Advocacy pressure points for gender equality and macroeconomics: Exercises

International financial institutions: National-level advocacy Further resources

Advocacy pressure points for gender equality and macroeconomics: Exercises

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1. If you were to write a thematic shadow report on macroeconomics and gender equality for the next review of your country under CEDAW:

- a) What issues would you bring up? What positive or negative developments would you highlight? What suggestions would you make as next steps for the state to work on?
- b) What questions do you think will be helpful for the CEDAW Committee to pose to the state that would reveal missing pieces of information on macroeconomics and women’s human rights?
- c) Are there any other CSOs that you can work with in your country towards writing and advocating for such a thematic shadow report?

The exercises from the previous sessions can help you to brainstorm towards such a thematic report.

2. a) Look into the website of the statistical institution in your country. Try to find their sustainable development indicators (not all countries may have them). Among the sustainable development indicators used within the country, which ones do you think would give you information on the effects of the macroeconomic policies on women and girls in your country? Have there been any changes in the results of these indicators since 2015 (the adoption year of the SDGs)?

b) Find your country on the SDGs website. Has your country ever submitted a VNR report before? If yes,

Has it reported on any issues related to gender equality and women’s human rights?
How much of the report is devoted to gender-related issues?
Are the numbers and cases presented in line with the experiences you and your organisation see on the ground?
Does the report have a gender perspective when presenting the macroeconomic policies and implementation schemes of the country?

c) If you were the expert writing the VNR report for the state,

How would you report on the macroeconomic policies and implementation schemes, while informed by a gender perspective?
How would you report on the general context of gender equality and women’s human rights?
Would you use any recommendations/reports presented to your country by another international human rights or economic rights mechanism (such as CEDAW, CESCR, UPR etc.)?
Would the sustainable development indicators of your country be able to give you enough gender-disaggregated data to write such a report from a gender perspective?

3. After completing the exercises in Annexe II of this starter kit, select an issue that you would want to pursue for advocacy at the national level. The below questions can be helpful in formulating an advocacy campaign on your chosen issue.

Prepare an action plan, indicating the institutions and decision makers you would want to address for your advocacy campaign.
What messages would you like to use for your campaign?
Do you have data available/accessible to support your campaign? Who is it collected by?
What other constituencies could you cooperate with for such an advocacy campaign?