Gender and Financing for Development

The Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3) will bring together high level political representatives, non-governmental organisations and business sector stakeholders. It will result in an inter-governmentally negotiated and agreed outcome document, which will make an important contribution to the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda, including at the major UN summit in September.

Discussions at the conference will focus on the draft outcome document, which sets out how governments aim to follow up on existing commitments to financing development and take new measures to reinvigorate and strengthen development financing. 

The document states that achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls is essential to achieve equitable sustainable growth and development. It also states that gender mainstreaming is needed in the formulation and implementation of all financial, economic, and social policies. However, gender equality advocates argue that the document does not go far enough, and that FfD3 must not focus only on the allocation of resources to finance gender equality objectives. Rather, it should consider the broader macroeconomic climate, and the ways this climate impacts on and exacerbates gender inequalities. 

Often assumed to be a ‘gender neutral’ arena, economic policies in fact have significant potential to worsen or improve gender inequalities. All over the world, women and men tend to have different economic roles and responsibilities, as well as different access to productive resources. In most cases, women tend to be at a disadvantage. For example, women are usually expected to take on the bulk of caring for their families. This means that they have the double burden of carrying out both paid and unpaid work. In financing for development, there are some key areas to consider in regard to gender equality:

• Overseas development aid (ODA)
  

  Even though aid in support of gender equality and women’s rights has increased in recent years, it tends to be concentrated in the health and education sectors. Greater investment on gender is needed in the productive and economic sectors, and more broadly, in all of the priority areas for the proposed post-2015 framework. There are especially large financing gaps in sexual and reproductive health, peace and security and ending violence against women and girls. 

• Domestic finance
  

  Better mobilisation of domestic resources can help to tackle gender inequalities. There are a number of options for collecting and spending public money in more gender equitable ways. These include prioritising public spending on areas with high returns for equality; using gender responsive budgeting approaches to plan, implement and monitor fiscal policies; and designing revenue systems informed by careful analysis and assessment of the gendered impacts of direct and indirect taxes. However, it is important to remember that national governments may have limited capacity to raise and spend revenue and to decide how their deficit/surplus is managed, due to global economic trends and international rules and structures outside of their control. So while improving collection and use of domestic finances is paramount, other policy changes at the international level need to be considered too.   

• Non-traditional/new sources of finance
  

  New development actors, from the private sector, philanthropic funders, countries with emerging economies (BRICS: Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa) and members of the OECD and EU who are not members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), are playing an increasingly important role in financing for development. While many of these new donors and investors support gender equality, it is important to ensure that funds from these sources can generate sustainable change for the poorest women and girls, and do not worsen inequalities or increase women’s unpaid care burden.  

A key alliance advocating for gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights within the financing for development agenda is the Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development (WWG on FfD). You can find out more about the work of the group and how to get involved here and you can learn more about the history of feminist engagement with the financing for development agenda, along with a range of topical resources, in this AWID special focus section

You can find out more about the Third International Conference on financing for Development here  and follow developments on Twitter using the hashtag #ffd3.