A/HRC/53/39 pandemic and the global food, energy and care crises, which are in turn connected to other crises, including armed conflict, occupation and forced displacement, have resulted in the first rise in inter-country income inequality in a generation,10 with women and girls being particularly affected in many countries and regions. 11 11. Women’s and girls’ inequality and poverty are the result of historical and continuing economic policy choices at the global, regional and national levels. These policy priorities are not gender-neutral, as they have been developed within patriarchal political, legal and socioeconomic systems and institutions that ignore the specific experiences and rights of girls and women while privileging the dominant forms of male and corporate power that perpetuate existing hierarchies. 12 Poverty and inequalities are structural phenomena that negatively affect the sustainable development of people, communities and nations and that impede effective responses to the existential threat posed by climate change and ecological collapse as well as other global challenges, including public health emergencies, armed conflicts, economic recessions, and migration, food and care crises. 12. The strengthened neoliberal turn of the past forty years, reflected in the policies of international economic institutions and national Governments, has demonstrably increased poverty and inequality both between and within nations.13 These inequalities, underpinned by patriarchy, slavery, racism, colonialism, militarism and environmental destruction, have been exacerbated by orthodox macroeconomic prescriptions, including structural adjustment and austerity measures14 designed to offset crippling national debts,15 the liberalization of global trade and investment and the financialization of capital markets,16 and the resulting monetary and fiscal regimes,17 the privatization and commodification of public goods and the retreat of the welfare state. 18 While it is beyond the scope of the present report to analyse these phenomena, it is important to note that rampant global socioeconomic inequality, characterized by the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people (mostly men), corporations in a limited number of countries, and developed States, has diminished the resources available for policies, services and programmes to advance women’s rights and gender equality.19 13. Poverty is a gendered phenomenon that is deeply imbricated with other forms of inequality and discrimination. Women’s and girls’ experiences of poverty intersect with their race, ethnicity, migratory status, age, disability, religion, geographical location, sexual orientation and gender identity to produce distinct forms of discrimination and inequality that vary over time and from place to place. The persistence of discriminatory norms and harmful gender stereotypes affecting women and girls across every area of life, from the family to the community, in businesses and in all branches of public power, contributes to maintaining and deepening these inequalities.20 Recent attacks and backlash against the principle of gender equality underline the urgent need to reassert the centrality of the human rights framework 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 GE.23-06173 See https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal10. See A/HRC/38/46; https://data.unwomen.org/; UN-Women, “Global gendered impacts of the Ukraine crisis on energy access and food security and nutrition” (2022); A/HRC/26/39; A/HRC/32/44; Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, “Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic must not discount women and girls”, 20 April 2020; and Platform of Independent Expert Mechanisms on the Elimination of Discrimination and Violence against Women, “COVID-19 and increase in gender-based violence and discrimination against women”, 14 July 2020. Frances Raday, Economic Woman: Gendering Inequality in the Age of Capital (Routledge, 2019). Jason Hickel, The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions (London, Penguin Random House, 2018); see also E/C.12/2001/10. Oxfam International and Nawi-Afrifem Macroeconomics Collective, “The assault of austerity: how prevailing economic policy choices are a form of gender-based violence” (2022). See A/77/169. Gender and Development Network, “Briefing: making trade work for gender equality” (July 2017); and Alicia Ely Yamin, When Misfortune Becomes Injustice: Evolving Human Rights Struggles for Health and Social Equality (Stanford University Press, 2020). Oxfam International, Survival of the Richest. See A/HRC/44/51. Focus 2030, “Overview of data resources on gender equality across the world”, 3 March 2023. OHCHR, “Ending violence against women and girls key to tackling global crises and achieving prosperity”, 24 November 2022. 5