Abstract

In September 2015, world leaders gathered together in the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and formally approved Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development（2030 Agenda）at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit. The Agenda covers the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, includes 17 Goals and 169 targets, and can be summarized as 5 Ps: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. The Goal 5 of the Agenda“Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”, has 9 targets. Besides, gender perspective is incorporated and reflected in the other 16 Goals. Therefore, each target of the new agenda is closely linked with gender equality.

This book consists of 7 parts, including the Introduction, 5 main chapters and the Conclusions. With the gender equality related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda as the core and the integration of gender equality in the framework of the international development as the trend, the background, achievements and challenges of gender -related goals and targets of the Agenda will be explored together with the implementation of Goal 3 of the Millennium Development Goals（MDGs）and other gender equality related goals and targets. China's tremendous achievements, successful experience and challenges in the implementation of relevant goals and targets of the MDGs are also fully summarized to provide recommendations to achieve gender equality and sustainable development goals by 2030.

This book presents 4 core ideas.

First, gender equality and sustainable development is an holistic part, and the implementation of gender equality related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda and the implementation of the full realization of gender equality by 2030 adopted by the 59th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women（CSW）of the United Nations is interconnected as both belong to the process of the realization of gender equality.

Second, under the global perspective, the past 15 years witnessed various degrees of progress achieved by countries around the world through the implementation of the gender equality related goals and targets of the MDGs. However, the progress was uneven and no country in the world has achieved gender equality related goals and targets, and some progress may even be reversed. All of these laid the foundation to the implementation of gender equality related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda, and also left behind an extremely arduous task. Reviewing last year's situation, the enhancement of gender equality related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda has made some achievements, but still faced the challenges left by the irrational world economic system, traditional practices and gender stereotypes, which are difficult to eradicate.

Third, China is part of the world and its efforts to realize gender e quality is an important part of the global efforts to realize gender equality. China has accumulated plenty of practical experience when implementing the gender equality related goals and targets of the MDGs and has achieved fruitful results in the past 15 years. The successful practices such as“Spring Bud Program”, “Water Cellar for Mothers”“Mentors for Female College Students on Entrepreneurship”and“Making Contributions Actions”not only benefit gender equality in China, but also provide a reference for other developing countries. All of these laid a solid foundation to achieve the gender equality related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda. The Chinese government's basic stance for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is“active participation”and“active implementation, ”and the related work has been launched and also written into the 13thFiveyear Plan. The Chinese government has actively coordinated both the domestic and the international resources to fully implement the relevant goals and targets. At the same time, China's implementation of the relevant goals and targets also faces various obstacles and challenges. Therefore, demonstrating a strong political will, establishing a strong accountability mechanism, mainstreaming gender into sustainable development and strengthening gender-responsive statistics will help achieve the gender equality related goals and targets by 2030.

Fourth, as for the Chinese characteristics, China needs to follow the international standards and works hard to realize the gender equality related goals and targets as well as the relevant monitoring indicators of the 2030 Agenda in the country on the one hand; it must also design a set of indicators based on its own national condition to measure the progress and find a suitable development path for itself on the other hand. Only by doing so, can it better implement the gender equality related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda and provide the“Chinese model”to the world when realizing gender equality related goals and targets.

The Chinese scholar Zhang Baijia has described the basic clue of the Chinese diplomacy in the 20th Century as“Change ourselves and influence the world. ”The MDGs has just expired, the 2030 Agenda has just launched, and the 59thSession of CSW has identified the full realization of gender equality in 2030. On these occasions, the Chinese people will stand together with people all over the world to“change ourselves and influence the world. ”We will go beyond the words, translate the commitments to actions, and promote women's development in the world with our full spirit and work hard to the successful completion of the 2030 Agenda and the realization of gender equality.