Post-2015 agenda must include gender equality and accountability mechanisms
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Following a four-day consultation hosted by UN Women on Applying a gender perspective to the post-2015 development framework and the Sustainable Development Goals, more than 60 experts stressed the critical need to ensure that gender equality and women's empowerment are fully integrated into any future global development framework as well as the need to set up efficient accountability mechanisms.
“To achieve success, the post-2015 development framework must explicitly address the complexity and depth of challenges to women's empowerment and gender equality. We must take a comprehensive approach that addresses root causes of inequality", said UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet in her opening remarks.
In their conclusions, experts underlined that accountability has to be ensured both in the content and in the process to ensure that commitments are achieved and that women are actively participating every step of the way. They also stressed that any new framework must build on existing commitments to human rights, development, sustainability and peace and security.
The group also emphasized the need to encourage the transformation of legal, political, economic, environmental, social and cultural structures to facilitate the realization of women's rights.
They also identified specific issues for further discussion, including: unpaid work; improved access to and control over resources and quality services; ending gender-based violence; securing sexual and reproductive rights; and ensuring women's agency, empowerment, participation and leadership.
With two years left before 2015, the members of the expert group committed to finding concrete ways to continue to work together and ensure that any new development framework serves the interests and rights of women and girls around the world.
On the last day of the consultations, the group briefed the UN's Senior Coordination Group members, including: Amina Mohammed, Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Post-2015 Development Planning; Shamshad Akhtar, Assistant Secretary General, DESA; Olav Kjorven, Assistant Secretary General, UNDP; and John Hendra, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Policy and Programmes, UN Women.
Over the course of the four-day meeting, the group was addressed by UN Women officials including: Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Policy and Programmes, John Hendra; Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Intergovernmental Support and Strategic Partnerships, Lakshmi Puri; and the Director of Policy Division, Saraswathi Menon.
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