Progress on women’s rights and the Sustainable Development Goals – Takeaways from UN Women’s Gender Snapshot 2024
Gender equality is good for people, planet and peace, and investing in women and gender equality is urgent. If we don’t, it will cost us. That is the resounding message of UN Women’s latest flagship report, Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2024.
With only six years remaining until the 2030 deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations in 2015 and endorsed by governments everywhere, UN Women’s new flagship report highlights gender equality trends and points to six actions that could be game changers.
Here are some key takeaways from the Gender Snapshot report.
1. The economic cost of gender inequality: The world is missing out on $10 trillion every year by not investing in women’s rights.
2. With the right policies and investments, achieving equality is within reach, and there is evidence that it makes for a better world and healthier economies.
3. Progress on gender equality globally is too slow to achieve SDG 5 and the Sustainable Development Goals.
4. The Gender Snapshot Report outlines six investment priorities to turn the tide:
Ensuring women farmers have access to land and resources, climate-resilient agroecology for sustainable food systems and food security for all.
Clean energy transition that includes gender-responsive financing and puts women in leadership.
Closing the digital gender divide, addressing digital violence, and increasing women’s and girls’ leadership in science, technology and innovation.
Making sure girls go to and stay in school to close the gender gaps in education and opportunities.
Investing in social protection systems and the care economy to reduce poverty and create green jobs.
Climate policymaking led by women, redistributing resources to build their resilience to climate change and loss of biodiversity, and providing reparations for harms caused by carbon emissions.