With 17 goals, 169 targets and 232 indicators (of which 54 are gender-specific), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a historic global compact to achieve gender equality by 2030.
Gaps in gender data and the lack of trend data make it difficult to monitor progress for women and girls. Unless gender is mainstreamed into national statistical strategies and prioritized in data collection, gender data scarcity and gaps will persist. Investment in national statistical capacity is central to improving the coverage, quality and timeliness of data for monitoring gender equality and the SDGs.
Currently, 2.1 billion people lack safely managed drinking water and 4.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation services. When safe drinking water is not available on household premises, the burden of water collection and treatment falls largely on the shoulders of women and girls. The lack of safe sanitation and hygiene facilities at home may expose them to illness, harassment and violence—hampering their ability to learn, earn an income and move around freely. Where household members fall sick due to water-borne illnesses, it is mainly women and girls who provide the much-needed care.
Achieving the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – and notably the goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment – requires transformative shifts, integrated approaches and new solutions. Based on current trajectories, existing efforts will not suffice to achieve a Planet 50-50 by 2030.
More than 75 per cent of the world’s population lives in societies that are more unequal today than 20 years ago. In many parts of the world, income gaps have deepened despite impressive growth performances. The sharpest increases in income inequality have taken place in those developing countries that were especially successful in pursuing vigorous growth and managed, as a result, to graduate into higher income brackets.1 Economic progress may well exacerbate inequalities, not alleviate them.
The contours and effectiveness of all social organizing, including feminist mobilization, at any level—local, national, regional or global—depend on three key drivers: (i) issues and environment; (ii) institutions; and (iii) the processes of movement building. These drivers often have very different antecedents in a particular context. Hence, their effects may be synergistic, working to amplify the impact of each, or they may be at odds with each other and work at cross-purposes.