International Conference on Financing for Development, 2002

Abstract

Gender equality and women's rights are both a goal and a means of achieving sustainable development. Governments from all regions of the world have made the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls a high priority of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but ambitious financing will be needed to turn these political aspirations into a reality. The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) has been tracking and analysing aid in support of gender equality and women's rights for over 20 years. This data helps to ensure that global and national commitments on gender equality are underpinned by adequate resources for effective implementation. 1 Despite an upward trend, funding is vastly insufficient to achieve gender equality The third Millennium Development Goal (MDG 3)-Promote gender equality and empower women-galvanised new resources for gender equality and women's rights. Yet financing for standalone projects on gender equality (marked "principal" according to the gender equality policy marker) is far below that of programmes in which gender equality is mainstreamed (marked "significant"). In 2012-13, just USD 4 billion on average per year targeted gender equality as a principal objective, representing 5% of the aid screened against the DAC gender marker. By comparison, USD 22 billion (25%) targeted gender equality as a secondary objective. Taken together, this means that only a small proportion of aid (30%) is responsive to women's needs and interests (see Figure 1).