Celebrating our progress: Our 2022 Impact Report 

In 2022, the world witnessed a dramatic erosion of the rights and freedoms of women and girls, including in Afghanistan, Iran, Ukraine, the US, and many other nations. It was a striking reminder of the precarity of hard-fought progress and one that underscored the importance and value of lasting legal reform in unlocking the potential of generations of women and girls.

For more than a decade, our former Global Executive Director, Yasmeen Hassan, harnessed the power of legal reform to advance a bold vision and a vital body of work to improve millions of lives in every corner of the world. It was with immense gratitude for her leadership and perseverance that we welcomed our new Global Executive Director, S. Mona Sinha, at the end of 2022.

Mona’s arrival  coincided with a new phase in the organization’s growth and development, with the launch of an ambitious new strategy for ‘Future Proofing Equality.’ All of our work has since been guided by this strategy, underpinned by our three strategic objectives:

• Globalize: To adapt our approach so that we can continue to respond to new threats and find better solutions to entrenched issues.
• Galvanize: To create a stronger and more sustainable women’s rights movement by increasing our engagement with activists, decision-makers, and funders.
• Lead: To strengthen our global infrastructure so that we can meet increasing demands for our work as One Equality Now.

Our 2022 Impact

In 2022, we continued to call out discriminatory laws and set better precedents through strategic litigation while stepping up our focus on collaboration by bringing diverse partners together around common causes, amplifying grassroots efforts and giving those most profoundly affected by inequality a more powerful collective voice.

We worked in collaboration with 147 partners across 34 countries and launched 16 key publications.

We made a total of 22 submissions to UN treaty bodies or Universal Periodic Review (UPR) committees, 19 of which have been considered to date. Of these, 130 resulted in more than 50% of our recommendations being adopted by review committees during concluding sessions., while one or more recommendations were adopted from the remaining four.

We contributed directly to changing 12 discriminatory laws and policies around the world, including in Kenya, Liberia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Bolivia, Nepal, Cuba, Benin, and the US.

More than half (55%) of the discriminatory laws around which we’ve campaigned since 1999 have been fully or partially reformed.

Changing social norms, upending harmful systems, and holding governments accountable require persistence, collective power, and long-term investments. As  Equality Now moves into the next phase of its journey, we are committed to embracing the unique value of every part of the wider gender equality ecosystem – starting with the women and girls at its heart.

Looking Forward

If we are to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls by 2030, it is those who live with the daily consequences of gender discrimination to whom we must first listen; and it is they who must determine the policies and legal frameworks we use to eradicate violence, to eliminate exploitation, and to end practices that inhibit the autonomy and agency of all women and gender minorities.

As we celebrate our progress in 2022, we look ahead with renewed hope and determination as we continue to strive for a just and equal world – for everyone.