[Title] W20 COMMUNIQUE 2023, Women-led Development

W20 COMMUNIQUE 2023

Women-led Development

Women 20 2023 (W20) calls upon G20 leaders to place women and girls as the drivers of the 2023 Presidency theme of One Earth, One Family, One Future – Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

We urge G20 leaders to:

- Advance their previous commitments in the 2022 Bali Leaders' Declaration, the "G20 Roadmap Towards and Beyond the Brisbane Target", also referred to as the Rome Roadmap - included in the 2021 G20 Leaders' Declaration, increasing the quantity and quality of women's employment and previous G20 Leaders' Declarations regarding equality and equity for women.

- Develop and improve National Gender Strategies that are funded and tracked using gender-sensitive and sex disaggregated data. Each G20 government to establish a national Annual Review Mechanism and bring in all key stakeholders and respective members of national W20 delegations to evaluate the progress, gaps and challenges.

- Create an Annual G20 Reporting & Review Mechanism to track implementation and the impact of the commitments made to women and girls and the results at the G20 level.

Requiring and delivering gender equality, inclusion and empowerment of women and girls in all their diversity will result in increased economic and social growth that strengthens resiliency for G20 countries.

We recommend action across five priority areas:

1. Climate Change

Climate change and gender are inextricably linked and women should be at the heart of climate justice. All climate-related policies must take an inclusive, equal and equitable gender approach.

- Guarantee equal representation and meaningful participation of women in climate decision-making mechanisms, e.g., COP 28 et seq., and a gender-responsive approach in all climate change policies, including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

- Commit that the UN Loss and Damage Fund (COP27) and adaptation finance have a stronger gender focus to provide fiscal space for gender-just climate action and infrastructure, including climate disaster risk reduction management.

- Leverage the Green Climate Fund and commit direct funding to women-led projects, such as investing in climate entrepreneurship and technologies supporting net zero goals.

- Protect and support women and children affected by climate change and climate change-induced migration and the consequences on their human rights; and track impact.

- Mandate gender strategies for energy infrastructure planning and decision-making to guarantee access to renewable energy for all to enable a just energy transition.

2. Entrepreneurship

Women entrepreneurs play a crucial role in driving national economies by boosting GDP growth, creating jobs, and providing essential goods and services. Women, particularly in rural and indigenous areas, continue to face multiple legal, policy, procedural, regulatory, social, and societal barriers, as well as a lack of access to capital and financial services.

- Facilitate, promote, and incentivize access to markets (domestic and international) including: public and corporate procurement, national and international trade, e-commerce, access to corporate value and supply chains, and new technologies; with particular attention to sustainable and emerging sectors (space, blue, green, circular, digital technologies).

- Increase access to finance, collateral, and capital, for women entrepreneurs, and incentivize private, institutional, and public investors to invest in opportunities through a gender lens.

- Promote women entrepreneurial policy frameworks and ecosystems that will accelerate women-owned and led MSMEs' growth through all stages, encourage every country to create and fund Women's Business Centres, facilitate women entrepreneurs to move from informal to formal sectors in order to unleash growth and increase tax revenues.

- Encourage Gender-Responsive Public Procurement (GRPP) programs in G20 countries and establish their own national targets for procurement for women-owned and led MSMEs; increase gender procurements by minimum one percentage point a year with a goal of 20% by 2030.

- Allocate a minimum of 5% of the new Global Minimum Corporate Tax, endorsed by OECD and G20 in 2021, to fund women-owned and led MSMEs in growth sectors.

- Implement We-Fi's Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code; create and leverage blended finance mechanisms for women such as the Global Blended Finance Alliance; continue to provide the remaining funding for the $350 million USD commitment in 2022 to We-Fi.

3. Gender Digital Divide

The digital gender gap in access, skills, leadership and research is driven by complex social, economic and cultural factors, resulting in women and girls experiencing barriers to accessing and using digital technologies. Closing this gap will result in significant social and economic gains and increase in livelihoods and GDP, both now and for future generations. G20 leaders must commit to women's full participation as key actors and decision-makers in the digital economy.

- G20 Member States must publish an annual national G20 Digital Gender Equality Report to demonstrate progress.

- By 2030, halve the digital gender gap (including mobile) by addressing barriers around affordability, literacy and digital skills, accessibility, online safety, and lack of relevant content in usage and adoption of digital technologies.

- Guarantee and put in place policies and procedures to correct and prevent digital technology/AI from creating, perpetuating, and amplifying gender biases in data and algorithms.

- Provide a minimum 15% tax break, or other equivalent incentives for women-led technology and tech-enabled start-ups; and relevant incentives/subsidies for women entrepreneurs.

- Strengthen institutional capacity and mechanisms to protect, monitor, investigate, and prosecute reports of online abuse and violence against women and girls.

4. Grassroots Leadership

It is critical for women to become leaders, to lead development, and act as agents of change, including at the grassroots level, and for society to embrace that mindset and the systemic change necessary for women to exercise that leadership. As such, governments, organizations, and individuals must promote grassroots leadership of women.

- Promote women's leadership by applying a minimum quota for one-third of women representation at all levels of governance and decision-making in leadership, with an emphasis at the grassroots levels and sustained career progression to achieve the 50% representation goal for 2030.

- Guarantee that all recommendations/benefits for women extend and are tailored to the remote, rural and indigenous areas, particularly important areas are: education, healthcare, gender-based violence (including online) infrastructure, climate change, agriculture, financial and digital literacy.

- Ensure the G20 Annual Reporting and Review Mechanism for women's leadership includes women at grassroots level especially from remote and rural areas from each country.

5. Education, Skill Development, & Labour Market Participation

Education is a human right. For peaceful, equitable, and prosperous societies, it is necessary to educate girls and women. The economic contributions of women must be appropriately recognized, rewarded and supported through measures that promote decent and predictable work, gender-equitable sharing of care responsibilities, strengthening public social infrastructures, and a guarantee of freedom from gender-based violence everywhere.

- Provide equitable access to primary, secondary, vocational, and tertiary education; increase retention in school; and deliver lifelong learning, including upskilling, for women and girls of all ages in emerging sectors and STEM/STEAM.

- Mandate anti-bias and unconscious bias training in the education and wider social ecosystems for all, and fund media campaigns to change gendered conceptions of care, work, and stereotypes of women and men.

- Provide free sanitary hygiene products and safe and sustainable sanitation practice education, in schools and higher education facilities; supported with comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) as specified by the World Health Organization (WHO); and provide an affordable and accessible range of services, including antenatal and postnatal care to reduce maternal mortality.

- Guarantee that all research regarding health, medical devices and pharmaceuticals is conducted and analyzed equally, and includes women at all stages of their development, including pregnancy, which influences future generations as well.

- Adopt and enforce anti-violence legislation and workplace safety as provided for in ILO Convention 190, and extend that protection to all other gendered violence - at home or elsewhere.

- Legislate gender pay gap reporting for the public sector, private sector and publicly-traded firms and end gender-based discrimination in the workforce.

- Commit to increased funding for a universal "Basic Care Basket" supported by actions to standardize, professionalize and formalize the care economy; deliver on prior UN commitments by G20 donor countries to provide 0.7% of GNI to develop and improve care infrastructure; and implement policies that protect and improve maternity/parental benefits and support gender equitable care responsibilities, including family leave programs.