African Women Vulnerability Index: Focus on Rural Women

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a new index labelled the African Women Vulnerability Index (AWVI) with a focus on rural women using Round 7 of the Afrobarometer Survey. The AWVI comprises 59 indicators in six dimensions, namely: safety, empowerment, health, education, economic prosperity, and digitalisation. Our findings show that: (i) Botswana performs best while women in Guinea and Sudan are the most vulnerable. Indeed, Mauritius appears as a good example in some dimensions such as health and digitalisation. (ii) Except for the dimension of digitalisation, rural women’s vulnerabilities in other dimensions are very close to those at the national level. (iii) National vulnerability trends strongly explain rural women’s vulnerability especially for the economic, empowerment, and health dimensions.

Keywords:

• Index creation
• gender
• rural analysis
• Africa

JEL Codes:

• C43
• O18
• O55

Notes

1 It is important to note that Agenda 2063 represents a blueprint for the transformation of Africa into a global competitive powerhouse for the future. Accordingly, it is the strategic framework of the continent with the ambition of sustainable and inclusive development that is consistent with the pan-African objectives of freedom, unity, progress, self-determination and collective prosperity.