Progress of the worlds women 2002 volume 2 gender equality and the millennium development goals authors editors diane elson university of essex hanke keklik unifem there are more than 140 million illiterate young people in the world more than half 86 million are women this is one example of why 189 nations adopted womens empowerment and gender equality as one of the eight . At the millenium summit in september 2000 the largest ever gathering of world leaders agreed to the millenium development goals mdgs a set of time bound and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty hunger disease illiteracy environmental degradation and gender inequality gender equality is not only a goal in its own right goal number three but is taken to be a means to . Progress of the worlds women 2002 volume 2 gender equality and the millennium development goals united nations development fund for women isbn 978 0 912917 70 2 1895 2003 68 pages a kumarian press book a critical contribution to the success of the millennium development goals at the advocacy level it demonstrates that gender is a crosscutting theme for all of the mdgs at the . European institute for gender equality progress of the worlds women gender equality and the millennium developement goals unifem biennial report european institute for gender equality skip to language switcher. Progress of the worlds women 2002 gender equality and the millennium development goals by diane elson paperback new this volume explores the challenges of tracking and determining progress for women its goal is to support efforts to improve the monitoring of and advocacy for implementing the commitments made to women in the millennium development goals of 2000