The W20 was created to, first, provide recommendations to the G20 on gender equality issues and, second, to set measurable and actionable goals and develop appropriate metrics and benchmarks to improve accountability in measuring progress.
Over the past five years, its recommendations have concentrated on three main pillars: Labor inclusion, Financial inclusion, and Digital inclusion.
We have identified three areas of priority:
- A global policy framework on gender equality that would accommodate intermediary goals specific to each country and identify pertinent factors to allow for systematic peer-review of the progress. This framework could be based, integrated to, or leverage the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) framework.
- Policies coordination would ensure the coherence between policy recommendations from the G20 and international institutions (IMF, UN, WB, etc.). Furthermore, the W20 should collaborate with Sherpa track and Finance track working groups, in addition to the other engagement groups–B20, C20, L20, T20, U20, S20, and Y20–to bring together actionable recommendations with measurable targets and to create continuity.
- Women’s participation in decision-making in the political, economic, public, and private sectors would lead to a shift in thought leadership, naturally moving the social dialogue away for the existing gender bias. To achieve this, additional and relevant policies, translated into actual implementable programs, have to be adopted to ensure a women-friendly environment, and that would support women as they assume such decision-making responsibilities