SDGs from Gender Equality Perspective
Pradeep Kumar Panda
Darshan Samilkhya, Bhubaneswar

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a landmark agreement negotiated and approved by the 193 Member States of the United Nations. Comprised of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets, it aims to address the economic, social, environmental and political dimensions of sustainable development in a comprehensive and integrated way.
Building on a long history of international human rights and gender equality commitments, its universal approach recognizes the common challenges faced by all countries, developed and developing alike, and reaffirms the responsibility of governments to address them.
The SDG Agenda is clear that achieving gender equality is not only an important goal in and of itself but also a catalyst for achieving a sustainable future for all.
Women and girls are half of the world’s population and as a result hold half of the world’s human potential. When their lives are improved, the benefits reverberate across society.
Access to decent work and regular income in the hands of women, for example, contribute not only to poverty reduction (SDG 1) but also support better education, health and nutrition outcomes for women and girls and those who depend on them (SDGs 2, 3 and 4).
Similarly, eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls (Target 5.2) is not only an essential component of SDG 5 but also critical to ensuring healthy lives and well-being for people of all ages (SDG 3).
Women subjected to sexual or physical intimate partner violence are 1.5 times as likely to become infected with HIV (Target 3.3). They are also almost twice as likely to experience depression and alcohol use disorders (Target 3.5).
The health consequences of violence against women and girls extend to their children, who may witness the abuse and suffer long-term trauma that impacts their physical, emotional and social development.
Unless progress on gender equality is accelerated, the global community will not only fail to achieve SDG 5, it will also forgo the catalytic effect that gender equality can have for the achievement of the SDG Agenda more broadly.
Progress on gender equality has been highly uneven across the different dimensions of the SDG Agenda. In some areas, such as girls’ access to education, global improvement is undeniable yet insufficient, often leaving behind women and girls in the poorest households (SDG 4).
In areas such as labour force participation (SDG 8) and innovation and knowledge creation (SDG 9), significant gender gaps remain and progress has been minimal. In other cases, such as maternal mortality (SDG 3), progress is too slow and uneven to achieve SDG Target 3.1 by 2030.
Similarly, while progress has been made towards eliminating the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) (SDG 5), this is not enough to keep up with population growth, meaning the number of women and girls undergoing FGM is likely to rise over the next 15 years.
A revolution in democratic governance is needed for women and girls to claim their rights and shape sustainable development. Spaces for public debate and democratic decision-making must be created to define national priorities, identify what is working well and where the gaps are, agree on pathways for transformative change and determine the roles and responsibilities of different actors.
At the global level, open consultation throughout the post-2015 process engaged and mobilized people, countries and organizations to identify common priorities and navigate tensions. Women’s rights organizations were extremely effective in building coalitions and alliances across different interest groups to put gender equality at the centre of the new agenda.
Despite increasing attention to gender statistics in recent decades, the report identifies pressing challenges that stand in the way of systematic, gender-responsive monitoring. These include the uneven coverage of gender indicators across goals and targets; the absence of internationally agreed standards for data collection; and the uneven availability of gender statistics across countries and over time.
Delivering on the gender equality commitments of the SDG Agenda requires mobilizing and allocating sufficient resources for policies and programmes that contribute to their achievement.
As countries roll out their national implementation strategies, it is paramount that investments in these and other strategic areas are prioritized. It is also important that policies and programmes are aligned with the principles of the SDG Agenda, including human rights principles such as equality, non-discrimination and universality.
Gender-responsive processes and institutions are critical to turn the gender equality promises of the SDG Agenda into action and to ensure that progress is monitored in a transparent and accountable way.
States have committed to follow-up and review processes that are open, inclusive, participatory and transparent, as well as people-centred, gender- sensitive, respectful of human rights and focused on those who are furthest behind.
Participatory processes and strategic alliances are also needed to ensure effective and gender-responsive implementation, follow-up and review. The systematic monitoring of gender equality outcomes, policies and processes at the national, regional and global levels can contribute to catalysing action, translating global commitments into results and strengthening accountability for actions or omissions by different stakeholders.