Time for G20 to empower women
We are just days away from the G20 Leaders’ Summit, the first to take place in the throes of a global pandemic. Fully cognizant of the many pressing concerns before G20 leaders this weekend, we, the Women’s Engagement Group (W20), recognize that the focus on women’s empowerment and gender equality are fundamental and essential components of the path toward our mutual goals of a full and equitable recovery from the twin health and economic challenges we face.
In these final days, we ask the G20 leaders to challenge themselves to live up to their promises of the past, seize this critical moment, and make women’s economic equality a reality. The disproportionate impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis on the lives and livelihoods of women may have added as many as 51 years to the time it will take to reach gender equality.
The 2020 W20 Communique makes incisive and timely policy recommendations for both a near-term economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the long-term realization of sustainable development as envisioned by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Now is the time for the G20 leaders to adopt the W20’s recommendations as commitments in their own declaration so as to turn our calls into concrete action.
The pandemic is having a devastating impact on society at large, but with a greater impact on women in their multiple roles and responsibilities. So far, relief packages adopted by governments across the world have failed to take into account the specific financial and institutional requirements for women to integrate fully into their countries’ economies. The W20 Communique offers recommendations to overcome these policy shortfalls and achieve sustainable and lasting change for women.
The G20 leaders know that, when women thrive and are included in their countries’ economies, all communities — men and women, young and old — thrive as well. By adopting the W20’s policy recommendations as enabling tools, the G20’s national and global efforts will lead to a more gender-equitable world. As champions for women’s empowerment, as respected leaders representing various communities and voices, and as concerned citizens in our global community, the W20 delegates hope the G20 leaders will lend their voices to this important call for action. They can reset the G20 economies by planning a recovery based on the principle of inclusiveness and an acknowledgment that the full and equitable participation of women in economic activity is critical to a faster socioeconomic recovery and is simply smart economics.
The whole world is looking for collective leadership to pull every country out of their economic, social and health crises, as the G20 has done before, in 2008. Its role is even more critical in 2020 and beyond. All efforts will be futile without the inclusion of women.
If not now, then when?