Pay Our Women and Teach Our Girls: The Global Gender Agenda and the SDGs
Image by Vonecia Carswell via Unsplash.
In 2018, UN Women published a near 350-page report on gender equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Secretary-General of the UN António Guterres wrote in the foreword of the report that gender equality “is a goal in its own right and a powerful force for upholding the main promise of the 2030 Agenda: to leave no one behind” (UN Women, 2018, p. 2). While this emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment is included in the global development agenda, there are economic, social, and political gender gaps that remain large, pervasive, and persistent, limiting the ability of the global gender agenda to be fully realized (Klugman and Tyson, 2018, p. 25). The main gaps include, but are not limited to, improper remedies for the inequality of household expectations among men and women, the lack of women’s leadership in policymaking and decision making, and inconsistent policies advocating for girls’ education. In order for progress to be made in closing these gaps and releasing these limitations, the global gender agenda must provide childcare to alleviate unpaid labor and unpaid care, mandate training and education on women’s decision making and leadership, and advocate for girls’ education.
In a 2018 report for the Center for International Forestry Research, Basnett evaluates the aforementioned UN Women’s report on the role of gender in the SDGs, in which she states that the report “underscores the importance of monitoring the SDGs in order to translate global commitment to results, foster public debate and democratic decision-making, and strengthen accountability for actions or omissions” (Basnett, 2018, p. 1). The report does, however, “demonstrate the inadequacies of the current Global Indicator Framework for gender responsive monitoring of the SDGs” and recognizes the barriers women and girls face in their struggle for gender equality (Basnett, 2018, p. 1). Basnett calls on the CGIAR research community to intervene in order to allow CGIAR’s gender researchers to “generate synergies between SDGs and other global initiatives” (2018, p. 3).
Klugman and Tyson specifically look at gender gaps in the global development agenda towards women’s economic empowerment within the context of the world of work, identifying persistent limitations in the realms of unpaid work and investing in care (2018, p. 37). They cite that the “three most commonly cited barriers preventing women from advancing in the workplace” are related to balancing domestic and professional responsibilities, with unpaid care, and therefore unpaid labor at home, being pervasive limitations on women’s economic independence (Klugman and Tyson, 2018, p. 36). Discussing innovations for closing these gender gaps, Klugman and Tyson state that much of the potential for progress depends on what happens at the household level, as the costs of childcare directly affects women’s economic opportunities in paid work (2018, p. 38). Successful innovations, they argue, include engaging men in the conversation and action around unpaid care, providing peer groups for women, and raising awareness through mass and social media about these existing gender gaps (Klugman and Tyson, 2018, p. 39).
Mechoulan et al. discuss the preventative potential of the SDGs, specifically looking at Target 5.5, which aims to “ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision making in political, economic and public life” (Mechoulan et al., 2016, p. 2). In order for this to be achieved, Mechoulan et al. argue that more emphasis needs to be placed on nation stability and peacefulness, as there is overwhelming evidence that “gender equality is a strong predictor of a state’s peacefulness than its level of democracy, religion, or gross domestic product” (2016, p. 2). Using the case of Sierra Leone to strengthen their argument, which has included the SDGs in its national prosperity plan with a focus on women’s empowerment, Mechoulan et al. are firm believers that the SDGs can be used as a catalyst for greater women’s leadership, and thus peace and development (2016, p. 4).
Unterhalter and North consider the limitations of the global gender agenda in the context of girls’ education and development through the specific lenses of conceptual disconnections, politics, and practice. They argue that “in a period of economic growth (to 2008), donor support to the MDG framework, high-level political concern with the question of girls’ schooling, and unprecedented levels of women’s networking on gender issues” it has been difficult to immerse a women’s rights perspective in the both the global education and development agendas (Unterhalter and North, 2011, p. 2). By looking at efforts like the UN Girls Education Initiative and a global NGO dedicated to raising questions of gender, women’s rights, and education, Unterhalter and North conclude that “a richer conceptual lexicon concerning gender equality in education” has been developed, but there have been challenges in translating this new vocabulary into policy and practice (2011, p. 17). Through the lens of girls’ schooling and gender and education in South Africa, which they state is not a priority for the communities they observed, they prescribe the need for greater attention in these areas in order to generate greater gender equity and justice in the global development agenda (Unterhalter and North, 2011, p. 17).
