A landmark report on the status of women in Africa says there is a distinct gap between intention and implementation in relation to women's rights and equality.

The African Women's Report (AWR) highlights "the difficulties countries are having with respect to the full realization of women's rights due to the persistence of negative cultural and religious beliefs and attitudes toward women."

AWR is published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and is one of the agency's flagship reports.

The report was launched during the Eighth African Regional Conference on Women

(Beijing + 15) in Banjul, The Gambia. The launch featured speeches by notable ICA

Officials, as well as a play on some of the more salient points from the AWR, using

Gambian actors.

AWR uses both a qualitative and quantitative means of data collection and analysis as a framework for measuring gender inequality. This was measured through the African Gender and Development Index (AGDI). AGDI is broadly classified into three "blocks" which reflect the totality of human development: the social block (capabilities) which includes education and health issues; the economic block (opportunities) which assesses access to production resources; and the political block (agency) which deals with women's representation in decision making in public and civil society arenas.

This index was then piloted in 12 countries and those findings make up the bulk of this year's report. Some of the findings include:

- Social block - which examines government performance in terms of violence against women, health and education.

Indications are that while countries are addressing the issues associated with domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment and trafficking in women, there is still inadequacy in implementation measures. Some of these include inadequate legal awareness campaigns, too few capacity enhancement programmes for law enforcement personnel and limited financial and human resources to sustain the work.

- Economic block - which assess the extent to which women are meaningful players and beneficiaries in the economic development process of their countries:

o Women's earnings, across the informal and formal sectors, are still half the value of men's. Furthermore, wage discrimination against women is largely persistent and there has been a general failure by countries to design appropriate policies.

- Political block - which measures levels of gender equality in decision-making within public and private sectors