Power and the Sustainable Development Goals: a feminist analysis

ABSTRACT

This article offers a power analysis of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) process and outcomes, from a feminist perspective. Many see, in the SDGs, several opportunities for progress on gender equality and women's rights, if not for transformation. Yet there are many reasons for scepticism, as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development's vision is not always met with strong enough language, clear policies or funding provisions. Realising the ‘transformative potential’ of the Agenda in the decade and a half to come will be far from a technocratic exercise – and this is particularly true for the full realisation of women's rights. A first step is to consider how structural power relations are challenged or reinforced in the Agenda and the SDGs, and in plans for their implementation and resourcing.

Desde una perspectiva feminista, el presente artículo ofrece un análisis del poder vinculado al proceso y los resultados de los ods. Muchas observadoras consideran que éstos brindan algunas oportunidades para lograr avances, si no transformaciones, en las áreas de igualdad de género y derechos de las mujeres. Sin embargo, existen muchas razones que hacen que persista el escepticismo, pues la visión planteada por la Agenda no siempre es respaldada por un lenguaje contundente, políticas claras y/o mecanismos de financiación. En la próxima década y media, concretar el “potencial transformador” de la Agenda distará mucho de un ser un ejercicio tecnocrático, lo cual es particularmente cierto cuando se trata de la plena realización de los derechos de las mujeres. El primer paso implica considerar cómo las relaciones de poder estructurales se ven cuestionadas o reafirmadas por la Agenda y los ods, así como en los planes orientados a su implementación y su financiamiento.

Cet article propose une analyse du pouvoir du processus et des résultats des ODD, d'un point de vue féministe. Nombreux sont ceux qui voient, dans les ODD, plusieurs occasions de progrès, sinon de transformation, en matière d’égalité de genre et de droits de l'homme. Cependant, il y a de nombreuses raisons de se montrer sceptique, car la vision de l'Agenda n'est pas toujours accompagnée de mots suffisamment forts, de politiques claires ou des dispositions de financement requises. Réaliser le «potentiel de transformation» de l'Agenda dans la décennie et demie à venir ne sera pas un exercise technocratique, loin de là — et c'est tout particulièrement le cas pour la pleine réalisation des droits de la femme. Une première étape consiste à considérer la manière dont les rapports de pouvoir structurels sont mis en question ou renforcés dans l'Agenda et les ODD, et dans les plans relatifs à leur mise en œuvre et dotation en ressources.

KEYWORDS:

• Power
• empowerment
• justice
• gender
• growth
• human rights

Notes on contributor

Valeria Esquivel is co-Editor of this issue of Gender & Development. She is Research Coordinator for Gender and Development at UNRISD, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. Postal address: UNRISD, Palais des Nations 1211, Geneva 10, Switzerland. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1. SDG 13, ‘Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts', is qualified by the acknowledgement that ‘the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change' (UN 2015, 23). This is precisely the agreement reached in Paris in December 2015. The Paris Agreement will be open for signing by the countries on 22 April 2016 in New York. It can only enter into force once it has been ratified by 55 countries, representing at least 55 per cent of emissions. See the Adoption of the Agreement document, COP 21, retrieved at www.cop21.gouv.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/l09r01.pdf (last checked 20 January 2016).

2. According to UN (2015), the Addis Ababa Action Agenda ‘is an integral part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ (para. 40).

3. The wording of Target 10.1 does not contradict income concentration in the hands of the richest. Traditional inequality indicators, like the Gini Coefficient or the Palma ratio contrast the evolution of incomes at different levels of the distribution of income, not only at lower levels, as Target 10.1 does.

4. The chosen indicator for this target is the share of labour income over total income. See UNSD (2015).

5. I am not discussing the nature of power here, and have opted for a fairly general definition. For a discussion applied to climate governance, see Okereke et al. (2009).

6. See Adams and Tobin (2014) on the increasing influence of the business sector in shaping development agendas.

7. The high-level political forum will meet every four years (para. 87), and conduct both country-level reviews (para. 84) and thematic reviews on cross-cutting issues (para. 85).

8. For a long read on the gender impacts of macro-economic instability, see e.g. Antonopulos (2014). For a short read, see Heintz (2015).

9. We are in an era of ‘theories of change’. There is a vast literature on these methodologies, used by social and economic policymakers and practitioners, but in layperson's terms this translates into a desire to understand and track accurately causal links between activities and events, including planned development interventions, and the changes seen in society which are presumed to be wholly or partly attributable to these activities and events.

10. As mentioned in the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ consideration of the Greece report, ‘the global economic system in recent decades had created a type of a pyramid where on the top one found financial institutions, frequently given a privileged status’. See more at www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16568&LangID=E#sthash.aEi9PeLJ.dpuf (last checked by the author 20 January 2016).

11. See Naila Kabeer (1999) for an early definition, and a recent review on voice and agency by Gammage et al. (2016).

12. For similar accounts on the reluctance of development policymakers and practitioners to use the word ‘power’ but their acceptance of the ‘empowerment’ concept, see Eyben (2015) and Batliwala (2007).

13. Universal access to ‘quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education’ is also proposed in Target 4.2.

14. Social protection policies/systems ‘for all’ are also mentioned in Targets 1.3 and 10.4. Target 5.4 emphasises that care is a dimension of social protection.

15. Target 2.2 uses a similar wording as a means to ‘double agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers’ by 2030.

16. Which have failed to ensure the decline of poverty in the past (Cornia 2006, 23) and seem not to be enough at present (Woodward 2015).

17. The EGM report also lists among the challenges: the accountability of state and non-state actors in promoting gender-equal sustainable development; the asymmetries in the public–private–civil ‘partnerships for development’; and data collection and disaggregation to monitor and evaluate the SDGs' progress as a challenge.

18. I am referring to policies that favour domestic demand and labour-intensive tradable sectors that generate decent employment and close gender gaps, for example through the promotion of active labour policies capable of generating employment for women and men; control capital inflows and regulate the financial sector; redistribute both income and assets through tax and income policies; fund and sustain social protection ‘for all’, including through care policies; and does all the above respecting human rights, environmental and labour standards.

19. On the fluidity of interests opposing gender equality agendas, see Kabeer (2015).

20. On a critical take of ‘policy coherence’ in the development context, see Siitonen (2016).

21. Monitoring indicators will be decided in March 2016. The state of the debate in December 2015 is reflected in UNSD (2015). Among the qualitative indicators proposed is ‘whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote equality and non-discrimination on the bases of sex’ for Target 5.1, ‘End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere’ (UNSD 2015). This is a good example of the advantages and limitations of indicators in general, even qualitative ones. Although the detail of which these legal frameworks has still to be developed, they broadly refer to national legislation prohibiting discrimination on the bases of sex in line with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), guaranteeing equal pay for equal work and protecting maternity in line with International Labour Organization Conventions, and removing formal discrimination in tax collection, doing business, property and inheritance rights, etc. (UN Women 2015). However, all this means that Target 5.1 translates into ‘ending all forms of formal discrimination against all women and girls everywhere’. The monitoring indicator is silent on discriminatory practices, and on the distance between law and law enforcement. The end of all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere requires indicators on the existence of public institutions and public policies to ensure law enforcement and the effective protection of women against discrimination, moving beyond formal requirements to the means of implementation. It also requires outcome indicators that measure the elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organisations, or enterprises. Country reports to the CEDAW Committee, and the guidelines the Committee has put into place, could serve for the basis of the design of such indicators.