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ChapterE
GENDEREQUALITY
Autonomy for women (economic, physical and in decision-making) constitutes an essential prerequisite
not only for guaranteeing the full exercise of their rights but also for achieving sustainable development.
While the region has made progress in implementing the Plan of Action from the Fourth World
Conference onWomen (Beijing, 1995), such progress has for the most part beenmixed and uneven, and
there remain important challenges for achieving gender equality that call for ongoing investments and
government policies with respect to gender discrimination in the labour market, the sexual division of
labour, violence against women, their social protection, and their sexual and reproductive health, among
othermatters.
This is the chapter of theMontevideoConsensus on Population andDevelopment that contains the
greatest number of prioritymeasures—19— reflecting in part the heavy preoccupation with the issue and
the intense debate concerning it in specialized forums at the global and regional levels, such as the
conferences in follow-up to theWorld Conference onWomen and the Regional Conference onWomen in
LatinAmerica and theCaribbean.
Generally speaking, and as explained in detail in the following summary tables, the priority
measures of this chapter are clearly spelled out in existing specialized instruments, provisions and
mechanisms, such as the Beijing Platform of Action, the Santo Domingo Consensus (2013), the Brasilia
Consensus (2010), the Quito Consensus (2007)
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, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and
Eradication of Violence against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará). As well, follow-up to many of
these instruments is contemplated in the proposed sustainable development goals, in particular Goal 5
(“achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”), which seeks among other things to
eliminate all forms of discrimination and violence against women (targets 5.1 and 5.2), to recognize the
economic and social value of unpaid work, and to promote shared responsibility (target 5.4), to ensure
effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making (target 5.5),
to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights (target 5.6), to
undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources (target 5.a), and to adopt and
strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the
empowerment of all women and girls at all levels (target 5.c). Yet achieving gender equality, and
achievements under the other SDGs as well, will be possible only to the extent that this objective is
mainstreamed in the post-2015 agenda and that some of goals in particular (SDGs 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10,
16 and17) can be implemented in synergywithSDG5.
As explained in the summary tables, there is also a strong interrelationship among the various
priority measures of this chapter, and in some cases with measures located in other chapters of the
Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development. Priority measure 47, for example, is closely
linked with PM 49, as having strengthened institutional mechanisms in place is essential for promoting
and reinforcing gender-sensitive budgets. PM 49, in turn, taken together with PMs 62, 63 and 64,
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These consensuses are of cumulative effect for the region, in that each new consensus recognizes the political
and programmatic value of the previous ones, approved at the Latin American and Caribbean regional
conferences of onwomen.
