Gender equality is a human right. women are entitled to live with dignity and with freedom from want and from fear. gender equality is also a precondition for advancing development and reducing poverty: empowered women contribute to the health and productivity of whole families and communities, and they improve prospects for the next generation. still, despite solid evidence demonstrating the centrality of women’s empowerment to realizing human rights, reducing poverty, promoting development and addressing the world’s most urgent challenges, gender equality remains an unfulfilled promise. for more than 30 years, unfpa has advocated for women and girls, promoting legal and policy reforms and gender-sensitive data collection, and supporting initiatives that improve women's and girls' health and expand their choices in life.

Scientist: cross-sections of stalactites—calcite formations deposited on cave ceilings by seeping water—can reveal annual variations in rainfall in particular areas over hundreds and thousands of years. we often found that when—according to these cross-sections—drought occurred in a particular area, it coincided with the collapse of an ancient society in that area. i hypothesize that drought reduced agricultural productivity in these areas, thereby leaving these societies without the resources needed to handle internal stresses and external threats. which of the following, if true, would most weaken the support for the scientist's hypothesis? a. many droughts indicated in the cross-sections of stalactites do not correspond with the collapse of a society in that area. b. information from the cross-sections of stalactites alone cannot reveal the level of agricultural output in an area at a particular time. c. most of the societies that collapsed during droughts did so when internal power struggles coincided with military raids from neighboring societies. d. most of the societies that collapsed during droughts maintained large stockpiles of food and water at the time of their collapse. e. information from stalactites also suggests that the collapse of some societies coincided with periods of abnormally high rainfall.