by Anna Keye, UNA-SNY YP Latin American & Caribbean Affairs Director
Last Friday I had the opportunity to contribute to a fascinating panel discussion organized by Beyond 2015, SOS Children’s Villages, and the Baha'i International Community. The panel, Unlocking People's Capacity as a Means of Implementation of the post-2015 agenda: The human face of financing for development, included Priscilla Opa Kare, Executive Director, Papua New Guinea Education Advocacy Network (PEAN) and Beyond 2015; Catharina Gehrke, CEO of SOS Children’s Villages Sweden; and Vladimir Cuk, Executive Director, International Disability Alliance, NY Office.
The panel focused on increasing people’s participation in the post-2015 agenda and creating financing and development policies that are truly people-centered. I was invited to speak on the kinds of measures necessary to achieve gender equality and ensure women’s participation in financing and development policies and processes.
The brief remarks I shared on the panel and have posted below, are just a start. In order to truly achieve people-centered, sustainable development, we must imagine new ways of doing business that contribute to rather than undermine gender equality and the realization of women’s human rights. I encourage all of us as young professionals to imagine new ways of doing business that prioritize gender equality, human rights, and sustainable development.
"Means of implementation and the ways that financial resources are mobilized have a clear impact on women’s human rights and gender equality. For too long financing and development have not been people-centered, and certainly not women and girls-centered, leading to human rights abuses and deepened inequalities within and between countries. Current policies have contributed to a world where women make up the majority of those living in poverty, are the majority of informal and agricultural workers, and are the most vulnerable to natural disasters. In other words, the current policies are not working for women and girls.
Today I join many governments, civil society actors, and UN Women in calling for Financing for Development measures and Means of implementation targets that are based in a human rights approach. The post-2015 development agenda is an opportunity to redesign plans in a way that work for women, and in order to do that, we need policies that promote human rights, gender equality, and sustainable development. I encourage all of you to look at the many joint statements from governments and civil society that offer a comprehensive set of policy recommendations on financing for development and means of implementation, but I only have time to share a few recommendations.
First, if we are to galvanize women and girls as key actors in this transformative agenda, we have to ensure an enabling environment and the realization of all women's and girls' human rights, including their sexual and reproductive health and rights. Key elements to achieving an enabling environment are:
· Universal access to health services, including SRH services for all people, particularly for adolescents.
· The elimination of all forms of discrimination, violence, and harmful practices against women and girls.
· Ensuring education and economic empowerment of women and girls through free education through secondary school and equal rights to economic resources, including ownership and control over land, inheritance, and natural resources.
Second, we must also address the current financial policies and business as usual approaches that are failing women through systemic changes to financing and development mechanisms at all levels. At the very least,
· Governments must commit to gender-responsive planning and budgeting for both the public and private sectors and the UN system, and ensure that trade agreements are subject to robust gender, human rights, and environmental safeguards.
· We must dedicate resources to address gender equality at all levels- global, regional, national, and sub-national. Without these dedicated resources, and the prioritization of gender equality in development plans, gender equality will not be realized.
· We need to implement progressive taxation, gender-responsive budgeting, and policies that promote the redistribution of unpaid care and domestic work at the national level. These are also key to the economic empowerment of women and their full participation in the formal economy.
Third, governments must recognize the inherent human rights of women to equal participation in all aspects of political, economic, and social life, including within the post 2015 development agenda.
· Women must be at the center of all aspects of capacity building and development planning, especially at the national level, including conceptualization, design, and implementation.
· Women’s organizations at the global, regional, and national levels must be financially supported so that women can fully participate in these processes, and most importantly, so that they can continue to monitor and hold their governments and the international community accountable.
· Governments must also invest in increased capacity building on gender issues, gender-responsive budgeting, and data collection and management, so that the people responsible for implementing these plans have the necessary knowledge and skills to do so.
In brief, when women's human rights are not guaranteed, when women are absent from decision-making processes, when development policies do not include a gender perspective, or when there are no resources for women to participate in a meaningful way, sustainable, human-centered development is not possible."
Check out UN Women’s page on financing for gender equality for more information on gender-responsive-budgeting and the Women’s Major Group for financing and development policy recommendations.
Anna Keye is the Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Affairs Committee and a Program Assistant at the International Women’s Health Coalition. She follows the Post-2015 process at the UN, focusing on gender equality, women’s human rights, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. Follow Anna on twitter at @Keyecita.