From Headlines to Hope: Celebrating Goal 5 Success Stories

Recent news around gender equality has been pretty disheartening. A new report reveals that 1 in 8 women and girls have experienced sexual violence before the age of 18, and at COP29, just 8 out of the 78 world leaders in attendance were women.

While stats like these highlight the urgency of achieving Goal 5, it’s equally important to recognize where progress is being made. From women reaching the highest offices of power to groundbreaking sporting achievements, here are some positive headlines since 2020 that demonstrate that, despite the obstacles, progress is possible.

Record-breaking Firsts for Women Leaders

• 10 countries elected women as a head of state for the first time: Greece, Tanzania, Barbados, Honduras, Italy, Peru, Slovenia, Dominica, North Macedonia and Mexico.
• Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was appointed as Director-General of the World Trade Organisation – a first for a woman.
• Ayesha Malik was the first woman appointed to Pakistan’s Supreme Court.
• Christina Koch becomes the first woman to be assigned to a lunar mission.

Taking Strides in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR)

• Mexico and Colombia decriminalized abortion, while Argentina legalized it.
• Spain became the first European country to introduce menstrual leave.
• Tanzania and Sierra Leone overturned bans preventing pregnant girls from going to school.
• Scotland became the first country to make period products free.
• The Dominican Republic and Colombia banned child marriage.
• Sudan criminalized female genital mutilation.
• The UK and Namibia scrapped the tampon tax.

Women Making Waves in Sport

• The Paris Olympics and Paralympics achieved full gender parity of athletes, making the summer games the largest gender-equal sporting events globally.
• Stephanie Frappart became the first woman to referee a match in the FIFA Men’s World Cup finals.

Looking ahead

These achievements are truly inspiring and offer hope that gender equality is within reach, thanks to incredible women pushing boundaries around the world. With just over 5 years left to achieve the Goals, we need women and girls to be empowerment across all dimensions — Person (bodily autonomy, and sexual and reproductive health rights), Pedagogy (education), Purse (economic empowerment) and Politics (political representation and participation). We call these the ‘4Ps of Power’.

Here are some milestones we’d like to see across each dimension.

Person: Access to gender transformative sexual and reproductive health services for women, girls, and LGBTQ+ communities everywhere. In the face of growing threats to gender equality, we must see increased funding for SRH services, the political prioritization of SRHR and international cooperation to protect women’s rights.

Pedagogy: More countries implement bans on child marriage, allowing girls to complete their education. This is particularly urgent in countries where over half of girls are married before the age of 18. These are: Niger (76%), the Central African Republic (61%), Chad (61%), Mali (54%), Mozambique (53%), South Sudan (52%), Burkina Faso (51%) and Bangladesh (51%).

Purse: More funding is provided to women’s organizations and feminist movements. Despite gender equality lying at the heart of all the Goals, women’s rights organizations only receive 0.13% of all Official Development Assistance. This needs to change if we want to achieve the Goals by 2030.

Care systems around the world are adequately financed and strengthened, allowing 708 million women to participate in the labour market. Today, too many women continue to shoulder the burden of unpaid care responsibilities, like domestic tasks and child care.

Politics: More countries achieve gender parity in parliament. While equal representation of women in government needs to happen everywhere, these countries are close to achieving it with 40% or more of seats held by women: Costa Rica (49.1%), Iceland (47.6%), Sweden (46.7%), Bolivia (46.2%), Senegal (46.1%), Finland (46%), Monaco (45.8%), New Zealand (45.5%), Denmark (45.3%) and South Africa (45.1%).

And…. The UN appoints a woman as Secretary-General. Since its inception in 1945, the UN has had 9 Secretary-Generals, all of them men. It’s high time for the institution to lead by example and put a woman in charge!

Author: Céline Mulrean, Policy Consultant