Women’s Day 2020:  An equal world as an enabled world

The world will Sunday commemorate the 2020 International Women’s Day (IWD); the UN’s annual event celebrated every March 8, to reflect on progress made in terms of the social, cultural, economic as well as political achievements of ordinary women who are positively changing their communities all over the world.

IWD also serves as a day for call to action and celebration of acts of courage and determination of ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities. The 2020 commemoration coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China.

This year’s celebration themed: “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights” aligns with UN Women’s new multigenerational campaign “Generation Equality.”  According to UN Women, the Generation Equality campaign “is bringing together people of every gender, age, ethnicity, race, religion and country, to drive actions that will create the gender-equal world we all deserve.”

A statement by the UN Women said the UN observance of IWD 2020 will take place at the United Nations Secretariat in New York on Friday, March 6, 2020; the event will be addressed by senior representatives of the United Nations system, feature an inter-generational dialogue with gender equality activists as well as musical performances.

The statement adds that the 2020 event will discuss how to collectively tackle the unfinished business of empowering all women and girls in the years to come, noting that the event will “bring together the next generations of women and girl leaders and gender equality activists with the women’s rights advocates and visionaries who were instrumental in creating the Beijing Platform for Action more than two decades ago”.

2020 is a pivotal year for the campaign of advancing gender equality worldwide; it marks several galvanizing moments for the global gender equality movement including the five-year milestone for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); the 20th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, on women, peace, and security; as well as the10th anniversary of UN Women’s establishment.

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Global Gender Gap report, achieving gender parity in the world will not happen in less than 200 years to come. Thus, the International Women’s Day campaign has its sights set on lowering that number by focusing on calls-to-action year round.