May 2013: UN Women has prepared a paper and summary note on incorporating gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment into the post-2015 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The summary note recalls that the MDGs both include a stand-alone goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment (MDG 3) and also integrate gender perspectives into other goals through targets and indicators. It outlines the need for a “transformative,” stand-alone goal on these issues in the post-2015 framework and the SDGs.

The goal should: be universal; address the structural foundations of gender-based inequality, including in the three dimensions of sustainable development – social, economic and environmental; ensure accountability; and capture and have targets on the core catalytic factors for achieving gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment. The proposed target areas for the goal are: freedom from violence; gender equality in capabilities and resources; and gender equality in decision-making power and voice in public and private institutions. The note also provides illustrative indicators for monitoring the goal.

In addition to the stand-alone goal, UN Women argues, gender-specific targets should be integrated across other goals in order to ensure meaningful achievement of those goals by addressing the specific areas of gender-based discrimination.

The summary note is based on the longer paper, which provides the evidence base for a transformative goal and a fuller list of indicators. [Publication: A Stand-alone Goal on Achieving Gender Equality, Women’s Rights and Women’s Empowerment: Imperatives and Key Components]