Gender equality is essential to achieve a just, equitable, sustainable and peaceful world. However, gender inequalities remain persistent across all societies. Women and girls in all their diversity are disproportionately affected by crises and emergencies, and yet they are the ones driving change in their communities.
What needs to change
The rights of women and girls in all their diversity must be protected. Women’s rights organisations are key agents of change in this context: they must be supported and involved in decision-making at community, national and international levels.
Gender equality must be central to governments’ priorities and policies, as we cannot achieve economic justice, climate justice, health equity, equal humanitarian assistance, equal access to rights without addressing gender inequalities.
Our priorities
The UK Government has a key role to play and must prioritise gender equality in its international development and humanitarian policies.
We are calling on the UK Government to:
- Increase funding for programmes that centre gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights
- Ensure gender equality is prioritised in all programmes and policies, considering the disproportionate impact of crises and emergencies on women and girls
- Increase women’s and girls’ voices and leadership and invest financially and politically in women’s and girls’ rights organisations
- Centre gender justice when tackling the climate emergency
- Prioritise women’s economic justice in economic policy and crisis recovery
- Centre women and girls in emergency response
- Make gender-based violence prevention a holistic priority and expand the focus on sexual violence in conflict into a broader commitment to gender-based violence prevention
