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Despite its achingly slow progress and lack of government initiative, the process of achieving gender equality is on the right track, a nongovernmental organization said on Monday.

“Compared to some of our neighboring countries, we are not being left behind in terms of gender equality, although there are so many flaws in the implementation,” Desti Murdijana, deputy chairwoman of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), told the Jakarta Globe.

Desti was reacting to a special report released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to mark International Women’s Day, which was commemorated on Monday.

The report said that despite its promising economic transformation, Asia-Pacific countries were still experiencing setbacks when it came to gender equality. It said that many countries in the region still suffered from gender gaps in economic power, political decision-making and legal rights.

Desti said more Indonesian women now realized they had the same rights as men, which included pursuing strategic positions in business and politics.

“A few years ago, people, especially men, would gossip and complain about a female company director or a district head, but now people seem to be more open and receptive to situations like that,” she said.

However, she said, even though the concepts had been grasped, the execution of some of the policies remained elusive.

“The House of Representatives, for instance, allocated a quota of 30 percent [of seats] for women, but that has since been countered by the introduction of the highest vote system, so now it’s pretty much useless,” she said.

Rini Widiastuti, a UNDP representative in Indonesia, said women’s representation in the current House had risen from 11.8 percent in the previous elections, held in 2004, to 18 percent in the 2009 elections.

“This is the highest number of female representatives in the political history of Indonesia,” Rini said.

However, she said that Indonesia ranked only 80 out of 156 countries in the Gender Development Index in 2007, and that figure slipped to 90 in 2009.

“This means that the women of Indonesia are still not enjoying the same rights and standards as men,” she said.

The GDI measures human development, but takes into account gender disparities. Its components are the same as those used in the Human Development Index, but are adjusted to capture the differences in achievement between men and women using three indicators. These indicators are life expectancy at birth, educational attainment measured by a combination of adult literacy and mean years of schooling, and standard of living measured by per capita expenditure.

Rini also said that women here were lagging behind in public life, and that the persistent gender gap in social sector indicators remained a national challenge.

The UNDP reported that South Asia was the world’s second worst in gender equality measurements after Africa. Half the adult women in South Asia are illiterate.

The report also said the lack of women’s participation in the workforce costs the region billions of dollar every year.

In some countries including Indonesia, India and Malaysia, the report said the gross domestic product of the state could be increased by up to 2 percent to 4 percent annually if women’s employment rates were raised to 70 percent.