SDGs, Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: What Prospects for Delivery?

Abstract

This paper is conceptualized within the framework of gender equality and women’s empowerment and proceeds from the premise that the developmental and political goal of reducing gender inequalities remains largely unmet. The 17 SDGs with goal 5 as a stand-alone on gender equality and more than half of the 17 other goals have integrated gender dimensions with measurable indicators. The pioneers for women’s rights, over a century ago, focused on the labor market. Today, exclusion and discrimination in the labor market indicate that the struggle against these inequalities remains valid. Drawing on the discourse on poverty, the paper notes that this is a fundamental issue for the SDGs but that the feminization of poverty puts more women at risk. An institutional perspective to gender equality and women’s empowerment beckons, if the SDGs are to deliver on this cross-cutting agenda. The paper considers the 2015 review of progress since the adoption of the Beijing Platform of Action (BPFA) undertaken at the same time as the transition from the MDGs to the SDGs and poses the question, can the SDGs deliver on gender equality and women’s empowerment. The review noted that while there has been progress at the normative level, overall progress, has been unacceptably slow, with stagnation and even regression in some contexts. Change towards gender equality has not been deep enough, nor has it been irreversible (United Nation, Res 69/313, Addis Ababa Action Agenda for the third international development conference on financing and development, 2015). The paper analyses the potential for the promise of the SDGs to make change irreversible against the background that while economic prospects appear to have risen, gender disparities have persisted and in some instances, widened, despite the common knowledge that closing the gender gap portends even greater economic growth. The paper argues for a transformative approach that can address deep structure, capacities, mindset and organizing.

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