Upholding Women’s Human Rights through the Means of Implementation in the Sustainable Development Agenda

As this critical juncture, we request your attention to the following important issues concerning gender justice, women’s human rights and means of implementation.

We call for a human rights based, gender sensitive, equitable, multi-pronged MoI strategy that incorporates universality and differentiation through an elaboration of the principle of  Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) between countries where there are sound strategies that enhance resource mobilisation catering to the most marginalised in both urban and rural contexts. Here we are  clear on the difference between the role of the public sector and the State as the primary duty bearer.

We heard earlier this week strong calls from some member states on the inclusion of CBDR in the outcome document and we as civil society fully support this call. While we have various priorities including gender equality and SRHR to be included in the outcome document, we are completely against trading-off CBDR  over those.

We are deeply disappointed by the outcome of the Addis Ababa conference last week. Despite being heralded by many governments as a strong outcome for women and girls, governments failed to commit to the reforms necessary to redress the profound inequities in our global and national economic policies that condemn women and girls to precarious forms of employment; increase their burden of unpaid care work; undermine their livelihoods as smallholder farmers and fisherfolks; and jeopardise their access to essential public services such as safe and reliable urban and rural transport services, which in turn hampers access to health and education. This not only fails to fulfil the original Financing for Development mandate; it endangers the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda and other key agendas for women’s and girls’ rights, including the Beijing Platform for Action and the the Cairo Programme of Action.

This week and next, governments have the opportunity to bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality by ensuring that the means of implementation for the post-2015 development agenda is genuinely oriented to fulfil the human rights of women and girls.

We hereby call on member states to:

1) Enable the post-2015 agenda implementation through transfer of non-marketised knowledge, expertise, technology facilitation that is environmentally sound, safe, accessible, just, renewable,  and with financial resource mobilisation;

2)Address social, economic and environmental dimensions in an integrated manner under the Global Partnership for Development with governments, UN and other stakeholders taking responsibility for the follow up and review and accountability at national, regional and global levels, particular focus needs to be focused on women.

3) Strengthen governance and accountability at national , regional and global levels in a more integrated manner. This requires ensuring robust regulation and accountability of the private sector; ensuring governments have adequate policy space under international financial, trade, and investment arrangements to pursue their own sustainable development strategies; and fundamentally ensuring coherence between these arrangements and the binding human rights obligations of governments.

4) Build on existing commitments,  and human rights agreements, such as conventions like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD); the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; their Optional Protocols; Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolutions 11/8, 15/7, and 18/2 on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights; HRC resolution 17/19 and 27.32 expressing concern on violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity; and others.

5) Commit to monitoring and review  of progress periodically at least 4-5 times by 2030 in a comprehensive, transparent and participatory manner, based on robust data that is disaggregated taking into account race, colour, gender, age, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, language, religion, culture, migratory and citizenship status, political or other opinion, national or social origin, geographic location, economic situation, urban/rural access to economic opportunity, HIV and health status, marital status, pregnancy status, occupation, birth or disability.

In conclusion, the path to a transformative post 2015 agenda will be based on how boldly we put in place the above means of implementation in the outcome document and implement this at global, regional and national levels.