WMG: 10 Key Priorities for the 2017 Ministerial Declaration

● Respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of women and girls

○ Respect, protect, and fulfill the full range of human rights of girls and women, including economic rights and sexual and reproductive rights

○ Recognize women and girls in all their diversity, including women and girls of all ages, sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, migration, refugee, health, ability or marital statuses among others.

○ Recognize women as rights-holders and active agents in achieving the 2030 Agenda and not simply as a vulnerable or marginalized group

○ Ensure gender mainstreaming in national policy plans and recognize the interlinkages between gender equality and all sustainable development goals

● Protect and engage environmental and women’s human rights defenders

o Protect environmental and women’s human rights defenders from violence, harassment, and intimidation, including by ensuring justice and accountability for crimes and abuses committed against human rights defenders

o Strengthen strategies, mechanisms and funding to involve civil society leadership in implementation, monitoring, and decision-making at all levels, including and especially grassroots women’s rights organizations

o Recognize feminist, women’s and youth-led organizations and movements as key actors to achieve women’s rights, gender equality and gender justice

o Recognize that without a safe, supported and vibrant civil society the promise to leave no one behind cannot be realized ● Address the underlying structures that foster inequalities

○ Reform the macroeconomic policies that concentrate wealth among the very few while impoverishing the many

○ Recognize the links between gender inequality and inequalities in all three dimensions of sustainable development

○ Condemn all forms of racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny that continue to marginalize and harm people’s all over the world

○ Restore the primacy of human rights laws over trade and investment agreements

○ Commit to universal implementation of a living wage

○ Commit to implement measures to address systemic issues such as migration, climate change, conflict and militarism, the sexual division of labour, concentration of wealth and unsustainable production and consumption patterns.

● Reform and repeal discriminatory laws and policies

○ Uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and women to free, prior and informed consent on issues relating to land and other natural resources and enable women access to ownership and control over productive resources and guarantee their rights to property and inheritance

○ Commit to measures that recognize, reduce, redistribute and value unpaid care work

○ Commit to enact and implement laws and policies that protect the rights of domestic workers, including migrant domestic workers

○ Commit to review measures that rely solely on penal policies to address discrimination and rights violations without due diligence to not only criminalize but also provide comprehensive measures to address violations and their root causes

● Create and strengthen gender-responsive public services

o Recognize the importance of gender-responsive infrastructure as a critical contributor to gender equality by, inter alia, reducing the burden of unpaid care and increasing women’s safety and mobility

o Commit to create and strengthen gender and age responsive education and health services, including sexual and reproductive health services, information and education, particularly in conflict and post conflict settings and rural areas

o Commit to universal social protection as a critical tool in eliminating poverty

● Recognize the links between the environment, women’s rights and gender equality

○ Reaffirm obligations to address climate change through common but differentiated responsibilities

○ Recognize that women are disproportionately impacted by climate change, disasters, and conflict, especially women living in poverty, women with disabilities, older women and indigenous women

○ Commit to development models based on gender, environmental and economic justice rather than exploitation of women and the natural environment ● Recognize the links between gender equality and financing

○ Recognize the impact that illicit financial flows have on failing to achieve gender equality by, inter alia, reducing national capacity to support public services that women rely on

○ Recognize that public-private partnerships are an inappropriate vehicle for financing the social and human rights goals at the heart of the SDGs

○ Recognize the importance of regulating the private sector, especially in regards to environmental impacts, including emissions, health and social impacts, and human rights violations, especially of women’s human rights

○ Emphasize the obligation of developed countries to adequately contribute to SDGs financing

○ Commit to establish an intergovernmental tax body and fairer tax systems

● Recognize women’s and girls’ autonomy and decision-making as critical to sustainable development and gender equality

○ Condemn all forms of violence against women, including physical, psychological, sexual and economic, in public and private spheres

○ Reaffirm the right of women and girls to have control over and decide freely on their sexuality

● Collect and use gender- and human rights-responsive data

○ Commit to collecting disaggregated data for women over 49 and adolescents under 15

○ Recognize civil society as critical partners for data collection and verification

○ Commit to collecting data missing on key issues, such as violence against women

○ Recognize the critical role of qualitative data as well as quantitative data

● Recommit to the universality of the agenda

○ Recognize that no country has achieved the goals of the 2030 Agenda completely and that all countries must take action to achieve the SDGs within their own countries as well as evaluate the impact of their policies for global achievement of the SDGs

○ Acknowledge that there are structural and systemic barriers to the achievement of the 2030 agenda that must be addressed. Recognize that austerity measures and human rights abuses globally jeopardize achievement of the 2030 Agenda in all countries of the world

○ Commit to strengthening the UN’s institutional architecture to promote coherent action while at the same time promoting the integrity of existing commitments.