Committees

Working with civil society and business on SDG 5

24 January 2017

The Women and Equalities Committee inquiry into Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) continues this week with evidence from two panels.

Witnesses

Wednesday 25 January 2017, The Thatcher Room, Portcullis House

At 9.30am

Panel 1: working with civil society and business on SDG 5

  • Lesley Irving, Head of Equality Policy, Scottish Government
  • Farooq Ullah, Co-Chair, UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development
  • Lynn Everson, Immediate Past President, Business and Professional Women UK
  • Dionne Nelson, Head of Business Development and Innovation, Women's Resource Centre

At 10.30am

Panel 2: Leave no-one behind

  • Dr Carole Easton, Young Women's Trust
  • Pragna Patel, Southall Black Sisters
  • Natasha Walter, Women for Refugee Women
  • Katharine Sacks-Jones, Agenda Alliance

Purpose of the session

The session with panel 1 aims to:

  • Find out what role the private and third sector have to play in achieving SDG5 in the UK, particularly in partnership with government;
  • Assess current levels of awareness of SDG5 across civil society and business in the UK;
  • Find out what Government could do to increase awareness of and action on SDG 5 by business and civil society

Issues likely to be covered with panel 2 include:

  • How does the theme in the Sustainable Development Goals of 'leave no-one behind' have relevance for the UK?
  • What specific action is the Government taking on this? What more needs to be done?
  • What partnership working is there between government, civil society and business on this theme?

Background

What are the sustainable development goals?

In September 2015, 193 Member States attending the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Summit in New York adopted a new global development framework: 'Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development'. The Agenda consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets. These commit all signatory countries to tackle issues including climate change, access to quality education and the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies. The SDGs officially came into force on 1 January 2016 and the UK must now move forward with implementing the Goals at home and supporting other countries to achieve them overseas.

The UK Government played a significant role in ensuring the universality of the SDGs in that they apply equally to developed and developing countries. This stands in contrast to their precursor, the Millennium Development Goals, which applied only to developing countries.

The UK Government also led on the inclusion of a standalone goal (SDG5) on gender equality.

This inquiry is focused on SDG5, but will also touch on other SDGs with significant gender impact. It is important to note that all 17 Goals are intended to work together to reinforce one another and that women's empowerment and gender equality underpin many of the goals.

What is SDG5?

UN Women describes SDG5 as "the stand-alone gender goal" because it is specifically dedicated to achieving women's equality and empowerment. However, it notes that gender equality also underpins many of the other SDGs.

The SDG5 targets are as follows:

  • End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
  • Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation
  • Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation
  • Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate
  • Ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
  • Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences
  • Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws
  • Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
  • Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels

Further information

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