The 69th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly marked the commencement of formal intergovernmental negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda and sustainable development goals. It brought together streams of work undertaken to define the new agenda, in particular the efforts of the Open Working Group for Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing (ICESDF).
In July 2014, the Open Working Group submitted its proposal for 17 sustainable development goals with a corresponding set of 169 targets. This proposal includes a standalone goal on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls and integrates gender equality dimensions in 11 out of 17 goals through gender-sensitive targets. This presents a strong message about the centrality of gender equality and women’s rights for sustainable development, and highlights the need for effective partnership at all levels and mutual accountability to ensure that these political promises are backed up with the resources required to achieve meaningful results for women and girls.
The 69th session of the UN General Assembly provided a timely opportunity to engage in a multi-stakeholder dialogue about how to finance the future development framework and the commitments made on gender equality and women’s rights.
This side event explored options to finance the new set of global commitments on gender equality and women’s rights based on the proposal of the Open Working Group and in consideration of the forthcoming report of the ICESDF; and strengthen political support for this. It provided an opportunity for governments, development partners and civil society to formulate recommendations on financing gender equality ahead of the intergovernmental negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda, and in preparation for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (July 2015).
Objectives:
In this session speakers addressed:
- The current status of financing for gender equality and women’s rights;
- Innovative examples and lessons from national governments, development partners and civil society to scale up financing for gender equality and track resource allocations towards strengthening transparency and accountability;
- The role of development cooperation in supporting effective implementation of the post-2015 development agenda; and
- Recommendations on how to strengthen financing for gender equality for the achievement of the SDGs, including reflections on how to address gender equality and women’s rights at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development.