How Gender Equality Accelerators Can Advance Progress in Gender Equality and Women’s Rights

Despite years of work, gender equality and women empowerment are still far from arm’s reach. Progress remains insufficient across indicators in Goal 5 of the SDGs, which will hinder the progress of other goals due to the interconnectedness of the sustainable development issues. How can the Gender Equality Accelerators framework by UN Women help tackle urgent issues and accelerate solutions across the gender landscape?

Significantly Off-track

At the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda, most of the Sustainable Development Goals were still off track. UN Women reported that no SDG 5 indicators were met in 2023, and only two were considered close to the target. The UN Secretary-General has made an urgent call to action for world leaders to step up their efforts, including in advancing gender equality and women empowerment.

The issue of gender and women stretches across multiple aspects of life. In leadership, governance, and the economy, for starters, women’s roles and potential are often overlooked. Globally, they only represent 22.8% of ministerial positions in 2023. This lack of recognition also translates to the lack of gender-responsive governance and financial systems, further excluding women and girls from the efforts toward prosperity and welfare.  

Moreover, violence against women and girls leads to significant costs for individuals and societies. UN Women estimated that a staggering 245 million women and girls aged 15 and older around the world are victims of physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner each year. 

Furthermore, gender-based violence tends to increase during times of crisis. In 2022, women and girls living in conflict-affected contexts reached 614 million, underscoring the urgency for gender-perspective measures in conflict and crisis responses.

The Gender Equality Accelerators

Advancing progress in gender equality and women empowerment is crucial to achieving the SDG targets and ensuring a better life for women and girls. In this light, UN Women developed the Gender Equality Accelerators framework through a comprehensive analysis of gender issues. The organization conducted academic research and program evaluation to identify the root causes of problems in the gender landscape and possible solutions to overcome them.

The Gender Equality Accelerators are designed to accelerate progress and reap significant results according to the SDGs. They can be tailored to fit national contexts and priorities and must be implemented in collaboration with national stakeholders.

There are 10 Gender Equality Accelerators listed in the framework:

• Women’s Equal Participation in Political Decision-Making and Institutions: Supporting women to lead in political decision-making and institutions.
• Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting: Unlocking evidence, capacities, and skills to embed equality in government planning and budgeting.
• Transforming Care Systems: Implementing comprehensive 5R policies to recognize, reduce, redistribute, represent, and reward paid and unpaid care and domestic work, with a strong role for the public sector in investing in social care infrastructure.
• Women in the World of Work: Leveraging social protection and gender-responsive procurement for women’s entrepreneurship, decent work, and income security.
• Gender-responsive Climate Action: Advancing gender-responsive just transitions to sustainable green/blue economies with gender equality and women’s rights at the center.
• Ending Violence Against Women and Girls: Preventing and responding to all forms of violence against women and girls by addressing causes and underlying factors and improving quality and essential services.
• Women, Peace, and Security: Increasing global peace and security through women’s leadership and inclusion in prevention, peacemaking and peacebuilding, and gender-responsive justice and protection.
• Leadership, Empowerment, Access, and Protection in Humanitarian Coordination and Response: Advancing women’s leadership, protection, and access to learning and livelihoods in humanitarian emergencies and crises through partnerships with local, national, and international stakeholders.
• Women’s Resilience to Disasters: Strengthening women’s voice, agency, and leadership in disaster and climate risk reduction and resilience by securing gender-responsive measures and governance systems.
• Women Count: Supporting countries to improve the production and use of gender data to monitor SDG progress and scale up data-driven policy action for women and girls globally.

Implementing this framework demands synergies and collaboration between governments, the UN system, and civil society to achieve sustainable and long-lasting results to advance gender equality and women’s rights worldwide.
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Editor: Nazalea Kusuma