 51 of the 131 countries studied, significant gaps remain in the legislation.
Almost two-thirds of countries either do not provide at all or provide only minimal legal protection for women’s land rights, which creates serious obstacles to land ownership and secure land use. Less than 30 percent of the countries studied guarantee joint registration of land rights or women’s participation in land resource management.
Gender equality is no longer a priority
Meanwhile, resolving these issues is gradually moving out of the set of top priority tasks. Amid a massive reduction in funding for international aid programs, projects aimed at combating gender inequality have become among the most affected. The funding volume for such initiatives has fallen to its lowest level since 2021.
In the past two years, every fourth government agency dealing with gender equality has faced a reduction in its operational budget, and every third has lost part of its institutional powers.
At the same time, 42 UN entities reported a forced weakening of their efforts to promote gender equality due to funding cuts.
“The data recorded in the report show that this state of affairs is not inevitable,” said UN Deputy Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Liu Zhenhua. “Investments in gender equality, appropriate institutions, and statistical systems that ensure accountability are not expenses but the fastest way to fulfill the promise to provide equal opportunities for all by 2030.”
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