Feminist Reflections: UN's High Level Panel Report on Post ‐ 2015 Development Agenda

Date: 
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
United Nation Theme: 
WILPF, NGO & Advocacy Documents

To End Poverty:
• Set a higher and broader global poverty line that is also defined nationally;
• There must be differentiation between small, medium and larger private sector entities in “the business community”;
• Multi-sectoral and inter-linked measures must be taken to address land-grabbing, environmental degradation and displacement that occurs when corporations are able to own and control land;
• Measuring the distribution of land and resources and aiming for more equitable distribution amongst people, rather than corporations, is important.
• Women must have the right to land tenure and resources.

To Empower Girls and Women and Achieve Gender Equality:
• Make gender equality an essential component of sustainable development;
• Address the inter-linked and multi-sectoral issues affecting gender equality, including ending poverty and supporting the women, peace, and security agenda.
• The links between gender-based violence and impunity, militarization, military spending, and the prevalence of small arms must be addressed if meaningful gains are to be made.

To Ensure Healthy Lives:
• There must be more discussion around supporting marginalized and key populations and providing stigma-free services.

To Secure Sustainable Energy:
• The eradication of subsidies to fossil fuel industries and carbon emitting multinationals must be addressed in order to responsibly secure sustainable energy in the future.

To Create Jobs, Sustainable Livelihoods, and Equitable Growth:
• All workers, no matter their geographic location deserve to have internationally agreed upon rights;
• Women are most often subjected to ‘flexible' labor markets and the erosion of labor rights due in part to traditional gender division of labor within the household. This requires that unpaid work must be recognized, reduced and redistributed.
• The experiences of small, women-led enterprises that are often unable to compete with foreign multinationals which are given investment incentives, such as taxes exemptions must be addressed;
• Re-direct subsidies from multinationals to local micro-enterprises, small businesses and cooperatives to create jobs;
• There must be greater investments in productive activities with the potential to generate jobs, gender‐aware and context-specific skills development programs, and social protection programs – all of which generate decent jobs, sustain livelihoods and result in more equitable growth.

To Ensure Good Governance and Effective Institutions:
• There must be a global regulatory framework set by governments to protect people from the avarice of business if sustainable development is the ultimate goal, especially given that the priority of the private sector is its profit motive.
• Extraterritorial obligations, as elaborated in the Maastricht Principles, should be used as the foundation for facilitating good governance in the context of the new global partnership which includes “big business”;
• There must be greater accountability of the private sector and governments that violate human rights or refuse to engage in a transparent way with communities and human rights defenders.

To Ensure Stable and Peaceful Societies:
• Actions that ensure that people in general, and women in particular, are able to live without fear and want are essential;
• Governments must invest in and budget for peace and not increasing militarization;
• The link between gender inequality and militarization must be recognized and addressed, and a holistic approach to the Women, Peace and Security agenda that addresses participation, prevention, protection, and relief and recovery be integrated into sustainable development efforts, including goals and indicators.
• There must be recognition:
    * that nuclear weapons, as well as climate change, pose unprecedented threats to humanity;
    * that arms, including small arms and light weapons, promote environmental degradation and reduce state capacity to invest in social equality and sustainable development, and fuel gender-based            violence, especially against women human rights defenders;
    * that the effects of militarism, military spending, and the arms trade erode gender equality and the realization of women's rights;
    * and that development, peace and security require conflict prevention through women's full and equal participation and leadership, not just a “transparency revolution”.

To Create a Global Enabling Environment and Catalyze Long Term Finance:
• There must be a mandatory target for countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and recognition of large-scale historical emitters in contributing to climate change and its inequitable impacts;
• Eliminate use of harmful technologies, unsustainable use of resources, unregulated use and destruction of the environment, and genetically modified organisms and manage natural resources in the interest of peoples', especially women, livelihoods and nature ;
• Reform the financial regulatory system, where the needs of people and not of capital are at the center;
• Develop policies and goals with a recognition that women and men do not share the same realities, and that they experience economic crises differently;
• Define how funding is delivered to maximize impact;
• Recognize the need to secure resources for the diversity of actors engaged in this work, including civil society, and among them, women's organizations and movements;
• Require corporations make some contribution to sustainable development and the communities that sustain them through substantive changes to tax systems;
• Mobilize the maximum available resources to meet human rights obligations and ensure the full enjoyment of economic and social rights, following principles of non-retrogression and minimum essential levels/minimum core obligations.

We support:
• A stand-alone goal on “Empower girls and women and achieve gender equality”, eliminating violence, ending child marriage, equal rights for women to own and inherit property, and eliminating discrimination in political, economic and public life;
• Sexual and reproductive health and rights;
• Decreasing and ending maternal mortality;
• A human rights approach to sustainable development processes with an enhanced recognition of state obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill women's human rights and gender equality.
• Implementation of clear regulations that ensure economic interests are not allowed to override the greater aim of respecting human rights and promoting sustainable development.

Governments must address:
• The current macro-economic model which perpetuates poverty and inequality and reduce growing wealth inequalities;
• Inclusion of people who are discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity;
• Increased funding toward advancing sustainable development, including women's rights and gender equality and the full and equal participation of women in all areas of sustainable development;
• Development without disarmament and need for an integrated approach that strengthens a holistic understanding of peace and security for all.

To meet goals, there must be:
• A clear framework that is specific, measurable, time-bound and attainable as a powerful way to motivate action and mobilise resources;
• Linking of global goals with national targets as a way of increasing country ownership and development of a mechanism that ensures that national targets are sufficiently ambitious to ensure that countries are taking meaningful action.
• All targets and indicators must be covered at a meaningful level by all governments, even if they have the flexibility to judge their own rate of progress over time. This is especially important for sexual and reproductive health and rights;
• Clear acknowledgement and inclusion of critical inter-linkages, specifically in terms of women's rights and gender equality and the link between women's empowerment and ensuring stable and peaceful societies.
• An end to election of targets from a “menu”, as this could lead to difficult or unpopular areas being dropped from action, and reduces the cohesive global action tackling a particular issue.

 

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