Women and SDG 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development
The SDGs can only be realized with strong global partnerships and cooperation, so SDG-17 focuses on strengthening the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.
UN Women states: „Gender equality is central to all of the SDGs, but often, women end up on the short end of the means of implementation, in whatever form. (..) Only 5 per cent of foreign aid funds had gender equality as a principle objective in 2012-2013. Just around a third of countries have an office for gender statistics.“ And in July 2019 „The Guardian“ criticized: „Only 1 % of gender equality funding is going to women’s organizations. (..) The latest figures from 2016 - 2017 show that a meagre 1 % of all gender-focused aid went to women’s organisations. The bulk of this money went to international organisations based in the donor countries, rather than feminist groups leading their own, context-specific solutions.“
To fully achieve SDG-17, women need to lead decisions, thus being able to make women’s issues visible and influence policies delivering on gender equality. As „The Guardian“ puts it: „Donors must engage feminist movements as equal partners, work to transform their own institutions, and campaign to build an interdependent and coherent feminist funding ecosystem that unlocks resources for human rights and gender justice.“
In a nutshell: Women have a critical role to play in all of the Sustainable Development Goals. Closing gender gaps will tremendously accelerate progress towards all other SDGs. Neither poverty, nor education, health, jobs and livelihoods, food security, environmental and energy sustainability will be solved without addressing gender inequality.
This is why we are placing women’s empowerment at the centre of all our efforts at Audiopedia., An empowered woman has a sense of self-worth. She can determine her own choices, and has access to opportunities and resources providing her with an array of options she can pursue. (UN Population Fund). And women’s empowerment may not be seen as a zero-sum game where gains for women automatically imply losses for men. Quite the contrary: „When women are empowered, everyone benefits. No society can be just, and no human or economic development even-spread and sustainable if women, who represent half of the population, are left behind, if their needs and aspirations are not addressed.” (Dr. Lamis Abu-Nahleh)