Economic and Social Development

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes a goal to achieve gender equality for all women and girls and a re-commitment to governments’ human rights obligations. At the same time, governments have agreed to a range of strategies for financing the Agenda that arguably undermine their ability to fulfil women’s human rights and advance a just and gender-equitable model of development. This publication critically evaluates this potential contradiction with a focus on the key financing strategies of trade and investment liberalization, sovereign debt resolution, international private finance, and public-private partnerships, as well as the role of the global partnership for development. Recommendations are made to better align financing targets with the objective of supporting the enjoyment of women’s human rights. Finally, the work reflects on the inherent limitations in the 2030 Agenda and the need for an urgent shift to a model of development justice.

This publication examines policies for the support of families with children, in particular child-related financial transfers and early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. The analysis is mainly focused on countries with institutionalized welfare states—primarily Western European and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries—because that is where child-related benefits and services have the longest history. The work highlights a number of core insights relevant to policy planning and decision-making for child-related transfers and ECEC services.

This discussion paper assesses the evidence base of the “men for gender equality” field in light of three aspects of its emergence as a field, namely: its un-interrogated use of the category of “men”, its recourse to social psychological accounts of gender norms, and the implications of its NGO form for its ability to collaborate with and be accountable to resurgent intersectional feminist mobilizations.

There is a strong commitment to equality between women and men in international human rights law. The various actors within the treaty system who are tasked with elaborating on the meaning of human rights in international law have given close attention to gender equality. This work evaluates these elaborations against a conception of equality that is substantive. The achievement of substantive equality is understood here as having four dimensions: redressing disadvantage; countering stigma, prejudice, humiliation and violence; transforming social and institutional structures; and facilitating political participation and social inclusion. The publication suggests that there is a growing consensus at the international level on an understanding of substantive equality that reflects the four dimensions set out here. Making this understanding explicit will assist in addressing, through a range of means, the challenges of gendered inequality.

The challenges that we face can be addressed only through stronger international cooperation. The Summit of the Future in 2024 is an opportunity to agree on multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow, strengthening global governance for both present and future generations. The present policy brief contains suggestions for practical steps to fulfil our long-standing commitment to meet the demands of the present in a way that safeguards the interests of future generations and preserves their ability to effectively enjoy all human rights. These include: an envoy to serve as a voice for future generations at the global level; better use of foresight, science and data; a declaration to define and make concrete our duties to future generations; and a dedicated intergovernmental forum to advance implementation of the declaration and share best practices. These suggestions build on Our Common Agenda and subsequent intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder consultations, reflected in the “Elements paper for the declaration for future generations”, prepared by the Permanent Missions of Fiji and the Netherlands to the United Nations. The brief responds to the questions raised by Member States during the consultations, including how to define future generations, how to balance our commitment to them with our duties to present generations, how the proposals advance our existing goals for sustainable development, gender, and human rights, and what outcomes are recommended for the Summit of the Future on this issue. This is the first of the Summit of the Future Policy Briefs.

The challenges that we face can be addressed only through stronger international cooperation. The Summit of the Future in 2024 is an opportunity to agree on multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow, strengthening global governance for both present and future generations. The present policy brief aims to elaborate on the proposal on the Emergency Platform to respond to complex global shocks, incorporating feedback received from Member States and other relevant partners. The Emergency Platform would not be a standing body or entity but a set of protocols that could be activated when needed. The brief outlines some of the characteristics of global shocks in the twenty-first century and some of the risks we could face in the future. It highlights how such shocks have the potential to undermine progress to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and 2030 Agenda, as well as human rights and gender equality. It reflects on lessons from the response to recent complex global shocks and sets out proposals to strengthen the international response to a complex, global shock through the convening of an Emergency Platform. Finally, it offers recommendations on how these proposals could be taken forward in the Pact for the Future. This is the second of the Summit of the Future Policy Briefs.

Building on the Transforming Education Summit and the report of the International Commission on the Futures of Education, the present policy brief examines the current crisis in education in more detail and puts forward a vision and a set of guiding actions for countries and the international community to transform education. The Summit of the Future, to be held in 2024, is an opportunity to agree on multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow, strengthening global governance for both present and future generations. The right to education and lifelong learning is at the very heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development because education, knowledge and learning are central to the dignity, growth and development of the individual. For centuries, education has been the great equalizer, a driving force of nation-building, and the engine of social, cultural, economic and technological progress. Today, however, beset by twin crises of equity and relevance, education as we know it is no longer fit for purpose.

The challenges that we face can be addressed only through stronger international cooperation. The Summit of the Future, in 2024, is an opportunity to agree on multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow, strengthening global governance for both present and future generations. The UN Secretary-General has been invited to provide inputs to the preparations for the Summit in the form of action-oriented recommendations, building on the proposals contained in his report entitled “Our Common Agenda”, which was itself a response to the declaration on the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations. The present policy brief is one such input. Peace remains an elusive promise for many around the world. Conflicts continue to wreak destruction, while their causes have become more complex and difficult to resolve. This may make the pursuit of peace appear a hopeless undertaking. However, in reality, it is the political decisions and actions of human beings that can either sustain or crush hopes for peace. War is always a choice: to resort to arms instead of dialogue, coercion instead of negotiation, imposition instead of persuasion. Therein lies our greatest prospect, for if war is a choice, peace can be too. It is time for a recommitment to peace. In the present document, the Secretary-General offers his vision of how we can make that choice.

Small Island Development States’ (SIDS) natural features, relative isolation, typical dependence on external resources and limited domestic capacity to absorb shocks make many of them especially vulnerable to crises, including climate-change related environmental disasters and health emergencies. This policy brief argues that one such crisis, precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has amplified and perpetuated dynamics of gender inequality in Samoa, a Pacific SIDS. We posit that care and household work, the burden of which falls disproportionately on women, is a central nexus in these dynamics, which in turn affect Samoa’s ability to cope with and spring back from this crisis. Based on this Samoan experience, we argue that care and household work deserves special attention from policymakers, especially in SIDS, because of its potentially central importance for gender-equity as well as for crisis-resilience and recovery.

The UN’s SDG Stimulus Plan, which calls for additional liquidity, effective debt restructuring and the expansion of development financing, has the potential to free up significant fiscal space in developing economies. For 52 most debt-vulnerable economies, a 30 percent haircut of 2021 public external debt stock could lower debt service payments in 2022–2029 by between US$44 billion and $148 billion, depending on the participation of various creditor classes. For all developing economies, a 40 percent “refinancing” of their 2021 bond debt stock to average official creditor rates could amount to a $121 billion savings on interest payments in 2022–2029. Against the backdrop of growing economic and geopolitical fragmentation, this policy brief describes building blocks for exiting the crisis.