What is the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal #5 on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment?
In 2015, the United Nations adopted a list of 17 “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDG), providing targets for the world to meet by the year 2030 in order to ensure a livable, more equal planet.
As March is Women’s History Month, there’s no better time of year to learn about UN SDG 5, achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.
The struggle for the fundamental human right of women’s equality has been going on for centuries, and progress has been slow but real in many parts of the world. However, we haven’t come far enough yet. Women around the world remain under-educated, under-paid and under-represented in leadership positions, compared to their male counterparts.
True equality means unlocking the potential of billions of women around the world. It means giving women everywhere the education, skills and support they need to be healthy, productive and successful.
And no matter your gender, everyone benefits when we empower women. Gender equality has been shown to promote better economic growth, a more educated society, a safer society, and a society where every single person can thrive.
To make that world a reality, the UN and its member countries pledged to follow Sustainable Development Goal 5, which seeks to accomplish the following by 2030:
- Ending all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
- Eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation
- Eliminating all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation
- Recognizing and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies, as well as the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate
- Ensuring women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
- Ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action
- Undertaking reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws
- Enhancing the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
- Adopting and strengthening sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels
