SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 2015

Description: 

On 25-27 September 2015, Member States adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda at the UN Sustainable Development Summit.

After years of work promoting a conflict prevention approach to development that strengthens women’s participation and rights for peace, WILPF has contributed to successfully advocating for stand alone goals on both gender equality (SDG 5) and stable and peaceful societies (SDG 16). This includes targets in illicit arms (16.4), promoting a culture of peace and non-violence (4.7), ensuring inclusive and participatory decision-making (16.7) and ensuring equal access to justice for all (16.3). It also includes a target on mobilising additional financial resources (17.3), which WILPF reminded that States must build on women’s rights commitments and include the reduction of military financing.

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With our coalitions in this area, the Post-2015 Women’s Coalition and Women’s Major Group, WILPF mobilises action to demand development based on disarmament and women’s full and equal participation and rights.

WILPF affirms that the SDGs can be a critical tool for addressing the conflict prevention gap, and should be implemented within a holistic framework that recognises other obligations including women’s human rights and the Women, Peace and Security agenda. This includes financing UNSCR 1325 National Action Plans and regulating arms that risk gender based violence, consistent with both SDG 5 and 16 as well as UNSCR 1325 and the Arms Trade Treaty.

While the SDGs provide an additional tool for action, they are not enough.  WILPF joins our partners, the Post-2015 Women’s Coalition and the Women’s Major Group in welcoming this new tool and reminding states that women’s rights and peace must be at the center of implementation efforts.

The 2030 Agenda and the SDGs have the potential to transform the lives of women everywhere and promote peace. WILPF works with a range of partners to encourage a conflict and violence prevention approach to development that strengthens gender equality and peace.

Post-2015 Women’s Coalition SDG Response

As the Post-2015 Women’s Coalition reminds states, the 2030 Agenda is still incomplete and does not address structural and systematic inequalities and discrimination. Goals can only be successful if structural barriers including gendered inequalities are addressed for every person everywhere.  

Women’s Major Group SDG Response

As the Women’s Major Group reminds states, ensuring that SDG 17 on Means of Implementation as well as the Financing for Development Addis Ababa Action Agenda are effectively carried out from a gender perspective is critical. As Tessa Khan of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development has stated, the Financing for Development agreement has actually perpetrated entrenched gender inequality; this poses major barriers both to women’s  rights and the 2030 Agenda as a whole.  

What’s Next

In New York, Member States and international civil society are continuing the work of the SDGs by addressing accountability on commitments through devising an indicator framework. Keep pushing your government to mainstream gender equality and reflect structural inequalities between people and between states!

Demand that your government act to prevent conflict and promote peace by redirecting military spending into gender equitable development. We must ensure that gender equality is a key factor in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Read more about WILPF’s work on the 2030 Agenda here and here.

Read the full Post-2015 Women’s Coalition SDG Response here.

Read the full Women’s Major Group Response here.

 

WILPF, NGO & Advocacy Documents