A/HRC/39/34 With preparation and the right policies, the demographic dividend could positively transform countries with the potential for long-term development. It could provide a window of opportunity to create productive employment, increase human capital investment in younger generations and empower people, in particular girls, and promote their well-being. It was pointed out that the opportunity was coming for a demographic dividend in many countries, particularly in Africa. 16. Nevertheless, the demographic dividend was not a given; it required the right policies. Without appropriate policies, a decline in fertility and an increase in the female workforce might merely lead to more exploitation of women workers. No country had ever achieved the demographic dividend without significant and long-term policy commitments with a strong focus on gender equality. Necessary policy measures included empowering people, especially women and young girls, in order to make the best choices for themselves and their families; ensuring that women and couples had access to family planning services and had the rights and freedoms to make their own reproductive choices; and supporting young women to enjoy equal opportunities with men in education and employment. 6 Such measures had to be accompanied by efforts to eliminate harmful practices — such as child, early and forced marriages, female genital mutilation and gender-based violence against women and girls — and to promote the realization of sexual and reproductive health and rights. 17. One expert underscored the contribution of indigenous women to the sustainable development of their peoples and the planet. Indigenous women were protecting biodiversity and ecosystems and taking climate action by protecting lands and the environment in their traditional territories, protecting indigenous seeds and applying their knowledge in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Those actions were relevant to the achievement of Sustainable Goals 13 (climate action) and 15 (life on land). Indigenous women should be recognized as agents for change and their contributions and knowledge should be recognized, protected and respected. 18. In recent years, analysis and guidance had been developed on integrating a gender perspective and women’s rights in responses to climate change. In its general recommendation No. 37 (2018) on the gender-related dimensions of disaster risk reduction in the context of climate change, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women noted that climate change was exacerbating the risks and impact of disasters globally by increasing the frequency and severity of weather and climate hazards. Situations of crisis exacerbated pre-existing gender inequalities and also compounded intersecting forms of discrimination against, inter alia: women living in poverty; indigenous women; women belonging to ethnic, racial, religious and sexual minorities; women with disabilities; refugee, asylum-seeking, internally displaced, stateless and migrant women; rural women; single women; adolescent girls; and older women. Those persons were often affected disproportionately as compared with men or other women. On the other hand, gender-transformative responses to such disasters could present opportunities for rectifying existing gender inequality. 19. In its general recommendation No. 37, the Committee emphasized that it was important that responses to disasters promoted substantive equalities for women, in particular those who faced intersecting forms of discrimination, ensured participation and empowerment of women and girls and recognized women’s legal capacity and promoted their access to justice. It also underlined the importance of gender analysis on issues such as health, social security and freedom from violence to identify the heightened risks women and girls faced due to their gender roles and discrimination in the family, community and society, and in addressing the root causes of such risks in disaster responses. The Committee also articulated States’ extraterritorial obligations in disaster risk reduction in the context of climate change. Those recommendations provided guidance to States in implementing plans and policies to achieve, for example, Sustainable Development Goals 6 For more details on the policy recommendations, see Global Agenda Council on the Demographic Dividend, “Harnessing the Opportunity of the Demographic Dividend”, World Economic Forum, 2015. 5