WUNRN
The
Women’s Major Group (WMG), comprised of over 500 organizations, takes responsibility
for facilitating women’s civil society input into the policy space provided by
the United Nations (participation, speaking, submission of proposals, and
access to documents). The WMG is self-organized and open to all interested
organizations working to promote human rights based sustainable development
with a focus on women’s and girl’s human rights, women’s empowerment and gender
equality.
Women's Major Group Statement on the New UN Set of
Sustainable Development Goals
The UN Open Working Group forwarded new set of Global Sustainable
Development Goals (See link below) to General Assembly: The Women’s Major Group
Declared ‘Adoption of the Outcome a Significant Step but the Sustainable
Development Goals SDG's are still lacking Real Ambition for Urgent
Transformational Change’ Women’s Major Group Final Statement.
NEW YORK: (21 July 2014) The Women’s Major Group (WMG), representing 500
women’s human rights, environment and development organizations that have
engaged substantively in the negotiations of the Open Working Group on
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) throughout its one and a half year
process, released a statement today, marking the end of the OWG’s final session
and proposal for a set of goals1, raising critical red flags on the
content and level of ambition encased in the proposed SDGs.
The final SDG text encompasses a broad spectrum of the three pillars of
sustainable development: economic, social and environmental, and against much
opposition, includes a goal on “peaceful and inclusive societies”. There is a
fair amount of progressive, development-oriented language, as well as some
demonstration of political will to prioritize a more holistic framework for
development through sustainability.
While appreciating and acknowledging efforts of the co-chairs and many
countries to promote women’s rights, engage civil society across the process
and to push for more ambitious language, the WMG concludes the goals fall short
of women’s aspirations for a strong set of transformative goals needed to
achieve gender equality, women’s human rights, sustainable development in
harmony with nature, and an end to inequalities.
Emilia Reyes, Coordinator at Equidad de Género, Mexico, a key advocate
for the Women’s Major Group, said “We were facing an opportunity for radical
change, to speak a new language in the world; a language that places the
correct names on the social and environmental impacts of the obscene
concentration of wealth in our societies; one that acknowledges how women are
kept aside from the exercise of their rights by the sexual division of labor; and
one that recognizes the interconnectedness of our daily lives and the health of
the planet. We concluded with an important package of goals and targets
addressing the social, environmental and economic pillars to achieve
sustainable development. They could have been ambitious enough to achieve
transformation. At present, they are not.”
Sascha Gabizon, Director of Women International for a Common Future, one
of the coordinators of the Women’s Major Group, said “we commend those
governments who have fought hard to secure and advance gender equality and
women’s human rights throughout this process, and stand firm in challenging
countries who consistently have tried to delete language around women and girl’s rights. We
commend the co-chairs for forging a compromise with all Member States and for
not having given in to pressures to reduce the goals to the lowest common
denominator. Even though the Women’s Major Group believes that ambition should
have been higher, the adoption of the SDG document by the Open Working Document
is a significant step forward.”
The Women’s Major Group statement acknowledges certain gains, “We
welcome the standalone goals - on achieving gender equality and the empowerment
of women and girls, on inequalities within and between countries; on
environmental sustainability, and on climate change. We also commend that the
goals aim to end poverty and hunger, ensure healthy lives, and universal access
to water and sanitation for all”.
However, the statement also strongly rejects that women’s bodies and
lives continue to be ‘subjected to national agendas‘, despite consistent calls
for a truly universal agenda grounded in human rights. In a strong message to
Governments, the WMG stated, “To those who are still denying our rights we
reaffirm, again, that we will always refuse to have our lives used as
bargaining chips. No agenda should be traded off. The entire world is at stake
because of the narrow ways in which policies and actions are implemented. The
significant global challenges we face requires a comprehensive ambitious
agenda.”
Looking to the way forward for the SDGs, the Women’s Major Group called
on Member States to ensure the strongest participation of civil society, major
groups and social movements in the process leading up to and following the
Post-2015 Summit in September 2015. “We call for an inclusive process, with
full access and meaningful participation. A vibrant Major Groups and civil
society presence, and our meaningful engagement, will be essential to the
integrity of the forthcoming negotiations, as has been demonstrated by our
participation in the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, where
we have fostered essential links between the national and global levels.”
“It was a complex negotiation process amidst sharp differences and
disputes among member states, thus taking this political reality into
consideration, the adoption of the SDG document is a commendable achievement.
The work going forward will be to ensure that General Assembly negotiations take
place based on the document as it stands now, as well as in a manner that is
inclusive, transparent and accountable", says Bhumika Muchala of Third
World Network.
Eleanor Blomstrom, Program Director of the Women’s Environment and
Development Organization, one of the coordinators of the WMG shared, “The red
flags show that the Women’s Major Group – and the world – have much unfinished
business to ensure the transformation to rights-based sustainable development.
But we are not daunted by the task at hand and will magnify each opportunity
and create new ones to get the world on a new track where actions for justice
and equality trump corporate interest, in solidarity with women leaders and
activists worldwide.”
Addressing next steps, Reyes added: “What comes next? The women's and
feminist movements will embrace the challenge of devising a language that
reinvents the world, never falling to silence. This outcome is the sign of a
new phase and we are ready to strengthen it with our work and ideas.”
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1 The OWG Outcome Document, proposing a new set of Sustainable
Development Goals, can be accessed here: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/focussdgs.html