Director Carlien Scheele engaged in an online expert discussion in a Ukrainian Women’s Fund event on 4 March 2025 speaking to Ukraine’s immense dedication to gender equality by developing a Gender Equality Index using EIGE’s methodology during times of active war.
Dear colleagues,
It is my pleasure to be here today to highlight just how much Ukraine is a leading example to the EU and the world over, on keeping gender equality and human rights strong on the political agenda in times of active war.
Considering it is a time of deepening crisis in Ukraine, where according to the UN, it is estimated that almost 40% of the country’s population is in need of humanitarian assistance. Like access to water and hygiene, health care, shelter, psychological support and more.
Ukraine has demonstrated immeasurable resilience and bravery.
It says volumes about a country, that is in day-to-day survival mode and still prioritises gender equality by developing a Gender Equality Index using my Agency’s methodology to measure the state of progress across all areas of life.
For anyone who may not be familiar, The Gender Equality Index is a tool to measure the progress of gender equality in the EU. It gives more visibility to areas that need improvement and ultimately supports policymakers to design more effective gender equality measures. Its value lies in seeing tangible progress – as well as challenges still getting in the way.
In our Gender Equality Forum last December, we held a significant session on why gender equality is still so important in times of full-scale war.
We were very honoured to have Milena Horiachkovska Projects’ coordinator at Ukrainian Women’s Fund and Emiliia Nitsevych, Chief specialist, Apparatus of the Government Commissioner for Gender Equality Policy, Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine with us to talk about how they are actively integrating gender equality into the political agenda by developing a Gender Equality Index using EIGE's methodology.
It sends a strong message to the international community.
There is no such thing as finding the perfect time to focus on gender equality issues. It is about lives of people and there is never the wrong time to think of people. There’s just the fact that there’s time, circumstances and what you make of it.
It’s a matter of making an active choice to commit to gender equality as a discipline.
If Ukraine can do it – while under extremely challenging day-to-day situations – it’s a clear message that progress is possible at any time.
To give you a more technical understanding, our Gender Equality Index mostly relies on data of European statistical system, which is harmonised and comparable across countries.
Since Ukraine is not yet part of the EU statistical system, it was a real challenge to find data in various Index domains.
Which makes the fact that they consolidated a strong team of experts (from gender equality experts to statisticians and policy makers), where they filled in data gaps and found solutions to various methodological challenges in a very short time and to the highest standards even more impressive.
In short, the methodology was replicated with high precision.
The results are robust and provide us very good overview where Ukraine stands in relation to other EU countries and where further actions are needed.
Gender equality is a key value and principle in the European Union.
And the EU is committed to a dual approach to gender equality: by adopting specific policies for gender equality and implementing gender mainstreaming across policies.
EIGE supports the work of EU candidate countries to strengthen their capacity to implement this dual approach.
The Gender Equality Index is recognised as a key benchmark of gender equality in the EU.
The development of the Ukraine Gender Equality Index and the political endorsement of it shows Ukraine’s strong adherence to EU standards in promotion of gender equality, monitoring achievements and raising awareness about gender equality on their way to the EU.
Given the challenging realities, Ukraine’s gender equality score stands relatively strong.
According to the first edition of the Ukrainian Gender Equality Index, Ukraine scored 61.4 points, which is 8.8 points lower than the EU-27 average. More concretely, if placed in the EU-27 ranking, Ukraine would rank 20th.
Much like EU Member States, Ukraine has a mixed bag of results – on the one hand there are high gender imbalances, but then the results do not differ dramatically from the EU average.
For example, the Index revealed important achievements, such as high scores in the Time domain, mostly due to the active participation of women and men in volunteering and charitable activities. However, significant gaps are observed in the domains of Power and Knowledge, where women are underrepresented in leadership positions and tend to choose fields of study with traditionally lower pay.
These findings emphasise the need to strengthen gender equality in key areas especially in view of recovery and development processes. They also demonstrate Ukraine’s alignment with the EU’s standards and values for gender equality and that they are well on their way to reaching the EU average if targeted and comprehensive policies are implemented.
In closing: it is expertly clear that with Ukraine’s adherence to EU standards in monitoring achievements and raising awareness about Gender Equality, truly qualifies Ukraine in its path towards EU integration And EIGE fully endorses and supports this.
Thank you.