The literature review on the limits and impacts of the global gender agenda and its relation to the SDGs offers insight into the practical policy implications that need to be made in order for progress to observed. To understand this further, the following section will look at the case of South Africa and the women’s movement agenda driving the shift in discourse and initiatives throughout the country through an inclusive and transnational effort.
South Africa’s Gender Machine
South Africa has been widely studied in all facets of development, especially within the post- apartheid period. In the context of women’s empowerment, the social movements that took place post-1994 to invigorate women’s participation and advocate for gender equality was a call not only made by the women of South Africa, but by the women of sub-Saharan Africa writ large. The transnational interconnectedness of the South African women’s movements is illustrated by their “rejection of the notion that the women’s struggle for equality was to be waged only by women and only by women of this country” (de Waal, 2005, p. 122). It contributed to the so-called ‘national gender machinery’ of South Africa, which was comprised of different government institutions and civil society organizations to promote gender equality and prevent unfair discrimination on the basis of gender and sex (de Waal, 2005, p. 124).
While this ‘national gender machinery’ is an example of how to achieve inclusive participation on behalf of state and local actors, there remains to be numerous challenges that stand in the way of true gender equality and women’s empowerment. Unterhalter and North draw specific attention to the issue of gender and education in South Africa, stating that gender equality was not (at the time of their study) part of day-to-day work within the NGO they observed, and that it was regarded as a “vague policy directive” about which the employees at the NGO were faintly aware (Unterhalter and North, 2011, p. 11). Many other development authors also explain how globalization poses a real threat to the strides South African women have made in their fight to overcome poverty and gain gender equality, putting emphasis on the neglect of rural women in nationalist politics and government strategies (de Waal, 2005, p. 125). Skinner and Valodia examine the national and local approaches to women’s involvement in South Africa’s economic transformation, suggesting that the gender impact of this transformation leaves women “bearing the brunt” of the costs of this transformation, especially at the national level, which then consequently has an effect at the local level as well (2001, p. 87). Drawing specific reference to South Africa’s national small business promotion policies, Skinner and Valodia argue that the policies forsake the role of women in the informal sector, who are classified into the supposed ‘survivalist segment’, leaving little positive impact on women (2001, p. 87).
This case shows how even when policies and practices are implemented to promote gender equality at both the national and local levels, as well as within civil society, gaps remain in achieving true women’s empowerment.
Practical Policy Implications
A report titled Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSSs) for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment does an excellent job of reviewing the impact of the SDGs and the gender-related targets within them for six key areas of gender-equality and women’s empowerment: 1) Household Food Security, 2) Women’s Rights to Productive Agricultural Resources, 3) Gender Equality in Education, 4) Unpaid Domestic Labor, 5) Women’s Decision Making and Empowerment, and 6) Decent Work for Women (Sexsmith, 2019, p. 16). By providing a brief analysis of each key area, and the SDG targets and indicators present for each, this report helps lay a foundation for determining practical policy implications for progressing the global gender agenda (Sexsmith, 2019, pp. 16-43). The key policy implications recommended in this paper, with influence from the aforementioned report, are to mandate training and education, as well as representation, of women in decision making and leadership, provide childcare during trainings and working hours for women to alleviate unpaid labor and unpaid care, and advocate for the importance of girls’ education from primary schooling through post-secondary schooling.
By prioritizing these three measures, women will be given a voice to construct policies and practices that benefit them at all levels of society, they will be able to become financially independent by making their own income without the stress of having to worry about childcare
and without exhausting themselves by working the often so-called ‘double day’, and girls will be given the schooling they deserve, setting them up for more successful futures. These are not the only policies that need to be prioritized in closing the gaps in the global gender agenda, but they are fundamental components that cut across the existing limits to the agenda, and therefore contribute to the actualization of achieving the SDGs by 2030. All nations can benefit from investing time and resources into at least these three policies.
Given the literature and case study of South Africa, it can be determined that the main limits of the global gender agenda are improper remedies for the inequality of household expectations among men and women, the lack of women’s leadership in policymaking and decision making, and inconsistent policies advocating for girls’ education. In relation to the SDGs, and specifically within the context of Target 5.5, progress can be made towards meeting this agenda by providing childcare to alleviate unpaid labor and unpaid care, mandating training and education on women’s decision making and leadership, and advocating for girls’ education. The case of South Africa illustrates how when these issues are not met, despite advances in national and local government policies, the global gender agenda is not realized. Perhaps by placing women in charge of developing these policies, the gaps in the global gender agenda will close.
