Position Paper for the 2018 High Level Political Forum (HLPF): Transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies

The complexity of women's lives and realities is reflected in the intersectional nature of the sustainable development goals. While 8 of the 17 goals explicitly integrate commitments to women and girls, the achievement of targets across the agenda has implications for women’s and girls’ human rights. The six goals under review at the 2018 High Level Political Forum, on water and sanitation, energy, safe and sustainable cities, protecting biodiversity, addressing unsustainable consumption and production and ensuring the means of implementation to achieve the SDGs are as important for gender equality as they are critical for sustainable development. This paper offers a detailed gender analysis of the six goals, demonstrates how women and girls are differently impacted by development failures and provides specific recommendations for future action. As governments take forward implementation of these SDGs, the women’s major group offers the following cross-cutting recommendations: 1. Actively support the meaningful participation of women in decision-making. From increasing access to safe drinking water and ensuring that women and girls have the information and means necessary to practice menstrual health, to protecting forests, biodiversity and sustainable agriculture, to addressing safety and security within cities, women offer particular expertise and must be at decision-making tables. Governments should create formal opportunities to ensure that the most marginalized groups of women and women most affected by policies and programs under consideration have a say in their development. 2. Invest in the collection of gender data. The lack of data disaggregated by sex, age, location, ethnicity, migration status and other factors sets back development efforts by failing to give adequate information about who is being left behind. Investing in efforts to close the massive gender data gap is essential for effective budgeting and policymaking. 3. Address gender-discriminatory norms, stereotypes and gender-based violence that hold women and girls back. Stigma surrounding menstrual hygiene, stereotypes about women’s roles that prevents their participation in the sustainable energy sector, and harassment in the streets of cities all limit women’s ability to participate in public life and achieve equality. Strategies to address gender discriminatory norms and violence must be integrated into policies and programs to address each of the SDGs