Over the past decade, the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) has consistently shown that governments need to look at discriminatory laws, social norms and practices to achieve gender equality and promote women’s empowerment. This 2019 regional report provides an overview of the main outcomes of the SIGI in 12 Eurasian countries in relation to women and the family, their physical integrity, access to productive and financial resources and their civic rights, as well as the economic cost they represent.

Technology, Society, and Conflict comprehensively studies and systematically highlights technological inequalities as a source of conflict in digital development while developing an economic and legal approach to resolving them.

The past decade has seen increasing international recognition of civic space as a cornerstone of functioning democracies, alongside efforts to promote and protect it. Countries that foster civic space are better placed to reap the many benefits of higher levels of citizen engagement, strengthened transparency and accountability, and empowered citizens and civil society. In the longer term, a vibrant civic space can help to improve government effectiveness and responsiveness, contribute to more citizen-centred policies, and boost social cohesion.

Globalization is characterized by a systemic interconnection in which what hapInequality has been on the rise across the globe and living conditions are vastly unequal between different places in the world. Currently, the richest 1% own 45% of the world’s wealth. The consequence is that some people are able to enjoy healthy, wealthy, happy lives whilst others continue to live in ill-health, poverty and sorrow. Rapid economic growth in Asia (particularly China and India) has lifted many people out of extreme poverty. Nevertheless, the wealth divide is steadily growing. According to Oxfam, between 2009 and 2018, the number of billionaires it took to equal the wealth of the world’s poorest 50 percent fell from 380 to 26. Those with extreme wealth have often accumulated their fortunes on the backs of people around the world who work for poor wages and under dangerous conditions. Women are scarce at the top and overrepresented at the bottom. Gender discrimination in the workplace contributes significantly to these persistent economic divides. There are also large differences in wealth across racial groups. Long-standing racial discrimination in many forms, including in education, hiring, and pay practices contribute to persistent earnings gaps. Inequalities have dramatically strengthened the economic and political power of those individuals at the top.

Over the past decade, the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) has consistently shown that governments need to look at discriminatory laws, social norms and practices to achieve gender equality and promote women's empowerment. This 2019 regional report provides an overview of the main outcomes of the SIGI in 12 Eurasian countries in relation to women and the family, their physical integrity, access to productive and financial resources and their civic rights, as well as the economic cost they represent. Building on these outcomes, the report provides a set of tailored regional policy recommendations to enhance Eurasia's governmental efforts to deliver their gender-equality commitments through a three-pronged approach: legal reforms and transformative gender policies, laws through community mobilisation and empowerment, and policy efficiency through accountability and monitoring.

This volume explores how different post-Soviet countries have reinterpreted and diverged from the Soviet gender roles and values. It synthesizes results from multiple empirical studies that attend to increasingly conservative features of political governance in the region, particularly the authoritarian regime in Russia. The authors consider diverse enactments of ideologies, policies and practices of gender equality and women’s rights in crucial areas, such as legislative institutions, media, and social activism. The volume contributes to understanding post-Soviet societal dynamics relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5, which emphasizes gender equality as part of fundamental human rights.