to threats. High education levels and social integration significantly improve the productivity of all members of the household and improve equity throughout society. Gender Equity Indices seek to provide the tools to demonstrate this feature of poverty. Poverty has many different factors, one of which is the gender wage gap. Women are more likely to be living in poverty and the wage gap is one of the causes. There are many difficulties in creating a comprehensive response. It is argued that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) fail to acknowledge gender inequality as a cross-cutting issue. Gender is mentioned in MDG3 and MDG5: MDG3 measures gender parity in education, the share of women in wage employment and the proportion women in national legislatures. MDG5 focuses on maternal mortality and on universal access to reproductive health. These targets are significantly off-track. Addressing gender inequality through social protection programmes designed to increase equity would be an effective way of reducing gender inequality, according to the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Researchers at the ODI argue for the need to develop the following in social protection in order to reduce gender inequality and increase growth: Community childcare to give women greater opportunities to seek employment Support parents with the care costs (e.g. South African child/disability grants) Education stipends for girls (e.g. Bangladesh's Girls Education Stipend scheme) Awareness-raising regarding gender-based violence, which has surged globally in recent years, and other preventive measures, such as financial support for women and children escaping abusive environments (e.g. NGO pilot initiatives in Ghana) Inclusion of programme participants (women and men) in designing and evaluating social protection programmes Gender-awareness and analysis training for programme staff Collect and distribute information on coordinated care and service facilities (e.g. access to micro-credit and micro-entrepreneurial training for women) Developing monitoring and evaluation systems that include sex-disaggregated data The ODI maintains that society limits governments' ability to act on economic incentives. NGOs tend to protect women against gender inequality and structural violence. During war, combatants primarily target men. Both sexes die however, due to disease, malnutrition and incidental crime and violence, as well as the battlefield injuries which predominately affect men. A 2009 review of papers and data covering war related deaths disaggregated by gender concluded "It appears to be difficult to say whether more men or women die from conflict conditions overall." The ratio also depends on the type of war, for example in the