Stakeholders call for thorough implementation of gender-related SDG

AMMAN — Minister of Political and Parliamentary Affairs and Minister of State Musa Maaytah on Monday said the government will continue working on the country’s legislation to safeguard the security and status of women and children.

“The government has introduced many laws that were in favour of women and children over the past years and have increased women’s representation in the political life,” Maaytah said.

The minister’s remarks were made during a roundtable meeting on “Gaining Support for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Global Agenda of 2030, especially Goal 5 on Women’s Empowerment and Equality” organised by the Arab Women Organisation (AWO) in cooperation with the National Centre for Human Rights and the EU Support to Civil Society in Jordan.

Held at the Ministry of Political and Parliamentary Affairs with the support of the European Union, the event and attended by representatives from various city council governorates.

Maaytah stressed that his ministry will always be the “umbrella to support the civil society’s demands to apply the SDGs by the government and to be the connection between the government and the local non-government organisations”.

Goal 5 seeks to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life and undertaking reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, according to the SDG website.

It also seeks to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls around the world, to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls in the public and private spheres and to end all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.

Deputy Wafa Bani Mustafa highlighted the Lower House of Parliament’s numerous votes in favour of many laws ensuring equality for women.

“We will continue to lobby our colleagues at the Lower House to vote in favour of women’s empowerment and equality, while at the same time follow up on the government to ensure the proper application and implementation of the goals,” Bani Mustafa stressed. 

AWO Programme Director Laila Naffa said: “Our aim is to win the support of the local community and the government to carry on with the SDGs recommendations from the bottom to the top”.

“We want to convince the government of Jordan that it should be serious in implementing all SDGs, especially Goal 5, 13 and 17,” Naffa told The Jordan Times.

She said the idea is “to build a coalition to ensure that the government is following up on the SDGs’ recommendations”, explaining “our role is to follow up and monitor if the goals are being implemented by the government and to follow up on the process”.

Goal 13 calls for taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, while Goal 17 calls for strengthening the means of implementation and revitalising the global partnership for sustainable development.

Naffa noted that several meetings were held with various government representatives across the country over the past few months to discuss the SDGs, adding that participants agreed that there is an urgent need to raise people’s awareness about the goals through multiple nationwide campaigns.

“The meetings resulted in recommendations such as lobbying the government to tie Goal 5 to the rest of the goals because it ensures gender equality,” Naffa said. 

Other recommendations, according to Naffa, included raising awareness on the importance of protecting the environment and including women in all activities and programmes in this field.

“The recommendations also focused on building coalitions with various entities in the country to ensure that all the goals are applied,” Naffa concluded.