UN SDG Action Campaign

Is Women's Economic Empowerment important to you?

The United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment has teamed up with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Action Campaign to roll out a global MY World 2030 thematic survey called Empower Women 24_7. This survey aims to find out, from people around the world, what are the best ways to support women to get better jobs, earn more money and start or run a business?

The survey results will be guide the High-Level Panel for Women’s Economic Empowerment who will release a report in September 2016 containing key recommendations on how to accelerate women’s economic empowerment. The results will inform world leaders of what people think are the barriers to progress, what could help accelerate change, and HOW to address these challenges.

Justine Greening – High Level Panel Member and Secretary of State for International Development, UK – explains how unlocking the economic potential of women can help beat poverty.

Women’s economic empowerment is about unlocking the potential of women to earn more, gain better jobs and achieve financial independence. It’s about economic equality: such as closing the gender pay gap, increasing job opportunities, or access to loans. It’s also about breaking down barriers that hold women back: from discriminatory laws to an unfair share of unpaid home and family care. It’s a game-changer for development: because when more women get the chance to work, it makes their families, communities & countries wealthier.

The UN is carrying out this survey now because this year sees the start of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development: 17 targets to build a better world for everyone by 2030. Goal 5 is Gender Equality, which recognises that women’s empowerment – particularly economic empowerment – is critical in ending extreme poverty. The High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment is gathering evidence and ideas now to publish a report in March 2017.

Please take our short survey and help us to spread the word!

The survey is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese at: http://empowerwomen.myworld2030.org

YouTube Change Ambassador Forum on Gender Equality

The UN SDG Action Campaign collaborated with YouTube to invite seven YouTube Creators to the UN for a full day forum on the Sustainable Development Goals, and gender equality.

The recently appointed YouTube Change Ambassadors included seven international YouTube creators who are passionate about global issues. These included Jackie Aina (US, lilpumpkinpie05), Taty Ferreira (Brazil, AcidGirlTestosterona), Hayla Ghazal (UAE, HaylaTV), Ingrid Nilsen (US, missglamorazzi), Louise Pentland (UK, Sprinkleofglitter), Chika Yoshida (Japan, cyoshida1231) and Yuya (Mexico, lady16makeup).

The young women received briefs from several UN agencies, including UNFPA, UNOCHA, and UN Women, plus Project Everyone. They discussed the possibilities and challenges as female YouTube creators, and also spoke about the opportunities for empowering and inspiring women around the world through YouTube. The Creators committed to integrate the advocacy language into their own content programming on an ongoing basis and to activate these topics through various angles.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals are a remarkable opportunity to build a more sustainable and equitable world for present and future generations. This project empowered influencers in new media with the proper knowledge and confidence to further messaging around the SDGs to their respective audiences in their own words. The aim is to convert young influencers into long term activists for the SDGs and the issues they feel most comfortable in championing.

#REF4Women: Advocating for Women in Development through MY World 2015

By Karol Alejandra Arámbula Carrillo, Youth Advocate for MY World 2015

The Red Elephant Foundation (REF) is an initiative built on the groundings of story-telling, civilian peace-building and activism for gender sensitivity. We recognize the many different challenges women and girls continue to face in today’s world.

As such, we look forward to strengthen our actions in favor of gender equality within the international community. To do so, we have become official partners of the MY World Global Survey on the Post-2015 Development Agenda aiming to position gender equality as one of the top priorities of international development.

We believe global civil society plays a very important role in the construction and follow-up mechanisms of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Through MY World, which represents a fundamental tool to share some of our needs and interests as global citizens, we can have a real impact towards the adoption of new global development policies and actions led by the United Nations.

We are a committed group of over 70 volunteers of all ages living in 30 countries. We specifically work on the promotion of online and offline voting in the MY World Global Survey and we have developed different strategies and activities aiming to reach the most vulnerable and isolated communities.

Our strategy is simple: we create awareness on post-2015 processes among our volunteers and staff, which is expected to gather over 200 votes. We request them to do the same with their family members, colleagues and friends. Once they have completed this step, we ask them to engage in offline voting among civilians of their respective countries, especially in communities where there is limited Internet access. We particularly care about the participation of children and elders.

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Youth Diary from Pune, India – By Mr. Aakash Shah, Global Youth Advocate

Aakash with Ms. Neelam Gorhe (Member of Legislative Assembly , Maharashtra , India) who gave her commitment to supporting MY World 2015 & the World We Want 2015 and Beijing +20

Today, I would like to talk about the person who changed my dream of working for development on a global level into reality. He is the person tp whom I give all the credit. He has been a strong pillar to support me in my initiatives and has helped me implement them as planned. He’s the sole reason of the fruit of my efforts. I owe my success in the MY World 2015 and the World We Want 2015 campaigns entirely to this great mentor. He’s the one who also made me realise that women and youth should be involved in this project in order to get the desired outcome. He is none other than Mr. Ravi Karkara Ji. Even a hundred words would be less to express my gratitude towards this great personality. Thanks a million Ravi ji.

‘A youth is the nation’s blood and the architect of tomorrow’s world’.

I indeed feel honoured and privileged to work as a Global Youth Advocate for the My World 2015, and World We Want 2015 campaigns. This came about through my inspiring meeting with Ravi Ji. To live up to the responsibility envisaged upon me as a Global Youth Advocate, I have concentrated my entire focus on involving people from different strata of the society, as well as other initiatives to mobilise and strengthen the campaign. For the same, I have collaborated with Radio Channels, Technical Book Publishers, over 50 educational institutes, hospitals, Private Sectors, NGO’s , political representatives especially women and youth , government schools from rural areas etc. for the promotion of the campaign and thereby motivate people to bring about the change through My World 2015 and World We Want 2015 Campaigns .

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