Harnessing the transformative potential of the 2030 Agenda

This state of affairs presents a real test for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Yet, as Chapter 1 shows, the 2030 Agenda’s focus on sustainability, equality, peace and human progress provides a powerful counter-narrative to current practices of extraction, exclusion and division. The SDGs are especially important now, both as a political agenda for global cooperation and as a specific, time-bound set of targets that underline the urgent need for concerted action. What will it take to harness their transformative potential and make them work for gender equality and women’s rights? 

Getting it right: Indivisibility, interlinkages and taking an integrated approach

The 2030 Agenda builds on previous commitments to respect, protect and fulfil women’s human rights. It recognizes the indivisibility and interdependence of rights, the interlinkages between gender equality and the three dimensions of sustainable development, and the need for an integrated approach to implementation. 

In the lives of women and girls, different dimensions of well-being and deprivation are deeply intertwined: A girl who is born into a poor household (Target 1.2) and forced into early marriage (Target 5.3), for example, is more likely to drop out of school (Target 4.1), give birth at an early age (Target 3.7), suffer complications during childbirth (Target 3.1) and experience violence (Target 5.2) than a girl from a higher-income household who marries at a later age. At the end of this chain of events, the girl who was born into poverty stands almost no chance of moving out of it. 

During implementation, policymakers must aim to break this vicious cycle and respond to the interdependent experiences of exclusion and deprivation by providing integrated responses: A woman who leaves an abusive relationship, for example, needs access to justice (Target 16.3) as well as a safe place to live (Target 11.1), medical care (Target 3.8) and a decent job (Target 8.5) so she can maintain an adequate standard of living for herself and any dependents she may have. 

This means that while progress on SDG 5 will be critical, it cannot be the sole focus of genderresponsive implementation, monitoring and accountability. Progress on some fronts may be undermined by regression or stagnation on others; potential synergies may be lost without integrated, multisectoral strategies.2 This is why women’s rights advocates fought hard to achieve both a standalone goal on gender equality as well as integrating it across other goals and targets, drawing attention to the gender dimensions of poverty, hunger, health, education, water and sanitation, employment, climate change, environmental degradation, urbanization, conflict and peace, and financing for development. This report follows the same rationale, looking at progress, gaps and challenges for gender equality across the 2030 Agenda as a whole (see Chapter 3).

Leaving no one behind: Universality, solidarity and addressing intersecting inequalities  

The universal nature of the 2030 Agenda responds to the common and interconnected challenges faced by all countries—developed and developing—while the commitment to leaving no one behind seeks to reach the most disadvantaged by building solidarity between them and those who are better-off. Improving the lives of those who are furthest behind is a matter of social justice, as well as being essential for creating inclusive societies and sustainable economies. Inequality hurts everyone: It is a threat to social and political stability, a drag on economic growth3 and a barrier to progress on poverty eradication and the realization of human rights more broadly.4 

Global solidarity and cooperation in areas such as climate change, migration and financing for  development will be crucial to providing enabling conditions for successful national implementation. Illicit financial flows, the global arms trade and large-scale land dispossession by transnational actors, for example, contribute to pushing people further behind, with women and girls often particularly affected.5 Powerful global players— be they sovereign States, international financial institutions or transnational corporations—have a particularly critical responsibility to ensure their actions and omissions do not undermine gender equality and sustainable development. 

Across countries, women and girls experience multiple inequalities and intersecting forms of discrimination, including based on their sex, age, class, ability, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity and migration status (see Chapter 4). Their rights and needs must be addressed and their meaningful participation in implementation ensured. At the same time, strategies to 'leave no one behind' should create solidarity through risksharing, redistribution and universal programmes6 and avoid contributing to social fragmentation and stigmatization. Narrowly targeted programmes can exacerbate tensions over resource allocation and contribute to the creation of harmful stereotypes and hierarchies of disadvantage and entitlement.7 Rather than substituting targeted programmes for universal ones, governments should ensure access for groups that have been  historically excluded while building universal systems that are collectively financed and used by all social groups.8

Monitoring and accountability: The need for a revolution in data and democratic governance

To strengthen accountability, progress on the goals must be tracked, gaps identified and challenges in implementation highlighted. However, as Chapter 2 shows, the challenges for gender-responsive monitoring are daunting. Currently, only 10 out of 54 gender-related indicators, can reliably be monitored at the global level. Established methodologies exist for another 25 indicators but country coverage is insufficient to allow for global monitoring. The remaining 18 indicators still require some level of conceptual elaboration and/or methodological development before they can be used. While this is a challenge for measuring change, at least in the short run, it also provides an opportunity for improving the availability and quality of gender statistics. 

A revolution in democratic governance is also needed for women and girls to claim their rights and shape sustainable development. Spaces for public debate and democratic decision-making must be created to define national priorities, identify what is working well and where the gaps are, agree on pathways for transformative change and determine the roles and responsibilities of different actors. At the global level, open consultation throughout the post-2015 process engaged and mobilized people, countries and organizations to identify common priorities and navigate tensions. Women’s rights organizations were extremely effective in building coalitions and alliances across different interest groups to put gender equality at the centre of the new agenda.9 Such participatory processes and strategic alliances are also needed to ensure effective and gender-responsive implementation, follow-up and review.

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