“Commitments must lead to actual change” – Lakshmi Puri

[Check against delivery.]

Last year, a historic gender equality compact was adopted by all governments and placed at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with truly transformative, comprehensive and universal ambition. This was further strengthened by the Financing for development (AAAA outcome), 1325 Global Review on Women Peace and Security and the Paris agreement on climate change.

Gender equality was affirmed as a precondition and necessary outcome of sustainable development and was itself transformed into a sustainable development goal. Women and girls are not regarded as one of many vulnerable groups. Agenda 2030 declared that justice for them and their human rights matter because they constitute half of humanity and all must tap into the infinite potential of their empowerment.

Goal 5 on achieving—not just promoting—gender equality and empowering all women and girls, is a promise to all women and girls in their diversity of circumstance and status. Its six targets address the structural barriers to women’s enjoyment of their human rights and assure physical integrity and security, voice and choice. These include:

• end all forms of discrimination in law and practice;
• eliminate violence against women and girls, including harmful practices;
• women’s equal participation and leadership at all levels of political; economic and public life;
• recognize and redistribute unpaid care work and provide public services, infrastructure and social protection; and
• ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights.

The Agenda also promotes women’s economic rights and independence by calling for decent work, equal pay and equal rights, ownership and control over economic resources—such as land, property, technology and financial services.

SDG 5 and all other gender-sensitive targets in 11 other SDGs, including SDG 16 on just and peaceful societies, constitute a Gender Equality Compact that embraces the Beijing Platform for Action and CEDAW as a foundational framework for sustainable development, offering a real opportunity to drive lasting change for women’s rights and equality.

The Agreed Conclusions adopted by the 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 60) last March has set out a road map for the gender-responsive implementation of all the SDGs and Agenda 2030 and this must guide Member States and UN system action at all levels including throughout the HLPF global review.

At CSW 60, Member States reiterated their commitment in Agenda 2030 to significantly increase investments to close the gender gap, to strengthen support for gender equality institutions at all levels, and to systematically mainstream gender perspectives into all aspects of implementation, including on their work on data and statistics, indicators, follow-up and review and to build accountability and give primacy to women's leadership at all levels.

The road map for implementation of the gender equality compact cover the ten vectors of action—or “10 I’s”—which aim to create and reinforce the enabling environment for the full, effective and accelerated implementation of gender equality commitments. They include:

Inspiration from the intergovernmental normative frameworks and human rights conventions including the historic gender equality compact and commitments of 2015 to achieve sustainable development, human rights, peace and security, humanitarian response and resilience-building and related strategies at all levels. Governments must own the agenda and citizens must too, and both state action and movement building should happen simultaneously.

Indivisibility of the SDGs and targets, horizontal and vertical, and fully leveraging their synergies is key. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and all SDGs must deliver for gender equality and women’s empowerment. In this regard, the prioritization of SDG 5 and gender-sensitive targets threaded across all SDGs in their implementation is a key task for all governments.

Implementation: Translating [commitments] through the adoption and reform of laws, policies and measures, including special measures and actions, the removal of discriminatory laws and policies, and ensuring their full, effective and accelerated implementation, links to just and peaceful societies.

Integration of gender equality and women’s empowerment across all SDGs and the entire 2030 Agenda, and systematic mainstreaming in implementation of its three dimensions, an all-of-government, all-of-UN and all-of-society approach including in development assistance activities and initiatives.

Institutions and institutional arrangements at all levels to work in a gender-responsive manner, echoing the SDG 16 call to develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels. Gender equality institutions must be empowered and resourced.

Investment: significantly increased and transformative financial investment and resource mobilization from all sources, including Official Development Assistance (ODA), to close gender equality gaps at all levels—including targeted and mainstreamed, transformative actions for financing gender equality and women’s empowerment as committed to in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

Information: generating a radical shift in the availability, accessibility and use of gender statistics through the development of new methodologies, increased capacity of national statistical offices and better coordination among partners at global, regional and national levels to drive evidence-based implementation and monitoring. There are 50 indicators on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Global Indicators Framework on SDGs, which require a gender statistics revolution and support.

Inclusion of all key stakeholders, particularly civil society, women's movements, indigenous women, youth and youth-led organizations, men and boys, faith-based organizations and the private sector for movement building; transforming social norms and addressing the needs of all women and girls, especially those facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalization. Not only must the implementation of the 2030 Agenda ensure that no woman or girl is left behind, it must mean that the poorest and most vulnerable groups of women move forward.

Innovation: driving political, social and economic innovation for gender equality and women’s empowerment through science, technology, media, including social media, innovative partnerships and advocacy platforms is a priority.

Impact: these commitments must lead to actual change in the enabling environment and make systemic and substantive impact on the situation of all women and girls, especially those most marginalized.

There is now a sense of urgency, even emergency, with an unprecedented determination to achieve gender equality and end discrimination within a generation—by 2030. At the current pace of change it could take another century, so telescoping progress in the next 14 and half years will require coordinated and extraordinary efforts, investments and political will.

UN Women wants to emphasize the importance of all stakeholders substantially front-loading efforts and impact in all areas to ensure concrete and real progress is already achieved by 2020, when the international community must be able to say it has stepped it up sufficiently and is on track to reach a Planet 50-50 by 2030!

I thank you.