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Chair's Statement on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
Brasilía, October 10, 2024
[pdf]
The Brazilian Presidency of the G20 Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women Ministerial Meeting notes that all Members of the group except Argentina agreed to the content of the following text:
We, the G20 Ministers responsible for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, guest countries, and representatives from international organizations, convened in Brasília on October 11, 2024, declare that:
We recognize that all women and girls face particular barriers because of various diverse factors in addition to their gender, and we recognize that all women and girls[1] are agents of change and have a significant role in decision-making, leadership, and in addressing global challenges. They ought to be able to contribute equally to all sectors and at all levels. Therefore, the creation of the EWWG in 2023 at the New Delhi Leaders' Summit to support the G20 Women’s Ministerial expresses a collective effort to promote measures on achieving gender equality and boosting the empowerment of all women and girls. Such effort reaffirms the commitments made by G20 members to advancing gender equality, encouraging women-led development, the rights of all women and girls and our commitment to implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcome documents of its review conferences, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the core of the 2030 Agenda such as: (i) promoting the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women in the workforce, fulfilling the goals established at the 2014 Brisbane Summit and closing the gender pay gap; (ii) addressing unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work and ensuring equal access to decent work, quality jobs and gender parity as a goal for high-level and leadership positions; (iii) ensuring equal access to affordable, inclusive, equitable, safe and quality education, from early childhood through higher education to life-long learning opportunities, as well as technical and vocational training; (iv) bridging the gender digital divide by half by 2030; (v) securing food security, nutrition, and well-being for all women and girls; (vi) enhancing the gender-responsiveness of climate policies, plans, strategies and action, and the full, meaningful and equal participation and leadership of women in climate policy and decision making; and (vii) preventing and ending gender-based violence, misogyny and eliminating harmful gender stereotypes, changing norms, attitudes, and behaviors that sustain gender based inequalities.
We acknowledge the important prior and ongoing work within the G20 in favor of promoting gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. We appreciate the work done by the engagement groups, in particular Women20, and the contribution of the G20 EMPOWER Initiative. Considering the collaboration established by the Brazilian Presidency of the EWWG with other G20 Working Groups (WGs) and Engagement Groups (EGs) to ensure a comprehensive strategy to integrate gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in diverse situations and conditions across all areas of G20 initiatives, following the priorities proposed by the Brazilian presidency of the G20 on global governance, fighting hunger and poverty, and the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental), we commit to advancing the empowerment of all women and girls on the priorities agreed during the Brazilian presidency: promoting gender equality, economic autonomy and the care economy and care systems; eliminating misogyny and preventing and ending gender-based violence; and driving gender-responsive climate action.
We recognize that gender inequalities persist despite countries' commitments to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 (“Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”). Approximately 2.4 billion women worldwide do not have the same economic rights as men, and various barriers prevent women's full, equal and meaningful economic participation and leadership. Investments in building gender equality are of fundamental importance for the realization of the 2030 Agenda, including the implementation of SDG 5 to ensure women's equal participation in economic and social development and equal share of development achievements. Therefore, we commit to working to achieve gender equality and to promote the full, equal and meaningful participation of all women and girls in the economy and in decision-making and leadership roles. This includes enhancing access to emerging sectors and leveraging innovative approaches to close gender gaps.
Global data indicates that progress in achieving gender equality and increasing women’s participation in the workforce has been slow. To address all persisting inequalities, in line with the G20 Labour and Employment Ministerial Meeting Declaration, we reaffirm our strong commitment to achieving the Brisbane Target and to implementing the G20 Roadmap Towards and Beyond the Brisbane Target, which aims to reduce the gender gap in labor market participation rates by 25% by 2025. To this end, we will accelerate our efforts to further develop and implement comprehensive laws, policies and services that dismantle discriminatory social and cultural norms and address all forms of gender-bias in the world of work. These measures aim at supporting women’s economic autonomy and eliminating barriers for their entry, reentry or advancement in a transitioning world of work and along the career path. Likewise, such measures aim at advancing women’s and girls’ participation in education and promoting decent work for all, as well as monitoring the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of laws, policies and services for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
In this context, we commit to promoting programs, initiatives and policies that advance equal opportunity and treatment in the workplace to close the gender pay gap, including the implementation of pay transparency schemes that promote equal pay for equal work, or work of equal value, and consistent with ILO Convention 100. We call on countries to join the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC).
