Inequality, gender, and sustainable development: measuring feminist progress

This article considers progress made in research, theory, and measurement of feminist progress, it recalls the promises made at the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) and asks if there is potential for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their commitment to gender mainstreaming to offer the measurement framework that the BPfA lacked. We start with a summary of the evolution of feminist thinking in the area of development. We then go on to assess how key global frameworks such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs, and the Leave No-One Behind principle have engaged or not with feminist approaches to measurement of development. We then move on to present an intersectional approach to the measurement of progress which recognises the role of inequalities not only between women and men but within groups of women and girls and across the various dimensions of sustainable development. We name this multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral approach Inequality, Gender, and Sustainable Development (IGSD).