Advancing Women’s economic, social and cultural rights and gender equality

We aim to transform social norms, power structures and the roots of inequality and discrimination by placing substantive gender equality at the heart of our advocacy to achieve economic, social and environmental justice.

Adopting an intersectional gender focus

In 2021, GI-ESCR adopted a strategic intersectional gender focus across its programmatic priorities. Below are some examples of our efforts to mainstream gender Building on this solid foundation of work, GI-ESCR shifted its focus towards advancing women’s economic, social and environmental justice.

A gender-just transition to a low carbon world

GI-ESCR consistently encouraged the international human rights system to address the climate emergency. In 2021 we expanded our campaign to reduce greenhouse gases and combat the climate breakdown by asking what a feminist transition to low carbon societies would look like. By researching gender and renewable energy and creating spaces in which activists and women’s rights groups could share their concerns and experiences, we helped human rights mechanisms to address decarbonisation and local civil society actors to adopt an intersectional gender lens in their advocacy on climate and energy justice. GI-ESCR’s analysis of a gender-just transition, promoted in briefing papers and at key events, has influenced how other actors approach decarbonisation. During 2021 we spoke to key audiences, including government officials, civil society, media, and academic organisations. We contributed to ‘Beyond COVID-19: a Feminist Plan for Sustainability and Social Justice’, an influential publication by UN Women that has helped States to design post-COVID-19 recovery plans. We were invited to present our work at the 2021 Generation Equality Forum, which kickstarted a 5-year journey to accelerate ambitious action on global gender equality. Working across silos, we both strengthened existing partnerships and built new coalitions of partners to share stories of hope and solidarity from women and community activists advocating for a gender-just transition.

Feminist alternatives to the commercialisation of public services

Several of our activities in 2021 clarified the gender implications of commercialising public services and advanced discussion of feminist alternatives that might transform uneven power relations and advance gender equality We joined the core group of progressive feminists and human rights organisations that launched Manifesto: Rebuilding the Social Organisation of Care. This initiative has deepened the understanding of care as a human rights issue, declaring care is a public common good, and calling on States to provide public care services as a means to achieve substantive gender equality. Together with partners, we produced advocacy tools to raise awareness of structural gender inequalities and the uneven care burden that impedes women from enjoying all their rights. In March, GI-ESCR published ‘From Gender-Responsive to Gender-Transformative Public Services’. This policy brief argues that public services can transform asymmetrical power relationships between genders. Supported by our work on care, it has informed other initiatives, including the approach we took to gender in the collective civil society statement ‘The Future is Public: Global Manifesto for Public Services’. This document challenges power imbalances and advances ten principles for public services in the 21st century. It mainstreams gender equality throughout. (See the Stories of Impact section.)

Engagement with key international women’s rights and gender equality mechanisms and fora

GI-ESCR has experience of working with and influencing UN mechanisms and fora, and bringing women into debates and decision-making. We have become key conveners of policy actors in the women’s human rights field, helping to shape how international human rights mechanisms understand and interpret the demands and concerns of women and girls. In 2021, we organised side events at the Human Rights Council and the Global South Women’s Forum on Sustainable Development, at which community organisations discussed their efforts to advance gender equality in decarbonising energy systems. These events broadened the scope of women’s rights issues addressed by UN human rights mechanisms and informed them about women’s local struggles and concerns. They also allowed women from the Global South to share their experiences, strategise, and explore their visions of a feminist transition to a low carbon world. We pushed the frontiers of the women’s economic, social and cultural rights framework by submitting written contributions and parallel reports to UN treaty monitoring bodies. Several of our contributions have been taken up by treaty bodies, including the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Local partners are actively using this information in their advocacy.

Women’s rights to land and other productive resources

With key local partners, GI-ESCR worked for many years to extend and strengthen women’s rights to land and other productive resources and encouraged the adoption of regional and global human rights standards on these issues. GI-ESCR and partners supported the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights to develop a General Comment on the Maputo Protocol, which was adopted in 2020. General Comment No. 6 sets out women’s property rights in the context of divorce, separation and annulment of marriage and consolidates progress in moving from development to implementation of international standards for women across the African region, a key step in ending economic and social injustice on the continent. In 2021, together with the African Commission and regional partners, we organised a workshop on women’s equal property rights for more than forty women’s rights experts, activists, and community representatives from Africa and Asia. The event assisted civil society organisations to develop advocacy tools and strategies, share lessons learned, and identify ways to combat structural discrimination against women in and out of marriage.

We also published an Information Note on General Comment No. 6

Realising women’s rights in Chile’s constitutional process

For Chileans, “Mrs. Juanita” is a familiar stereotype, which denies the diversity and autonomy of women in Chile and reduces the relations between men and women to a simple binary. Recognising that it is vital to address the experiences and needs of women in Chile’s constitutional debate, GI-ESCR launched ‘Más que Juanitas’ to explore the relationship between gender, constitutional reform, and endemic social and economic injustices in Chile. The project gathered the empirical experiences of women and feminist organisations across the country, underpinned their testimony with standards and norms, and produced recommendations to Chile’s Constitutional Assembly. In the process, it created a digital archive that will make available to future generations the written reflections, videos, pictures, and interviews that women’s rights organisations, grassroot movements and trade unions contributed. To amplify women’s demands, GI-ESCR and El Mostrador Braga, a local media outlet, disseminated some of the testimonies. Further material will be published in 2022.

Fiscal justice to achieve gender justice

Since 2020, GI-ESCR has added fiscal policy to its work on public services and the green transition. In 2021, building on the work of our Executive Director, who pioneered gender approaches to fiscal policy and who currently sits on the Independent Commission for the Reform of Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), GI-ESCR took steps to mainstream gender in economic and fiscal policy debates. At key international fora, we are taking action to shift the narrative on fiscal policy and advance alternatives that can help to realise economic, social and cultural rights and gender equality. We have also connected with a broad audience through our opeds linking women’s rights and fiscal policies. Op-eds that we published on International Women’s Day and Human Rights Day appeared in 42 social media outlets in 38 countries around the world. This work enables GI-ESCR to step beyond traditional human rights spaces and influence debate at many more levels, from communities to senior decisionmakers. Our work on fiscal policy has produced new knowledge and alternative ideas on fiscal justice, and helped to challenge dominant narratives and tackle gender, economic and environmental injustice