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UN push to include women on G20 agenda

By:Nick Perry, AAP 

August 29, 2014 5:03PM

THE world's foremost advocate for women's empowerment is urging Australia to make gender equality a key goal at this year's G20 or risk further entrenching global inequality. 

UN Women executive director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is challenging Australia to think outside its narrow growth and investment agenda when it hosts the major economic summit in November.

She said growth figures alone belied the reality on the ground for women globally, who were often prevented from contributing to economic development because of domestic violence or legal obstacles.

"When you've got growth that is meaningful for a handful of people you are still creating a recipe for social inequality," she told AAP in Canberra.

"There has got to be a deliberate way in which the emphasis of the G20 is linked to tackling this issue of women's economic empowerment." 

Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka was also in Australia drumming up support for gender equality to be given special priority when the UN develops its next list of long-term anti-poverty initiatives.

From next year, world leaders will need to agree on a new set of sustainable development targets and Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka is advocating for a stand-alone goal on women's empowerment. 

She wants Australia on side because of its record promoting gender issues on the world stage and its ability to "push the envelope" on issues it cares about.

"I need Australia to be one of those countries that can bang the table," she said.

"I think this is one of the issues I'm expecting - and I'm seeing - Australia has a possibility to lead the pack." 

She said the rise of fundamentalism in the Middle East and Africa had eroded many gains made over the years for women's peace and security in the world's trouble spots.

The abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls by Islamic extremists in northern Nigeria represented a backward shift in a country that had once been a champion of women's rights, she said.

"If anyone had told me that in a country like Nigeria you could lose a whole school and you do not have the whole country and government up in arms to find a solution, I would have said no," she said.

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