An inclusive food systems transformation shall prioritize women and girls
We spoke to Ambassador Mathu Joyini, Permanent Representative of South Africa to the UN and Chair of the 66th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66), which wrapped some days ago.
How can we make the work of international, regional, and local decision-making platforms more responsive to the needs of women and girls, especially when talking about climate actions, building resilience to environmental hazards, and working towards a food systems transformation?
On this issue, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) was clear: the entire UN system needs to reinvent itself and support all efforts that are aimed at preventing and eliminating sexual and gender-based violence, including sexual harassment. Additionally, we need to ensure that within the United Nations system, adequate resources are assigned to UN Women and other bodies, specialized agencies, funds, and programmes that contribute to the promotion of gender equality, human rights, and the empowerment of all women and girls. At regional and country level, it is important that we promote the full, equal, and meaningful participation and leadership of young women and adolescent girls in decision-making processes on climate change and disaster risk management.
We must promote and invest in gender-responsive, quality, and inclusive education; lifelong learning; reskilling; and training for women and girls. Ultimately, we should adopt, strengthen, and implement policies, strategies, and programmes to address the root causes of, prevent, and end all forms of violence against women and girls. The Commission highlighted the need to support and fund research and analysis on the nexus of gender equality, environment, and climate change to inform policy and programme implementation, including conducting vulnerability assessments, studies, and research to better understand the impacts on women and girls.
The reality is that we need to re-engineer all systems at international and national level to effectively deal with issues of climate change, with an emphasis on how the solutions are targeted at women and girls. Funding and knowledge sharing should be directed at women and girls, especially when you are trying to address rural farmers and food security
What were the key outcomes and main messages coming out of CSW66, and what are the next steps as the international community redoubles efforts and commitments around gender equality ahead of 2030?
Let me first say how important it was that so many Ministers and other dignitaries attended CSW66 in person in New York as leaders of their delegations. This was an important affirmation of the importance of the CSW as the main platform for the follow-up to the Implementation of the Beijing Platform and Programme Action. The priority theme chosen for CSW66, “Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes,” also confirmed the importance of the Commission as a place to develop new norms for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
I am pleased to say that we were able to address the issues facing women and girls while also addressing the impacts that climate change poses regarding these core issues. As was said by various speakers during the CSW66 discussions, climate change is a risk multiplier and is already causing significant challenges to all of humanity, but with specific consequences on women and girls. Many examples were given on how climate change affects subsistence agricultural practices for rural women; how it leads to forced migration resulting in cultural and heritage loss; how conflict over diminishing resources has a disproportionate impact on women and girls. Climate change, environmental crises, and natural disasters have a disproportionate impact on women. There was also recognition that women are also agents of change all over the world in these areas.
One of the main recommendations emerging from CSW66 is the importance of the integration of gender perspectives into climate change, environmental, and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes. There was an important discussion on gender-responsive finance, in particular with calls for climate finance to have a gender lens. CSW66 urged all countries to put more women as leaders in climate change, in reducing environmental crises, and in managing the response to natural disasters.
Furthermore, the outcome of CSW66 addressed issues affecting women in the world of work. These include the status of care work and ensuring equal pay for equal work.
At end of the day, what is important is that as our countries recover from COVID-19. We need to ensure a total reconstruction of our economies, recalling that women were the majority workers in the sectors hardest hit by COVID-19. The new economy should be different for women.
CSW66 had an important role to review the working methods of the Commission. I am pleased by what was achieved because we have opened up space more for civil society. We have also agreed to create a permanent platform for the youth in all future sessions of the Commission. I thank civil society from all over the world who took part in the CSW66.
Looking ahead to the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) this year, during which an in-depth review of SDG 5 will be held, what is needed to accelerate the economic empowerment of women, especially among women and girls living in rural and indigenous communities?
Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) is on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. The HLPF should promote key measures to enhance the economic empowerment of women. We should share experiences to ensure we expand gender-responsive financing and budgeting to all countries. In South Africa, we have set quotas for women in all public procurement. Our experience shows that it can be done in many other countries and regions.
We should use the HLPF to address the issue of paid care work. HLPF, therefore, will be an opportunity to discuss and agree on a range of policies to improve women’s economic empowerment using lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.