Challenges and priorities for delivering on the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 25 years on
Authors: Pascale Allotey, Fatima Denton
Journal: The Lancet (2020)

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action1UN Specialised Conferences. Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. United Nations, Beijing1995https://www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/pdfs/Beijing_Declaration_and_Platform_for_Action.pdfDate accessed: September 17, 2020Google Scholar in which 189 governments made commitments to remove obstacles to women's equal and active participation in all spheres of public and private life. Progress in gender equality and women's empowerment during the past 25 years is undeniable. Based on the indicators set to measure the achievements, many countries are able to report progress in addressing areas such as violence against women, in increasing access to sexual and reproductive health services, and in widening career opportunities through improved education.2Rao N Weber AM Ranganathan N Ip P Creating equality for girls: on the right track but still a long way to go.Lancet Child Adolesc Health. 2020; 4: 490-491Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar Within the context of health, this progress has come with a substantial reduction in maternal morbidity and mortality, improvements in general health outcomes, increased opportunities for women in the health workforce, and recognition of the importance of gender in ensuring the quality of care.3Betron M Bourgeault I Manzoor M et al.Time for gender-transformative change in the health workforce.Lancet. 2019; 393: e25-e26Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (18) Google Scholar However, the progress is fragile. There has been an absence of real political, societal, and cultural transformation in the past 25 years, and transformation that recognises the need for redistribution of power and privilege across all aspects of life and that would impact on health and wellbeing.4UNDPGender Inequality Index (GII), Human Development Reports.http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-giiDate: 2020Date accessed: September 16, 2020Google Scholar And now the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened this situation by recreating barriers to participation and removing choices that enable a balance between effective engagement in public and private spaces.5Wenham C Smith J Morgan R COVID-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreak.Lancet. 2020; 395: 846-848Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1099) Google Scholar In many settings, women have resumed the role of unpaid carers within the home, including home schooling, at the cost of employment or in addition to maintaining standards of productivity where possible.5Wenham C Smith J Morgan R COVID-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreak.Lancet. 2020; 395: 846-848Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1099) Google Scholar Measures to control COVID-19 have also seen an escalation in interpersonal violence, including gender-based violence.6van Gelder N Peterman A Potts A et al.COVID-19: reducing the risk of infection might increase the risk of intimate partner violence.EClinicalMedicine. 2020; 21100348Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (302) Google Scholar The 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration was to have been commemorated with Generation Equality Forum events in Mexico and Paris in 2020, culminating in celebrations during the UN General Assembly.7UN WomenGeneration Equality Forum get involved: Generation Equality: realizing women's rights for an equal future. UN Women.https://www.unwomen.org/get-involved/beijing-plus-25/generation-equality-forumDate accessed: September 16, 2020Google Scholar The plans have been pared down as a result of the pandemic with some activities postponed to 2021. The anniversary, nonetheless, provides an opportunity to reset and recommit to strategies that strengthen achievements in gender equality. Current global security threats, including the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing global inequalities and social unrest, and the climate crisis, together with a geopolitical climate characterised by increased conservatism, nationalism, and tensions over national security, influence, and values, present very different pressures from the drivers of gender equality 25 years ago.8Bali S Dhatt R Lal A Jama A Van Daalen K Sridhar D Off the back burner: diverse and gender-inclusive decision-making for COVID-19 response and recovery.BMJ Glob Health. 2020; 5e002595Crossref PubMed Scopus (39) Google Scholar, 9Jolly M Moving beyond disciplinary boundaries to respond to climate change.in: Sawer M Jenkins F Downing K How gender can transform the social sciences: innovation and impact. Springer International Publishing, Cham2020: 187-197Crossref Scopus (3) Google Scholar Gender equality must be robust enough to withstand these new threats and enable women to contribute equally to solutions. Climate change, for instance, was not the political priority 25 years ago that it now is. For low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), the climate crisis carries substantial risk of exacerbating poverty and inequalities. The need for adaptation is a key priority. However, attempts to address gendered implications of the climate crisis have largely been overlooked; the climate crisis is too often framed as a matter of human security, with no need for gender analysis.10McKune S McOmber C Is gender being considered within climate services?. CCAFS: CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, 2013https://ccafs.cgiar.org/es/gender-being-considered-within-climate-services#.X14fz4tS9hEDate accessed: September 