Why are women’s rights central to advancing global governance? The UN Secretary-General’s 2019 Report on the SDGs recognizes that “there is simply no way that we can achieve the 17 SDGs without achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls”.1 We argue that taking gender equality seriously in global governance is essential to advancing gender equality and women’s human rights at both global and national levels. Equally important, advancing gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s human rights are critical to strengthening global governance, particularly with regard to debt relief, global trade, technology transfer
and institutional coherence.
1 UN (2019), p. 3.