Women and girls make up the majority of those living in extreme poverty; they face higher levels of food insecurity and malnutrition; they are more likely to experience gender-based violence; and they disproportionately lack access to land and productive resources, clean water and sanitation. In the given circumstances, we welcome the adoption of the inception document of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty on July 24 to support and accelerate efforts to eradicate hunger and poverty while reducing inequalities and encourage all members to increase gender-responsive approaches to public policies, including combating household and family poverty by investing in family-oriented policies addressing the multidimensional aspects of poverty faced by women and girls living in poverty. Furthermore, in line with the Agreed Conclusions adopted at the CSW 68, in March 2024, on fighting the gendered dimensions of poverty, we commit to taking measures to eradicate poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty and the feminization of poverty, focusing on all women and girls when making poverty alleviation policies.
All women and girls are of importance as leaders who need to have an equal role in decision-making and in addressing global challenges. The full, equal and meaningful participation and leadership of women in all sectors and at all levels of the economy is crucial to the growth of the global GDP and enhances productivity and innovation.
We recognize the entrepreneurial potential of all women which contributes significantly to our economies and societies. We are committed to promoting gender equality through the advancement of women in entrepreneurship, including inter alia through cooperatives, to advocate for enabling ecosystems and networks that empower female entrepreneurs and to promote leadership role-models of women in business. This commitment further extends to strengthening women’s equal access to finance, including formal financial systems, markets and the digital economy, and equal participation in global value chains and access to productive resources, including land, credit and agricultural inputs and in line with national circumstances, encouraging gender-responsive private and public procurement. We acknowledge the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative and encourage regional, bilateral and multi-lateral coalitions and initiatives that promote women's economic empowerment and support women-led SMEs.
We are also committed to work with relevant stakeholders and ministries in promoting increased full, equal, and meaningful participation of women in trade, overcoming barriers that women face in accessing international trade networks and markets, and developing skills for women entrepreneurs including for participation in the digital economy. We encourage countries to consider issues related to trade and gender in the development of their trade and investment policies.
We acknowledge the role of gender-responsive, inclusive and quality education in achieving gender equality, including through the elimination of stereotypes, and harmful norms, attitudes and behaviours that perpetuate gender inequalities in paid and unpaid care work and in the overall labour market. Our goal is to empower all relevant actors within and beyond G20 to remove barriers, including more effective efforts to overcome gender stereotypes, and ensure equal access to affordable, equitable, safe, quality and inclusive education and training, from early childhood to higher education, and to lifelong learning for all learners, in particular female learners, of all ages and economic, social-cultural, ethnic, religious and regional backgrounds, and regardless of other factors such as disabilities, learning difficulties or special needs. In the context of promoting equal education opportunities throughout the life-course for all and equitable and safe participation for all girls, including in digital learning, we encourage efforts to ensure that all education settings are free from gender-based violence and discrimination and have private and clean sanitation facilities that support the safe management of menstrual health and hygiene.
We strive to develop policies that promote greater entry, retention, advancement and leadership of women and girls in professions and on career-paths in which women are especially underrepresented, such as in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields and the Economy, including by addressing harmful gender norms and working towards overcoming gender stereotypes and biases at all levels of education and training and by promoting green, blue and circular economy vocational training and digital and financial literacy.
We recognize that in our increasingly digital societies, access to technology and the internet has rapidly become essential for full economic participation. We emphasize that women and girls, particularly those living in poverty and other vulnerable conditions, face a multitude of barriers to equal access to and use of digital technologies, and we therefore amplify continuing efforts towards halving the gender digital divide by 2030. These efforts must be based on principles of digital equity, ensuring access and affordability, identifying, funding, and accelerating proven solutions to ensure that no one is left behind in the digital environment, economy and society.
We acknowledge the importance of gender mainstreaming in the elaboration, implementation, and monitoring of all State actions, including by strengthening the capacity and coordination of national statistical and data production offices and government institutions to collect, analyze, disseminate and use sex-disaggregated data and gender statistics. Quality statistics are crucial to addressing gender inequality through public policies and their production and use is recommended for statistical offices and other government agencies producing data.
We recognize that, although unpaid care and domestic work is of fundamental economic value and an essential contribution to the well-being of our societies and economies, its unequal and unfair distribution is a barrier to achieving de-facto gender equality as it has a big impact on primarily women’s and girls’ education and on women’s labor force participation, pay and career progression. Unpaid care work includes, inter alia, domestic work, healthcare for families and communities, organizing, coordinating and caring for family members and household, cleaning, feeding, searching or purchasing fuel and the purchase of goods. This leaves little or no time for educational opportunities, including life-long learning and skills development, paid work and other economic activities, full, equal and meaningful participation in public, political and professional life, equal opportunities for leisure and personal care, universal access to quality healthcare services, or maternal, newborn, sexual and reproductive healthcare services as well as to quality long-term care services.
