UN Officials Call for Economic Overhaul to Tackle Rising Global Inequality and Poverty

Stories OHCHR

Global inequality and poverty are on the rise, with around 4.8 billion people poorer now than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. In every society, women and girls—particularly those facing multiple forms of discrimination—are disproportionately affected,” said Deputy High Commissioner Nada Al-Nashif during a panel on the human rights economy and women’s human rights. This panel was part of the 56th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, which featured an annual full-day discussion on women’s human rights.

“Currently, more than 10 percent of women globally are trapped in a cycle of extreme poverty. At the current rate of progress, as many as 342 million women (8 percent) will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030,” Al-Nashif stated. UN Human Rights data shows that around 3.9 million women worldwide face legal barriers affecting their economic participation. Women earn only 77 cents for every dollar paid to men, and 92 countries lack provisions mandating equal pay for work of equal value.

“Current economic legal and policy frameworks hinder the achievement of gender equality,” Al-Nashif said. “They fail to recognize the specific experiences and rights of women and girls, while privileging patriarchy and corporate power embedded in laws, policies, and institutions.” In December 2023, High Commissioner Türk issued his vision statement, “Human Rights: A Path for Solutions,” emphasizing the need to prioritize the rights of women and girls, particularly given their disproportionate role in unpaid care work and the informal sector.

“Women and girls are still perceived as the primary caregivers, leading to them shouldering a disproportionate share of unpaid care and support work,” Al-Nashif said. “The distribution of unpaid care work is highly feminized,” said Emanuela Pozzan, Senior Specialist on Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination at the International Labour Organization (ILO), noting that 600 million women remain outside the labor force due to family responsibilities.

“Women perform 76.2 percent of the total amount of unpaid care work—16 billion hours per day—which is 3.2 times more than men,” Pozzan added. Al-Nashif emphasized the need to re-evaluate the concept of unlimited economic growth, which is based on deeply embedded gender and other inequalities within and across countries. “Our economies are failing us. Mind-boggling inequalities and the unbelievable wealth enjoyed by a privileged elite exist alongside grinding poverty experienced by millions. This is a human rights crisis,” Türk said in his vision statement.

“We need to shift our economic paradigm and our approach to macroeconomic policies towards realizing a human rights economy,” Al-Nashif said. “A human rights economy puts people and the planet at the center of economic, social, and environmental policies.” A human rights economy aims to dismantle structural barriers and other impediments to eliminate discrimination and advance substantive equality, sustainable growth, and shared prosperity.

For economic systems to work for gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights, it is imperative to implement human rights economies in and across countries, Al-Nashif concluded. “Through the Human Rights Economy concept, we can perform the reset so urgently needed. Looking beyond profit, the short term, and the interests of the few, the Human Rights Economy can deliver for people and the planet because it is grounded in everybody’s human rights,” said Türk.