Gender

SC Briefing Report on SRHR, June 2025

Advancing Women and Girls’ Health in a Time of Converging Crises

South Centre Briefing Session (April 2025) Report

The South Centre hosted a high-level briefing session aimed at advancing the health rights of women and girls in the face of multiple global challenges. The meeting coincided with the South Centre’s 30th anniversary and the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, bringing together ambassadors, health experts, and representatives of international organisations to discuss the protection and advancement of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the Global South.

(more…)

Policy Brief 144, 18 June 2025

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Context of International Human Rights

By Carlos Correa and Daniel Uribe

This policy brief examines the growing recognition of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) within the framework of international human rights law. It traces the evolution of this consensus through key United Nations (UN) General Assembly and Human Rights Council resolutions, foundational documents like the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action and the Beijing Platform for Action, and the interpretative work of human rights treaty bodies. These instruments increasingly affirm that SRHR are an integral component of the right to health and are essential for gender equality. However, this brief also highlights the challenges these common efforts face in line with other views, which prioritise national sovereignty in determining policies on reproductive health. The analysis highlights the tension between the evolving international human rights framework and state-centric approaches, concluding with the imperative for ongoing dialogue to solidify and implement SRHR as universal, inalienable human rights.

(more…)

South Centre AMR Webinar, 14 May 2025

Gender Intersectionality in Antimicrobial Resistance

Date & Time: 14 May 2025, 4PM CET Geneva time / 10AM EST / 2PM GMT

Key Discussion Points:

  • The intersectionality of gender with other social determinants (e.g. socioeconomic status, education, occupation) in shaping AMR vulnerabilities and outcomes.
  • How gender influences antibiotic use, access to healthcare, and infection prevention and control practices?
  • Strategies for integrating gender-sensitive approaches into AMR policies, programs, and research

(more…)

SRHR Briefing Session, 24 April 2025

Advancing Women and Girls’ Health in a Time of Converging Crises

Date: 24 April 2025

Time: 14:30 to 16:30 PM

Venue: Maison de la Paix, Petal 2, Room S12, Eugène-Rigot 2, Geneva, Switzerland 

The global community faces unprecedented challenges in realising the right to health for all. While progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) acknowledges the importance of gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), this progress is threatened by persistent inequalities, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, escalating climate change impacts, ongoing conflicts, and socio-economic disparities. These converging crises disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, exacerbating marginalisation and hindering progress towards achieving universal health coverage, with particularly severe consequences for women and girls.  

This briefing aims to provide a comprehensive overview of these challenges and propose concrete strategies to advance SRHR within international cooperation and the SDGs. The South Centre will host this briefing to foster policy dialogue on how States can fulfil their obligations to advance the right to health for all, with a central focus on SRHR.

(more…)

G20 Visioning Seminar, 17-18 July 2024

G20 Visioning Seminar

co-organized by South Africa Department of International Relations and Cooperation, UNESCO, Institute of Economic Justice, UNCTAD and the South Centre

17 – 18 July 2024
Pretoria, South Africa
DIRCO Conference Centre 1

(more…)

SouthViews No. 250, 10 August 2023

COVID-19, Future Pandemics and the Africa Care Economy Index

By Salimah Valiani

In Africa, the care economy has long been unrecognised. At least since the last major pandemic in Africa, HIV-AIDS, caring work has been severely undervalued in the continent, and the redistribution of caring work, from females in the home and communities, is next to nonexistent. Undoing this structural inequality is crucial to improve health and wellbeing of girls and women in Africa, to be prepared for future pandemics, and to realise Africa’s demographic dividend for the benefit of the majority. To achieve this, the Africa Care Economy Index is offered as a policy, advocacy, and accountability tool.

(more…)

Climate Policy Brief 25, February 2021

The UNFCCC Virtual Regional Workshops on Gender and Climate Change 2020

By Mariama Williams

In the last week of November 2020, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s Gender and Climate Team presented its hallmark Global Gender Event as part of the virtual United Nations (UN) Climate Dialogues 2020 (Climate Dialogues). The Climate Dialogues provided “a platform for Parties and other stakeholders to showcase progress made in 2020 and exchange views and ideas across the subsidiary bodies and COP agendas mandated for 2020”. They were held in lieu of the annual meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) previously slated to take place in the United Kingdom in December 2020. The virtual Global Gender Event held on November 26, 2020 occurred in two parts. Part 1, Acting on the gender and climate GAP: progress and reflections highlighted progress and reflections made at the regional workshops on gender and climate change held by the Gender team earlier in the year. Part 2, Women for Results: showcasing women’s leadership on climate change showcased women’s leadership on climate change including the five winning projects of the 2020 UN Global Climate Action Awards.

(more…)

Beijing+25 Update Series 4, 20 May 2020

Spotlight: Arab region and the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action

Regional Round-up on progress in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action in light of the upcoming 25th anniversary of the platform Spotlight: Arab region

(more…)

Beijing+25 Update Series 3, 21 April 2020

Spotlight: Asia-Pacific and the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action

Regional Round-up on progress in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action in light of the upcoming 25th anniversary of the platform. Spotlight: Asia-Pacific

(more…)

Beijing+25 Update Series 2, 30 March 2020

Spotlight: Africa and the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action

Regional Round-up on progress in implementing the Beijing Platform of Action in light of the upcoming 25th Anniversary of the platform. Spotlight: Africa.

(more…)