Rio+20 Network of Women?s NGOs in Finland
  • Date submitted: 1 Nov 2011
  • Stakeholder type: Major Group
  • Name: Rio+20 Network of Women?s NGOs in Finland
  • Submission Document: Download
Keywords: Renewable energy (2 hits),

Full Submission

1 November 2011

Rio+20 Network of Women's NGOs in Finland email.

Rio+20 Network of Women?s NGOs in Finland Contribution to the Compilation Document United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012

Rio+20 process should address very clearly women as key actors of change both in poverty eradication and advancing sustainable development. It is essential to make gender equality and women?s rights perspective an integral part of the global transition to green economy.

Special attention should be given to the following points:

Green economy and women?s participation

In order to achieve the Rio+20 objectives of sustainable development and poverty eradication, green economy should be used as an instrument to promote gender equality. To maximise human contributions to sustainable economic growth, it is essential to

-ensure women?s participation in environmental decision making at all levels

-increase women?s participation in income-generating activities

-ensure women?s access to clean and Renewable energy

-invest in Renewable energy and labour-saving technologies to reduce the amount of women?s unpaid household and care work

-incorporate the idea of gender equality in all green economy investments and activities

Women?s sexual and reproductive health and rights

Advancing sexual rights and reproductive health and rights is closely connected to resolving other development challenges, such as reaching balanced population development, adaptation to climate change, poverty eradication, promoting sustainable economic growth and social development.

Therefore it is crucial to ensure that every woman and girl around the world has -right to sexual self determination

-right to voluntarily marry and establish a family

-right to decide the number, timing and spacing of children

-access to accurate sexual and reproductive health information

-access to quality sexual and reproductive health services and modern contraceptive methods

Women in rural areas

Environmental degradation and extreme poverty affect particularly women in rural areas in developing countries, as they are often highly dependent on local natural resources for their livelihood.

An effective way to increase agricultural productivity and sustainable economic growth in rural areas is to advance women?s opportunities, for example by

-securing women?s land and property rights -ensuring women?s access to and control over productive resources

-investing in labour-saving clean technologies for female farmers to boost agricultural production

-ensuring that there is a greater gender equality focus in the aid directed to the agricultural sector

Additionally, as half of the world?s population lives now in towns and cities, it is important to ensure that global transition to green economy promotes also women?s position and opportunities in urban areas, for example equal access to less polluted, safe urban environments and their planning, transport, public spaces and information, and on the other hand to production and finance by ensuring inclusion of socio-economic networks.