Making Gender Inequality History: G7 Gender Equality Council Releases Recommendations

On June 4, 2018, the Gender Equality Council for Canada’s G7 Presidency released a comprehensive set of recommendations in advance of the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec scheduled for June 6-8, 2018.

This is the first time in G7 history that a host nation has created a Gender Equality Council. The Government of Canada established the council to ensure that gender equality and gender-based analysis are integrated across all themes, activities and outcomes of Canada’s G7 Presidency.
 
CanWaCH congratulates the G7 Gender Equality Council members for their hard work and the insightful way in which they present the barriers to progress for women and girls, as well as the solutions to ensure girls and women are safe, healthy, educated, heard and empowered to make decisions about their own lives.
 
The council’s recommendations to G7 leaders have been published in a report, Make Gender Inequality History. The report’s title references the success of the Make Poverty History initiative, which 13 years ago mobilized and activated leaders of the world’s largest advanced economies to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people.

Yet, the Council points out that “violence, insecurity, poverty, and inequality still hold back billions of people and humanity as a whole, risking long-term instability and slowing global growth. At the core of each of these challenges are the undervalued – but powerful – lives of girls and women.”
 
The Council lays out a bold agenda and set of objectives for Canada’s G7 Presidency:

• Safe, healthy, educated, heard and empowered girls and women, supported with the resources and opportunities they need to be agents of change in their own lives and for a better world;
• Societies in which girls and women are equally represented in decision-making bodies and are free from harassment and violence;
• Economies that are prosperous, innovative, inclusive and more equitable;
• A healthy and sustainable planet; and,
• A world that is peaceful, just and secure.

Its recommendations are summarized around three key themes:

• Girls and Women: Safe, Healthy, Educated, Heard and Visible
• Economy: Inclusive, Innovative and Productive
• Planet: Healthy and Secure

Pointing out that the goals of G7 nations cannot be achieved if half of the world’s population – girls and women – is left behind, the Council calls for:

• Concrete commitments, paired with meaningful new investments, measurable targets and robust accountability measures, that build from across the Sustainable Development Goals—including SDG 5 to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment by 2030.
• Actions that recognize the diversity of girls and women, target multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and disadvantage, stop the rollback of women’s rights and leave no one behind.
• The diverse voices of girls and women to shape agendas, and to be present at all negotiation tables.

The Council further endorses the recommendations of the W7, arising from the summit held in Ottawa in April 2018, and calls for their inclusion in the G7 outcomes and implementation.
 
The complete report with the full set of the Council’s recommendations can be found here.