Women Politicians in Gender Equality and Social Inclusion 2015-2024: A Nepalese Paradox

The study tracks progress of the UN Sustainable Development Goals for Nepal 2015-2030 by creating composite indices of gender equality, social inclusion and GESI, and examining the factors affecting their levels of achievement. It builds on the principle of ‘leaving no one behind’, uses metadata including a rating scale for political leaders’ perceptions on strategies, and municipal governments’ GESI-related program budgets. The progress in GESI index from 54.3 to 67.8 percent is ‘on track’ against the lower social norm; the success rate for gender equality is higher than targeted, but the social inclusion is ‘off-track’ below the targets.  The political leaders rated top pro-GESI strategies as: policy, law, governance and accountability; justice delivery; and institution building. The female-led local governments outperform male-led units in terms of pro-GESI program budget shares. So, women’s agency can be a better mission to improve the social policies, and transform the gender equality plan into a social justice plan.