Considering the importance of implementing policies and infrastructures that ensure gender equality in the division of paid and unpaid care work, we recognize care as a responsibility that must be shared by people from all sectors of society, individuals, communities, companies and states. Therefore, we commit to promoting gender equality in paid and unpaid care work to ensure equal, full and meaningful participation of all women and girls in the economy, by promoting a cultural change that stimulates social and gender co-responsibility, encouraging and facilitating men's and boys’ equal involvement in care work and challenging gender norms that prevent equitable distribution and redistribution of caregiving responsibilities. We also commit to consider supporting, more women to join the paid workforce by investing in efforts to close the global gap in the availability of childcare.
We commit to developing care policies and encourage investments that ensure the availability and accessibility of social protection and services to seek a more equitable distribution of paid and unpaid care responsibilities and to ensure the provision of quality care and support for children, persons with disabilities and older people. According to national circumstances, this could include childcare allowances, disability benefits, paid maternity and parental leave, third-person support allowances, food vouchers, childcare vouchers or services, among others. We also commit to promoting all kinds of measures, initiatives and solutions which advance gender equality in the health sector and the care economy and improve the working conditions for all, from the perspective of decent work, for stronger health and social care systems.
We welcome the realization of the "International Seminar: Care Work and the Sustainability of Life and the Economy", within the framework of this Working Group, held on July 8 and 9, 2024, with the participation of representatives of G20 members, invited countries and international organizations, researchers, policymakers, and civil society. As a result of this Seminar and in line with the G20 LEMM declaration 2024, we support the advance on internationally comparable data collection on paid and unpaid care work and encourage the collection of disaggregated data on time use that takes into account all forms of discrimination.
We look forward to continuing the care work dialogue with other G20 Working Groups, including the G20 Employment Working Group, and G20 Engagement Groups. We call on countries to recognize the ILO’s 5R Framework for decent care work. We also acknowledge the efforts of the Global Alliance for Care and encourage all G20 members to consider adhering to the Alliance.
Sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls is alarmingly high across public and private spheres, both online and offline. Whether online or offline, gender-based violence have social and economic consequences for the entire society with intergenerational impact. Such acts violate the fundamental rights to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, life, and bodily integrity prevent women and girls from equally accessing education, health services, justice, political participation, and women from employment opportunities and economic resources.
Misogyny is an expression used to designate the manifestation of hatred or aversion against women and girls that can occur in various forms, such as physical, psychological, economic and symbolic violence, and through attacks on social media, among other forms. The perpetuation of misogyny fuels an increase in gender-based violence and/or cases of femicide, as it fosters an environment that dehumanizes all women and girls and normalizes their exploitation.
Especially as we approach the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, we recall our commitment to end gender-based violence and misogyny at all levels and spheres and ensure the enjoyment of all human rights for women and girls, as a life free from violence is an indispensable condition for building safe environments and successfully implement strategies that eliminate the limitations imposed on all women’s economic autonomy and full, equal and meaningful participation in decision-making spaces for all people. To this end, we recognize the need for investments in and promotion of public policies aimed at preventing and eliminating all forms of gender-based violence, in order to expand economic and social opportunities for women and build safe, violence-free societies for all.
We affirm that eliminating both misogyny and gender-based violence in politics and public life, and against women in leadership positions is crucial for achieving full, equal and meaningful participation for all women and girls. Encouraging their participation in local, national and international fora strengthens the pursuit of gender equality in decision-making. To this end, we commit to promoting women's leadership in all spaces and endeavor to strengthening partnerships with civil society, media, local communities, women’s rights organizations and international organizations, with priority given to those that have actions aimed at creating comprehensive strategies that address the root causes of gender-based violence. We also acknowledge that hate speech and gender discrimination can exacerbate social tensions and contribute to the perpetuation of gender-based violence, highlighting the need for integrated approaches in our strategies.
Gender-based violence is one of many causes which exclude women from full, equal and meaningful economic participation and access to the formal labor market. Gender-based violence has a substantial social and material cost for society as a whole, due to its adverse effects on economic growth and prosperity, both within countries and in the global economy. Available data estimates the global cost of violence against women and girls to be at least USD 1.5 trillion.
Emerging forms of gender-based violence including violence against women and girls, that occurs through or is amplified by the use of technology, such as Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV), including violence facilitated by the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), need to be addressed with appropriate measures that fit the needs of all victims and survivors. We commit to launching a mapping on good prevention and response practices, as well as suggestions for actions and policies to tackle this form of violence, based on the actions developed by the G20 countries. This mapping will help pave the way towards more innovative international policies aiming to eliminate technology-facilitated gender-based violence, including in the entire process of gender-responsive development, implementation, and use of artificial intelligence. In this regard, we welcome the commitment adopted in the Global Digital Compact (GDC), as part of the Pact for the Future, to initiate within the United Nations, a Global Dialogue on AI Governance, and encourage that the empowerment of women and girls and the advancement of gender equality are central to these debates.
