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One hindrance to any discussion of global breast-cancer incidence is the limited data available for many countries. Incidence figures are based on data from small geographic areas that are often pooled and extrapolated to large regions. Reported rates may reflect only the women who are easiest to reach or who have the highest standard of living. Thus, current global figures cannot truly reflect the underlying economic and cultural diversity driving increased incidence and related mortality.

Nevertheless, the trends are clear enough to warrant concern and action. Registry data show that breast-cancer incidence has been increasing in virtually all regions since 1973.  Although East Asian women still have the lowest rates (about 21 per 100,000, as compared with 101 per 100,000 in the United States and 85 per 100,000 in Western Europe), countries with the most developed registries have documented increases: rates in Japan, Singapore, and Korea have doubled or tripled in the past 40 years, and China's urban registries document 20 to 30% increases in the past decade. India reports similar trends, with increases concentrated in urban areas.

In Africa, the trends are difficult to evaluate, given the general lack of large registries and accurate population data. However, it is certain that the incidence of breast cancer in African countries (reported to be 23 per 100,000) is lower than overall rates in North America or Western Europe, as well as lower than rates among black women residing in these Western countries. Local registries in Africa report a doubling of rates over the past 40 years, but the degree to which these figures represent real increases, as opposed to changes in disease tracking and reporting, is unclear.

The most widely cited reason for the global increase in breast cancer is the “Westernization” of the developing world. The term encompasses generally desirable changes (socioeconomic improvements that increase life expectancy and allow women reproductive control) as well as the adoption of less desirable habits (dietary changes, decreased exercise), all of which could increase breast-cancer risk. In affluent Western countries, women have relatively high social status, tend to delay childbearing, have relatively few children and, until recently, commonly used hormone-replacement therapy (HRT). Some such behavioral factors — delayed childbearing, lower parity, and reduced breast-feeding — are becoming more prevalent in lower-income countries. The challenge is understanding how these reproductive risk factors, which are primarily associated with an increased risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, relate to incidence and mortality in lower-income countries, where rates of postmenopausal breast cancer are much lower than in Western countries. The cancers apparently causing the most deaths in lower-income countries may not be those influenced by such factors; more data are needed to clarify their true effect in poorer countries.

A strong belief in meritocracy underlies the way we perceive success in society, in organizations, and in individual careers. We like to believe that those who make it to the top do so because they have more merit (i.e., worth, superior quality) than those who do not. Put differently, “in true meritocratic systems everyone has an equal chance to advance and obtain rewards based on their individual merits and efforts, regardless of their gender, race, class, or other non-merit factors”. In many organizations, and especially in those that are characterized by a pyra- mid structure and matching notions of careers success in terms of climbing the ladder, organizational members tend to think this is not only how the career system should operate but also how it does operate. As a consequence, the distribution of success (e.g., rewards, promotions) across members from different societal groups, especially when looking at the top of the pyramid, is generally perceived to reflect the true distri- bution of merit between group members.

However, reward allocation and performance evaluation practices that appear to be meritocratic can result in an unequal distribution of success in favor of some compared with others, regardless of the actual distribution of merit. This means that the way we typically assess merit is biased in favor of dominant group members in terms of the criteria, the tests, and/or the evaluation process.The biased assessment of merit, through which superior qualities are ascribed to dominant group members, is thus rather a sign of bias for instead of bias against.

The paradox of meritocracy holds that when an organizational culture actively pro- motes meritocracy, decision makers in that organization may ironically show greater bias in favor of the dominant group. In other words, if man- agers believe that the way people in the organization are selected and promoted is meritocratic, their decisions about the careers of others are more biased and less based on merit.  

The purpose of this STANDARD, produced by The European Community of Practice on Gender Mainstreaming (GenderCoP), is to provide clear requirements and good practices on how to achieve gender equality in all cycles of the European Social Fund (ESF). 

It can be used both as a guide to implement the dual gender equality approach within the ESF and as a tool to assess and monitor existing practices – from policy to project level in all steps such as planning, programming, implementing to monitoring and evaluation.

All examples and good practices have been selected by the GenderCoP members and derive from ESF experiences with gender equality across the EU.

The STANDARD is currently under piloting in four member states which means that it is considered in every part of the ESF. The piloting member states are Beligum (Flanders), Czech Republic, Finland and Sweden.

The STANDARD contains requirements for the implementation of gender mainstreaming and specific actions in the ESF at both the European and national level. At the national level requirements are set out for national or regional operational programmes, national or regional implementation, and projects.

In the STANDARD a general model is used to describe the ESF.

However there may be national differences in terms of the implementation system:

1. Some member states or regions develop ”programs” out of the ESF thematic priorities and Investment Priorities defined in the operational programmes. These programmes are often run by different Ministries or departments of ministries (for example Germany);
2. Other member states develop ”action plans” based on the operational programmes which are executed in the regions of the member states (for example Sweden);
3. A third version of implementation is the tendering of calls for projects directly from the OP priorities with no intermediate bodies (like for instance ministries) inbetween (for example Flanders and Czech Republic).

These different procedures and systems could mean that implementation requirements are not formulated in a programme or an action plan but in other documents steering the implementation. However, the general principles and requirements set out in the STANDARD can be used regardless of implementation system.

Since 2008, when the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) began working on gender and security sector transformation in West Africa, we have repeatedly been asked for information on gender and security from other countries in the region, such as examples of good practices or gaps that need to be addressed. Equally often, however, that information was not available. Data on gender and security sector institutions (SSIs) in West Africa are both hard to come by and dispersed. This survey represents an attempt to systematically document the status of gender integration within the security sectors in member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Much of the information in this survey report has never before been published or compared with data from other countries in the region.

This report is designed to be a resource for people working within, or with, SSIs; for those interested in governance and development issues in West Africa; and for those involved with gender-related issues. We hope that the information presented here will assist in future initiatives to build better, more equitable SSIs and to provide security and justice to women, men, girls and boys. 

This report is meant to serve multiple purposes. In particular:

• The good practices identified in the summary and analysis of findings can serve as guidance for policies and procedures.
• The key recommendations can be a useful starting point for discussing what gender initiatives are needed within a specific SSI.
• The country profiles provide useful snapshots of the state of gender mainstreaming in each country’s security sector.
• Following one indicator across the different SSIs enables regional and institutional comparison.
• Information on the different indicators can also serve as baselines from which to assess change at the institutional, national and regional levels. 

After several rounds of revision and consultation, we selected 101 indicators to provide a snapshot of the current level of gender integration within each country’s security sector (see Annex 1). 5 of the indicators relate to national security sector governance, 24 to police services, 23 to armed forces and gendarmeries, 20 to justice systems and 29 to penal services. For each institution, these indicators were divided into 5 key areas of gender mainstreaming: policies and procedures, institutional structure, personnel, training and internal/external oversight. In order to allow for inter-institutional analysis, each institution was asked the same core set of questions.

These indicators were selected to address 2 questions: Is the SSI internally equitable, representative and non-discriminatory? Does the SSI provide adequate services in response to the different security and justice needs of women, men, boys and girls? As this was a broad regional survey, rather than an in-depth institutional assessment, we focused on 4 SSIs and selected largely quantitative indicators. Thus the survey provides information on whether or not institutional measures exist as opposed to an evaluation of their actual impact. For instance, one indicator informs us that in West Africa 18 of the 56 SSIs surveyed have gender structures assigned to them, such as a gender focal point, but does not tell us what impact, if any, such structures have had. We very much hope that more in-depth, qualitative and quantitative analysis will be undertaken so that questions on impact can be answered.