Despite an impressive economic growth over the past decades and the fact that poverty
reduction and gender equality have been high on the political agenda in Mozambique,
standard indicators such as GDP per capita (ranked 197 out of 210 countries), the Human
Development Index (ranked 165 out of 169 countries) and the Gender Development Index
(ranked 123 out of 130 countries) all reveal that Mozambicans remain poor in overall as well
as in gender equality terms. During the past five years former reductions in the poverty rate
have also come to an abrupt halt. Important progress for women has been made in areas such
as political representation (ranked 61 out of 116 countries under the Gender Empowerment
Measure), education and health, but the socio-economic position of women remains weak and
shows large variations between different parts of the country in key areas such as employment,
agricultural productivity, income, and sexual and other types of abuse.