Opportunities to Advocate for LGBT Rights through the Sustainable Development Goals

In April, ECOM held a webinar «Sustainable Development Goals and how to use them in advocacy of rights», within the framework of the «Trans*Map in EECA» project, for representatives of the community and non-governmental organizations of the EECA region.

The purpose of the webinar is to tell activists and representatives of civil society what the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are and how they can be used to advocate for the rights of LGBT people.

At the webinar, participants learned how to include the LGBT agenda in national voluntary reviews, in which countries show how far they have progressed in achieving certain development goals. These reports are presented by the state at the High-Level Political Forum, where participants of «major groups and other stakeholders», that is, representatives of the LGBT community, can also make their statements.

Also, during the webinar, the speaker formed a number of tips on how to prepare an alternative report, if it was not possible to achieve the inclusion of data and proposals in the state report. To do this, you need to:

1. Learn from previous experience

Alternative reports on the SDGs are a fairly new case, and such a report is different from a shadow report to the UN Treaty Bodies. It is necessary to find out which of the neighboring countries recently reported and prepared alternative reports from civil society, and study it as an example.

2. Select the SDGs to review

Usually, the High-Level Political Forum has an agenda for certain goals from the SDGs. It is necessary to choose among them those where it will be possible to include issues of the LGBT community. For example, goals 1-5 may be suitable – the eradication of poverty, hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality; See also Goal 8 «Decent work and economic growth», Goal 10 «Reduce inequalities», Goal 16 «Peace, justice and strong institutions», Goal 17 «Partnership for sustainable development». The Sustainable Development Goals have a focus on equality, so if the goal is about access to health care, it’s about access for trans* people, gay and bisexual people, and so on.

3. Use developmental language

The main difference between shadow reports for the UN Treaty Bodies and reports on the achievement of the SDGs is the emphasis not on the violation of rights, but on proposals for how to improve the situation. To do this, you need to use available reports and statistics, include successful practices in the report, and give recommendations on how to achieve the SDGs.

For more details, see the recording of our webinar on ECOM's YouTube channel.