12 November 2025.
Today, the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD), in collaboration with other civil society organisations which make up the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 Data Initiative, is launching a report on the role of SDG 16 in supporting gender equality and thereby advancing social development, SDG 16 Data Initiative Report 2025: Promoting Progress on SDG 16 and SDG 5 as Pathways to Inclusive Social Development. The core mantra of the SDGs is to “leave no one behind”, and yet progress on reducing gender inequality in terms of enjoyment of the SDG 16 targets has been very limited.
“It may seem ironic but while women still lag behind men in terms of enjoying the rights reflected in the SDG 16 targets, those same targets still demonstrate significant power to advance gender equality,” said Toby Mendel, Executive Director of CLD. “This is certainly true in terms of the right to access information held by government, with statistics showing a significant gender gap in terms of the use of this right but, at the same time, there being examples from countries around the world where women have used this right very effectively to advance their agendas.”
Chapter 6 of this year’s report, titled How Freedom of Expression and the Right to Information Contribute to Gender Equality and Social Development, covers SDG Target 16.2 and was jointly authored by Centre for Law and Democracy, Global Forum for Media Development and Africa Women Journalism Project. The second part of this chapter focuses on SDG Indicator 16.10.2, which measures the adoption and implementation of right to information (RTI) laws. It notes the weak progress made so far on this indicator, with 56 UN Member States still not having adopted RTI laws and evidence showing weak implementation of many such laws.
The chapter also shows that while women lag well behind men in terms of benefitting from the right to information, this right has at the same time very often been used to promote gender equality. Examples include using RTI to support women’s participation in decision-making and to ensure that a range of different development benefits which are of importance to women are being provided.
The SDG 16 Data Initiative will host a workshop discussing the report tomorrow, 13 November, from 09:00 to 10:15 ET. More information about the workshop, including a registration link, is available here.
The Report is available here.
For further information, please contact:
Toby Mendel
Executive Director, Centre for Law and Democracy
toby@law-democracy.org
+1 902 431-3686
www.law-democracy.org
X: @Law_Democracy
BlueSky: @law-democracy.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/centre-for-law-and-democracy
