States failing on gender commitments, new report concludes
Dr Lata Narayanaswamy, Associate Professor in the Politics of Global Development, has published a report on global gender equality alongside Oxfam International.
Dr Narayanaswamy of the School of Politics and International Studies has worked with Amina Hersi, Head of Gender Rights and Justice at Oxfam International, to jointly publish a briefing paper examining the state of gender equality over the last thirty years following the commitments made under the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA).
The report launches Oxfam International’s gender justice campaign, Personal to Powerful: Holding the line for gender justice in the face of growing anti-rights movements, and highlights the failure of states to fulfil the commitments made under the BPfA, attributing this both to a lack of political will and an inherently unequal economic system. This is alongside the rise of a number of anti-rights movements leveraging crises to reinforce systems that favour the wealthy and privilege men while disadvantaging women and LGBTQIA+ individuals.
In order to counter this erosion of the social contract, Narayanaswamy and Hersi lay out a number of recommendations, including:
- Upholding bodily autonomy and SRHRJ (Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice) by ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health services.
- Ending austerity, increasing taxes on the rich and cancelling the unsustainable debts of low and middle-income countries to increase investment in universal public services.
- Recognising care as a public good and acknowledging the importance of care work by investing in public infrastructure and services, social protection and publicly funded healthcare systems.
- Supporting feminist and queer organisations to hold governments to account and promote gender justice worldwide.
The report will be officially launched at the NGO Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) Forum on Wednesday 19 March. The event, Broken Promises: A spotlight on SRHRJ, the rise of anti-rights actors and challenges on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, will take place at CCUN in New York.
The full report and an executive summary can be accessed here.
A blog on the report can be accessed here.
You can also find out more about Oxfam’s gender justice work here.
Dr Lata Narayanaswamy is Associate Professor in the Politics of Global Development and a member of the Centre for Global Development. Alongside her work on gender justice, she is involved in ongoing projects on climate change, water security, and decolonising development.
