Opinion: For the Pact for the Future to succeed, include women and girls

With little more than five years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, world leaders will gather at the Summit of the Future in New York to agree on a landmark Pact for the Future aimed at reviving flagging progress on these critical goals. Despite laudable efforts since the SDGs were adopted by the United Nations in 2015, the world is woefully behind its targets. Even the U.N. has said that progress is so far disappointing. We must accept that our current approaches are simply not working. The pact, therefore, must not only inspire the world to action, it must set out bold new ideas that have the potential to rapidly accelerate progress, and it mustn’t leave anyone behind. Unfortunately, early drafts of the document do not meet this bar. The so-called zero draft, circulated at the beginning of this year, was rightly criticized for the lack of focus on women and girls. Given that progress on SDG 5 (gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls) is behind, this is a cause for concern. Gender equality must be embedded throughout the pact As the blueprint for the next phase of global and multilateral cooperation, the pact will not be fit for purpose if gender equality is not embedded into every action. Let’s look at three aims of the pact as examples of why this is the case: ending poverty, tackling climate change, and improving security. We know that women aged between 25-30 are 25% more likely than men to live in extreme poverty. Yet we can reduce poverty levels across communities if we focus our attention on what women need, including access to education and work. When it comes to our response to climate change, there is a growing understanding that we must include gender. Women and girls are more likely to die or be displaced in natural disasters, and they work in sectors particularly impacted by climate change including agriculture. Failing to include women’s perspectives will only worsen inequality. Finally, as I know from my work, including women in peacebuilding improves security for everyone. Women are more likely to be subjected to sexual violence and are disproportionately affected when health care and education are disrupted during conflict. When women have a seat at the negotiating table, peace agreements are 35% more likely to last 15 years. Without concrete steps to accelerate progress toward gender equality, the pact will fail to achieve its aims. Mainstreaming gender equality is critical to achieving the accelerated impact the world desperately needs. Member states must increase women’s representation in government Yet the pact is only the beginning of this work. Once it has been agreed, member states will need to address the fact that women are underrepresented within the very governments we need to deliver on gender equality. The recent elections of women as heads of state in Mexico and Iceland, and the nomination of a woman for president in the United States, offer glimmers of hope. However, the statistics on women’s leadership at the highest levels of public office are still disheartening. Latest recorded figures by UN Women show that as of June this year, only 27 countries were led by a woman, while women held just 23% of ministerial positions. This needs to change if we’re going to achieve all of the aims set out in the pact, including those already mentioned. There is a clear relationship between women’s political leadership and a boost in economic growth: When given the opportunity to participate in public life, women can boost gross domestic product by up to 8%. Women’s involvement in environmental policymaking and behavior change has proven to be a constructive influence on how we protect our natural environment. Meanwhile, we can see that an increase in women in politics has a strong correlation with anti-corruption efforts and delivering high-quality public services. And when women hold positions of political leadership, their countries are less likely to go to war. At the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development, we are working to increase the representation of women at the highest levels of government across Africa. Many of the accomplished women leaders in our Amujae Initiative demonstrate how women can support sustainable development within their countries. These leaders include trail-blazing city leaders, government ministers, human rights lawyers, and social entrepreneurs. It is essential that women like these not only have a seat at the table but play a leading role. The Summit of the Future is a critical moment for the global community to come together and chart a new path forward. It is an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in achieving all our collective goals. Let us rise to the moment, because when women and girls succeed, we all succeed.