We commit to adopting and strengthening, by all appropriate means, legislation, measures and public policies aimed at preventing, eliminating and responding to all forms of gender-based violence against all women and girls, in public and private spaces, offline and online, through multi-sectoral and coordinated approaches to investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators of such violence at all times. To achieve this, it is important to develop a comprehensive and effective approach to the prevention, response to, and redress of gender-based violence, and strengthening integrated services, and enhancing data collection and analysis to end gender-based violence, and recognizing the active role of women in building these practices.
We commit to promote sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights of all women and girls, in line with inter alia an integral health approach, with special attention to maternal, perinatal and newborn health, particularly for those in vulnerable situations. Protecting the health of all women and girls helps prevent future victimization or re-victimization, especially in cases of sexual and gender-based violence.
The economic, social, political, and environmental impacts of climate change are experienced worldwide. Disproportionate impacts are observed particularly among women and girls who experience multiple and intersecting[2] forms of discrimination, such as, inter alia, rural women, women living in poverty, women with disabilities, women from local communities as well as Indigenous women, Roma women, women of African descent, migrant women, older women, and other women in situations of vulnerability. Although women and girls are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change, they are often underrepresented in environmental, climate, and disaster risk reduction-related decision-making fora and also often have unequal access and ownership over resources including land, services – including financial ones and credit – and technologies, which overall makes them more vulnerable to climate-related hazards and environmental degradation.
The persistence of gender inequalities creates challenges for holistically addressing climate change and dealing with its impacts, including in relation to adaptation, mitigation, and just and inclusive transitions, as well as in the management of resources. Women and girls have been leading important initiatives in sustainable and resilient agriculture and agri-food systems, including value chains, sustainable sources of energy, the construction of adapted solutions, and in the sustainable management, conservation, and restoration of biodiversity and natural resources including soils, forests, water and marine resources. Therefore, we recognize that women and girls play a fundamental role as leaders and agents of change in responding to climate change, in building solutions for adaptation and mitigation of climate change and biodiversity loss as well as reducing disaster risks and are often at the forefront of such solutions in their communities. In this context, equal participation of all women in political and economic decision-making processes on climate action and environment is essential for tackling climate change and building healthy, sustainable, and climate-resilient societies for all people.
It is crucial that all women and girls receive quality, relevant education and be included in capacity building processes and efforts to accelerate climate action and gain equal access to public and private research and development opportunities, including innovations for inclusive agri-value chains. Therefore, we affirm the need for gender-responsive and risk-informed climate action, which is vital for raising ambition and achieving climate goals. We also encourage the strengthening of the evidence base and use of sex-disaggregated data for gender analysis to inform climate policies, plans, strategies and actions and to carry out gender impact assessments, according to national circumstances. To this end, we commit to supporting and promoting the full, meaningful and equal participation and leadership of all women and girls in climate action, as well as in disaster risk reduction and in the formulation and implementation of environmental policies, with the objective of promoting sustainable development in its three dimensions: economic, environmental, and social.
We recognize the role of women as agents of peace, and the full, equal, safe, and meaningful participation of women in decision-making at all levels of peace efforts, including conflict prevention and resolution, mediation and in peace operations. These principles are key enabling factors to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies for gender equality and for sustainable peace.
We recognize the importance of the dialogue with international organizations in producing data and studies for the advancement of the Empowerment of Women Working Group. The Brazilian Presidency acknowledges the efforts of UN Women, UNESCO and the ILO in developing studies, commissioned by the Working Group, on women and climate action, women in the world of work, and technology-facilitated gender-based violence. We look forward to receiving their final versions for further consideration.
We commit to the continued dialogue with other Working Groups, including in the Finance Track of G20, and the G20 Engagement Groups, as one of the important pathways to advance gender equality and sustainable development. We call on the WGs to include advancements and progress towards gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls in their respective domains and G20 outcome documents. Furthermore, we are committed to advancing the dialogue with civil society, including, inter alia, locally-based women’s rights organizations, women-led organizations, and feminist organizations.
We commend and thank Brazil for its leadership in 2024 and welcome the Republic of South Africa’s G20 Presidency in 2025 and the United States of America’s G20 Presidency in 2026, trusting that they will continue the collective agenda of the G20 EWWG by setting goals and deliverables for the group's future action to advance gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.
[1] Throughout this document “women and girls” may be read in conjunction with “irrespective of age, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.” ↩
[2] Intersecting conveys the state where various forms of discrimination can be interlaced, interacting and compounding. ↩
Source: Official website of Brazil's 2024 G20 presidency
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