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http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/14/womens-rights-gender-equality-sustainable-development-goals

What Will Shape Women's Rights over the Next 15 Years?

What should be included in the sustainable development goals to promote women’s equality and empowerment, and will they work?

South African women

One of the SDGs encourages the world to ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’. Photograph: Paballo Thekiso/AFP/Getty Images

 

By Carla Kweifio-Okai – 14 January 2015

Decisions made in 2015 will help shape the women’s rights agenda for the next 15 years. In September, world leaders will endorse a new set of development goals at the UN. The proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), feature a standalone goal on gender, which encourages the world to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”.

Goal number five of the Sustainable Development Goals currently features 9 targets, which are:

A target in goal number three – promoting healthy lives and wellbeing – calls for universal access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Discussions about the content of the goals, which will apply to all countries, began in 2013, and a final draft was published in July. The UN starts negotiations next week on finalising the SDGs.

Do you think these targets are sufficient? Has anything been missed out or lost in the discussions? What do you think should be a priority in your country? Are LGBT rights being ignored? Will a requirement to ban FGM make the final document? How will countries that have a poor record on women’s rights view the SDGs?