13, 2020Google Scholar That implicit bias lays bare two contemporary gender-related development conundrums. In the context of LMICs, addressing major development challenges from the prism of gender is often discounted. For instance, adaptation to climate change is usually rooted in climate information services, and the provision of essential early warning knowledge that enables smallholder farmers to make strategic decisions for their livelihoods and the health and wellbeing of their families. However, women who are smallholder farmers in LMICs are often left out of this vital information chain.10McKune S McOmber C Is gender being considered within climate services?. CCAFS: CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, 2013https://ccafs.cgiar.org/es/gender-being-considered-within-climate-services#.X14fz4tS9hEDate accessed: September 13, 2020Google Scholar, 11Mcomber C. Investigating gender equity within climate information services: insights from Kenya. Centre for African Studies Research Report, 2014: 37.Google Scholar Hence, asymmetrical provision of access to information becomes a baseline power dynamic that excludes women from adaptation practices, thereby limiting the potential of boosting productivity and engaging in fair competition.10McKune S McOmber C Is gender being considered within climate services?. CCAFS: CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, 2013https://ccafs.cgiar.org/es/gender-being-considered-within-climate-services#.X14fz4tS9hEDate accessed: September 13, 2020Google Scholar, 11Mcomber C. Investigating gender equity within climate information services: insights from Kenya. Centre for African Studies Research Report, 2014: 37.Google Scholar Unequal representation for women is a major issue across most employment sectors.4UNDPGender Inequality Index (GII), Human Development Reports.http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-giiDate: 2020Date accessed: September 16, 2020Google Scholar Women's voices, especially those from LMICs, are underserved through limited genuine participation.12Evans A Nambiar D Collective action and women's agency: a background paper. World Bank, Washington, DC2014Google Scholar In priority areas, such as health security and diplomacy, migration, and climate change adaptation and mitigation, there remains an unequal representation, not only of women in general, but women from LMICs in particular, in the publication and high-level presentation of the issues for women from their own contexts.8Bali S Dhatt R Lal A Jama A Van Daalen K Sridhar D Off the back burner: diverse and gender-inclusive decision-making for COVID-19 response and recovery.BMJ Glob Health. 2020; 5e002595Crossref PubMed Scopus (39) Google Scholar, 9Jolly M Moving beyond disciplinary boundaries to respond to climate change.in: Sawer M Jenkins F Downing K How gender can transform the social sciences: innovation and impact. Springer International Publishing, Cham2020: 187-197Crossref Scopus (3) Google Scholar Women's front-line perspectives are not fully acknowledged and included in these domains. Instead, presentations and publications about development priorities are often extrapolated to suit the multiple agendas of external elite groups or are based on facile assumptions made from a distant vantage point.13Denton F Climate change and conflict: the tail wagging the dog or new, cascading tensions and inequalities?.UN Chronicle. 2016; 52: 7-9Crossref Google Scholar Examples of limited representation of women and the lack of acknowledgment of contextual knowledge and of lived experiences across many areas of livelihoods, health, and wellbeing abound in countries in Africa, the Pacific, and southeast Asia. These range from challenges from and potential solutions for issues that relate to tackling long-standing concerns such as child marriage, harmful traditional practices, and access to sexuality education to engaging with women and communities in the response to natural disasters, and support in emergency humanitarian assistance.14Cislaghi B Nkwi P Mackie G Shakya H Why context matters for social norms interventions: the case of child marriage in Cameroon.Global Public Health. 2020; 15: 532-543Crossref PubMed Scopus (19) Google Scholar, 15Hemachandra K Amaratunga D Haigh R Role of women in disaster risk governance.Procedia Eng. 2018; 212: 1187-1194Crossref Scopus (26) Google Scholar Enabling the political, social, and cultural transformation required for robust sustained gender equality will entail critical self-reflection, disrupting beliefs about entitlement, and the loss of power and privilege to many who have taken their positions for granted. Facilitating women's empowerment beyond parity will require greater and more effective investment in human capital and resources that support engagement with and participation of women. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), for instance, has invested in training representatives from grassroots organisations and from government departments to gain a better understanding of the international processes, such as the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action and the Beijing Platform for Action, which while aimed at providing mechanisms to support gender equality, are often presented in language that is not easily accessible to those who need to use it. Finally, a greater openness to different types of evidence, such as practice-based case studies and first-hand narratives from front-line workers, for monitoring progress and accountability could serve to highlight more creative, effective, and sustainable strategies for working towards a more equal society. We declare no competing interests. We thank Saira Shameem, Deputy Director, Pacific Sub-Regional Office, UNFPA, Fiji, for her contribution to developing this Comment.