Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Morrow, Karen --- "Gender and the Sustainable Development Goals" [2018] ELECD 521; in French, Duncan; Kotzé, J. Louis (eds), "Sustainable Development Goals" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) 149

Book Title: Sustainable Development Goals

Editor(s): French, Duncan; Kotzé, J. Louis

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781786438751

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Gender and the Sustainable Development Goals

Author(s): Morrow, Karen

Number of pages: 24

Abstract/Description:

This chapter considers key factors shaping the pursuit of gender equality and women’s empowerment under the SDGs. In so doing, it examines some of the most significant concerns that may militate against the goals achieving these ends. These include the legacy of the Millennium Development Goals regime and in particular the limitations that have become apparent during its operation in progressing societal change through the goals, targets and indicators-oriented approach pioneered therein and pursued in the successor SDGs regime. The chapter also discusses the tensions inherent in the adoption of a discrete gender goal on the one hand and integration of gender under other goals on the other. The principal advantage of a discrete gender goal lies in according ‘headline’ status to the issue; integration in other goals, however, offers the potential to ‘mainstream’ gender coverage in key substantive areas. The concomitant disadvantages of these approaches are potentially ‘siloing’ gender issues and dilution of focus respectively. The use of indicators and their limitations, particularly in light of current levels of information and communications technology and data challenges are interrogated. The chapter concludes by examining the implications of the international community’s broader evasion of the interface between goals regimes and the global human rights agenda for gender issues. Discussion centres around the fact that, as gender concerns now enjoy strong coverage in human rights law, along with the legal status that this invokes, divorcing the SDGs regime from such protection stands to act to the particular disadvantage of women, negating a key route to securing accountability for the impacts of state action/inaction on the ground.