By Ramesh Jaura
Investing in women and girls and ending discrimination are key to fulfilling the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
BERLIN | 16 September 2024 (IDN) — Less than a week ahead of the Summit of the Future taking place on September 22-23 at the UN headquarters in New York, a new report has urged world leaders to forge new international consensus to close the gender gap, achieve gender equality, and advance the empowerment and rights of all women and girls—currently a distant but achievable goal.
Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2024 calls for decisive action at the forthcoming Summit, and the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 2025; to increase investments and end discrimination against women and girls; and to fulfil the promise of the 2030 Agenda.
UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous said, the report “reveals the undeniable truth: progress is achievable, but is not fast enough”. It adds: “We need to keep pushing forward for gender equality to fulfil the commitment made by world leaders in the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing almost 30 years ago and the 2030 Agenda. Let us unite to continue dismantling the barriers women and girls face and forge a future where gender equality is not just an aspiration but a reality.”
The report warns that gender parity in parliaments remains a distant dream, not achievable until 2063. Considering the current rate of progress, it would take incredible 137 years to lift all women and girls out of poverty. At present, one out of four girls continue to be married as children.
Subsequently, none of the indicators and sub-indicators of Sustainable Development Goal 5—the goal for gender equality—are being met, declares the report launched at the UN headquarters in New York on 16 September by UN Women and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).
Gender inequality costs trillions
However, the report does not conceal the fact that some progress has been made worldwide on gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment. Consequently, women hold one in every four parliamentary seats, marking a significant rise from a decade ago.
The share of women and girls living in extreme poverty has finally dipped below 10 per cent following steep increases during the COVID-19 pandemic years. Up to 56 legal reforms have been enacted worldwide that seek to close the gender gap since the first Gender Snapshot.
Gender inequality costs over USD 10 trillion. Countries failing to adequately educate their young populations is Low- and middle-income countries can lose another USD 500 billion in the next five years by not closing the digital gender gap.
Mr Li Junhua, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said: “The costs of inaction on gender equality are immense, and the rewards of achieving it are far too great to ignore. We can only achieve the 2030 Agenda with the full and equal participation of women and girls in every part of society.”
The report includes a set of recommendations to eliminate gender inequality across all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals such as legal reform, highlighting that countries with domestic violence legislation have lower rates of intimate partner violence—9.5 per cent compared to 16.1 per cent for those without. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Image: Presenters of the report, The Gender Snapshot 2024 on graphic on the report’s cover. Credit: UNDESA.
