What is the state of gender equality in the world? What do data tell us about progress towards the commitments made in the Beijing Platform for Action, which, 25 years after its adoption, remains the most comprehensive road map for advancing women's rights worldwide. Importantly, in adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, Member States reaffirmed, in Sustainable Development Goal 5, that gender equality is central to the achievement of sustainable development for all by 2030. As has been done at five-year intervals since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action, The World’s Women 2020 takes stock of progress in advancing women’s rights, empowering women and girls and ensuring gender equality in the world community.

The World’s Women 2020 is a collection of 100 stories providing up-to-date assessments of progress towards gender equality in the following six critical areas, including, under each area, the impact of COVID-19 on women: (a) population and families; (b) health; (c) education; (d) economic empowerment and asset ownership; (e) power and decision-making; and (f) violence against women and the girl child.