A Pivotal Step Towards Progress for Women and Girls
Members of the G20, meeting in India during 9-10 September, reaffirmed their commitment to the empowerment of women and girls, with specific commitments to increasing labor force participation, access to quality education, halving the digital gender gap by 2030, supporting gender-responsive and age-sensitive nutrition and food system interventions, and eliminating gender-based violence (GBV).
The G20 plans to create a new Working Group on Empowerment of Women to support countries as they continue to address gender inequality across the spectrum. The idea is that it will support the G20 Women’s Ministerial and convene its first meeting under the incoming G20 Brazil presidency in 2024.
The challenges in accessing basic health care for women, children and adolescents have been exacerbated by the increasing number of conflicts taking place around the world, the COVID-19 aftermath, increasing cost of living, as well as climate impacts. These crises are disproportionately impacting women and girls, whether it be through increased likelihood of experiencing gender-based violence (GBV), less access to maternal health or a lack of access to menstrual hygiene management, rolling back gains that had been made in women and girls’ health. The 2023 Global Gender Gap Index reports that no country has been able to fully achieve gender parity yet: 800 women still die daily due to pregnancy and childbirth complications, 130 million girls are out of school, and 1 in 3 women experience GBV in their lifetime.
The G20 Leaders Declaration affirms “that gender equality is of fundamental importance, and that investing in the empowerment of all women and girls, has a multiplier effect in implementing the 2030 sustainable development agenda.”
With G20 member-states representing around 80 percent of global GDP and nearly 60 percent of the world’s population, this emphasis on gender, together with several digital solutions proposed as a path to achieving universal health coverage, is a significant step toward ensuring that entire populations are not left behind on the journey to achieve the SDGs.
PMNCH engaged extensively with the Indian presidency of the 2023 G20, including through a specially commissioned Policy Brief on maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and well-being, wich included the below recommendations:
- Prioritize sustained and enhanced funding for the health of women, children, and adolescents;
- Adopt a multisectoral, holistic, and systems-based approach to improve health outcomes for women, children, and adolescents;
- Prioritize investments in robust data systems for monitoring and implementation of policies and programmes for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health and well-being;
- Ensure that women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health and well-being is a recurring agenda item within G20 discussions; and
- Prioritize their meaningful engagement through consultative efforts when making policy decisions.
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