EURACTIV: European Development Days: Investing in women and girls
Melanne Verveer, executive director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security at Georgetown University

“The Sustainable Development Goals include gender equality and women’s empowerment as a distinct goal — and investing in women and girls is recognized as critical for achieving the entire 2030 development agenda. Today we are making progress on this agenda, but not enough. … It will take all of us working together to improve the status of women, to accelerate economic opportunity, and enhance sustainable development. Public-private partnerships are an important instrument to drive progress for women and girls. SDG 17 specifically calls for the adoption of multi-stakeholder approaches to achieve sustainable development. … Governments, multilateral organizations, civil society, and other stakeholders increasingly recognize that women and girls must be a central pillar in global development — one of the most powerful tools for alleviating poverty and improving the human condition. … There can be no sustainable development without gender equality. When women and girls make progress, all of society makes progress. It is time to act on what we know to be effective” (6/5).