30
Sep
A Harry Potter star, a speech at the UN and the fake threat of leaked nude photos. What does any of this have to do with that roundtable of riches, the G20 and its Leaders’ Summit in Brisbane this November? Quite a lot actually.
As Emma Watson’s UN speech, and bizarre hoax within a hoax but real misogynist threat to her powerful message show, women across the globe have a truly long way to climb if they are to summit that imposing mountain of endemic gender inequality.
Away from the Internet circus, at the heart of the matter was Ms Watson’s impassioned call to men to engage with gender equality issues for the benefit of all.
That’s why the G20, for all its talk of sustainable, balanced and inclusive economic growth, must put gender on the agenda – particularly as the ‘premier’ forum for economic cooperation across the globe. Sustainable growth is not possible when the economic potential of half the world is ignored.
But, despite a promising paragraph in the 2012 Los Cabos Leaders Declaration and several references to health and education over the years, the G20 has been seriously deficient in its recognition of gender issues in the global economy.
This is partly because of the chronic under-representation of women in G20 processes. Only 25 per cent of the heads of state of the G20 member countries are currently women. The figure for finance ministers, central bank governors and sherpas is even lower, standing at only 15 per cent. Have a look at the group photo at the Cairns Finance Ministers Meeting – there are more palm trees represented than women.
Clearly the G20 needs to do a far better job at bringing more women to the table. But it goes beyond a lack of representation, and, like most things in our material world (too devoid of material girls), it comes down to dollars and sense.
As if equality for its own goddamned sake weren’t motivation enough, there are major economic and productivity gains to be made by getting more women into the globe’s formal economy. Forget China, India or the Internet, as The Economist, put it way back in 2006, economic growth is driven by women.
As the article said: “Women complain (rightly) of centuries of exploitation. Yet, to an economist, women are not exploited enough: they are the world’s most under-utilised resource.”
And the numbers clearly stack up. According to the UN Secretary-General, investment in girls translates into an average GDP growth of 0.3 percentage points for each per cent increase in female education.
The economic argument relies on productivity and labour market issues. A recent study concludes that increasing the levels of female employment could help raise GDP by five per cent in the United States; nine per cent in Brazil; nine per cent in Japan; 11 per cent in Italy; 12 per cent in the United Arab Emirates, and 27 per cent in India.
These conventional economic approaches to gender inequality also accept that there are additional cultural and structural barriers that have held women back, including perceptions of competence, entrepreneurial flair and leadership.
Moral and legal arguments are slightly different, but still stress that investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity, efficiency and sustained economic growth. Women’s economic independence is also vital to their role as full and equal partners for development and essential to the achievement of peace and the eradication of poverty.
The full recognition of women’s human rights require the full integration of women into the formal economy, in particular, into economic decision-making. This means changing the current gender-based division of labour into new economic structures where women and men enjoy equal treatment.
But almost 10 years after The Economist’s assertion, nothing much has changed. Today across the globe, economic policies and institutions still mostly fail to take gender disparities into account, from tax and budget systems to trade regimes.
Women are more likely than men to be in precarious, vulnerable, gender-stereotyped and low- paying forms of employment; and to be engaged in the informal economy.
They have less access to full and productive employment and decent work, social protection and pensions. Evidence of the gendered impact of austerity measures is still emerging from Greece and Spain; from the high representation of female public sector employees laid off, to the mass closure of domestic violence refuges.
The G20 needs a pivotal moment on this issue, as the UN Security Council had in 2000 with the emergence of the Women Peace and Security agenda.
A nascent G20 discussion on ‘inclusive’ growth, the financial inclusion agenda and investing in gender equality measures for employment needs to accelerate. Leaders of G20 countries need to demonstrate awareness of, and accountability for, the gendered consequences of their decisions.
As Australia gears up to welcome the leaders of the world economy, it too has an important role to play in getting the ball rolling. The Australian G20 Leaders’ Summit could start a key dialogue on gender equality that can be further developed by Turkey in 2015.
The real challenge for the Brisbane summit is how to identify and achieve practical actions to help women and girls in developing countries, particularly low income countries, and elevate certain issues that relate to development to the leader’s level.
More than anything, however, the G20 needs to finally put its money where its mouth is, and make gender equality and its links to economic development and growth front and centre. Like Emma Watson this week, it must make a stand, it must declare to the world that women, and overcoming the challenges far too many across the globe face on a daily basis, are central to its vision of a more fair and prosperous world.
Then we would truly be going for growth.
Source: http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/news-events/all-stories/it%E2%80%99s-time-g20-invest-gender#.VCqp9ee9XbF