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This International Women’s Day, 8 March 2024, join in celebrating under the theme Invest in women: Accelerate progress.
The world is facing many crises, ranging from geopolitical conflicts to soaring poverty levels and the escalating impacts of climate change. These challenges can only be addressed by solutions that empower women. By investing in women, we can spark change and speed the transition towards a healthier, safer, and more equal world for all.
If current trends continue, more than 342 million women and girls could be living extreme poverty by 2030. To ensure women’s needs and priorities are considered, governments must prioritize gender-responsive financing and increase public spending on essential services and social protection.
Policymakers must also value, recognize, and account for the vital contribution women make to economies worldwide through paid and unpaid care work. Women spend around three times more time on unpaid care work than men and if these activities were assigned a monetary value they would account for more than 40 percent of GDP.
Invest in women: Accelerate progress
Achieving gender equality and women’s well-being in all aspects of life is more crucial than ever if we want to create prosperous economies and a healthy planet. However, we are facing a key challenge: the alarming $360 billion annual deficit in gender equality measures by 2030.
Here are five key areas needing joint action:
- Investing in women, a human rights issue: Time is running out. Gender equality is the greatest human rights challenge, benefiting everyone.
- Ending poverty: Due to the COVID pandemic and conflicts, 75 million more people have fallen into severe poverty since 2020. Immediate action is crucial to prevent over 342 million women and girls living in poverty by 2030.
- Implementing gender-responsive financing: Conflicts and rising prices may lead 75% of countries to cut public spending by 2025, negatively impacting women and their essential services.
- Shifting to a green economy and care society: The current economic system disproportionately affects women. Advocates propose a shift to a green economy and care society to amplify women’s voices.
- Supporting feminist change-makers: Despite leading efforts, feminist organizations receive only 0.13% of official development assistance.
This International Women’s Day, let’s unite to transform challenges into opportunities and shape a better future for all!
