Rio+20 Women Leaders’ Forum

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, brought Heads of State and Government to Brazil on 20-22 June 2012.

The Women Leaders’ Forum (WLF) is UN Women’s climactic event for the Rio+20 Conference. Organized in collaboration with the Government of Brazil and other partners, the Forum is envisaged as an inclusive, multi-stakeholder and interactive Forum. It gathered women Heads of State and Government and other women leaders and proponents of gender equality and women’s rights from governments, UN System organizations, civil society organizations, including rural women’s groups, indigenous groups and youth, academia and the private sector, to reaffirm the criticality of gender equality and women’s empowerment in the achievement of sustainable development in its three dimensions: economic, social and environmental protection.

Since the UN system of development agencies as a whole emphasized gender equality and women’s empowerment as among pressing priorities that warrant particular attention. UN Women advocated for Rio+20 to:

• Assess progress in implementing international conventions and plans of action on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the context of sustainable development, and highlight lessons, gaps, challenges and good practices.
• Call for the effective implementation of previous agreements, including the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, Chapter 24 of Agenda 21, Section K of the Beijing Platform for Action, and the conventions on biodiversity and climate change initiated in Rio in 1992.
• Propose measures and actions for governments and other key stakeholders to mainstream gender equality into sustainable development at all levels.
• Strengthen political commitment to sustainable development, and foster strategic partnerships for gender equality, encompassing support from relevant institutions, sufficient financing and the participation of women at all levels of decision-making.