February 2014: The Addressing Inequalities Networked Alliance (AINA) has released the results of an e-consultation on promoting equality, including gender equality and social equity. Participants recommended, inter alia, expanding the working concept of inequality to include additional social dimensions and increasing emphasis on gender inequality.

The consultation was co-led by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UN Women, with support from the Governments of Ghana and Denmark. It took place from 16 December 2013-17 January 2014, with participation from nearly 300 individuals, and aimed to provide input to the UN Technical Support Team’s (TST) Issue Brief on ‘Promoting Equality, including Social Equity’ and recommendations to the Eighth Session of the UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The synthesis report highlights seven key messages related to the need to: define the concept of inequalities more broadly to include social inequalities, such as ageing, disabilities and migrants; collect and include disaggregated data and targets for all relevant groups; focus on local actors, contexts and solutions, including community groups, civil society and grassroots organizations; include Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) concerns and needs; more prominently address health concerns and health inequality; place gender inequality at the front and center of the inequality debate, including by incorporating gender-focused targets and indicators for all goals, and recognizing how gender inequality reinforces and cuts across other inequalities; and address macro-structural economic inequality and its relationship to social inequality.

The majority of participants supported data disaggregation across targets and indicators, agreeing that the targets should be designed to progressively reduce inequalities and raise standards over the lifespan of the goal.

Many contributors commented on the need to address macro-structural economic inequality that prioritizes the rich and disadvantages the poor, stressing that the OWG should identify the structural factors that promote such inequalities. Some participants also raised concerns about: ageing; children’s rights and protections; chronic unemployment, especially among youth; persons with disabilities; educational equity and access; linguistic minorities; and religious discrimination.

AINA was formed following the global thematic consultation on addressing inequalities in the post-2015 development agenda. [Consultation Website] [IISD RS Coverage of OWG 8]