GNV News — September 17, 2025

On September 15, 2025, UN Women, a United Nations entity, and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) released the report “Gender Snapshot 2025 “. The report tracks progress focused on women and girls across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that the United Nations aims to achieve by 2030, drawing on more than 100 data sources.

According to the report, globally between 2000 and 2023 the maternal mortality ratio fell by about 40%, women are more likely to complete school, and women’s leadership on climate change has doubled. However, as of 2024 there are 64 million more adult women than men experiencing food insecurity. The extreme poverty rate among women has stagnated at 10%, and women continue to face issues such as female genital mutilation and violence from partners. Despite clear progress, with five years left until the target deadline, many regions are confronting armed conflict, and in 2024 alone, 676 million women and girls—the highest number since the 1990s—are living within reach of armed conflict. In addition, cuts to development aid funding are clouding the outlook.

Without further urgent action, 351 million women and girls will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030. Expanding investments focused on gender equality has the power to transform societies and economies, potentially reducing the number of women and girls in extreme poverty by 110 million by 2050 and unlocking an estimated 342 trillion US dollars in cumulative economic benefits. Moreover, closing the gap in the use of information technology (digital divide) between genders alone could lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty and generate 1.5 trillion US dollars in economic impact worldwide by 2030.

Learn more about the risk of maternal death → “Maternal health and global inequalities“

Learn more about gender inequality → “Gender inequality and the world“

UN Women (Photo: UN Women / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0] )