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WIDE Position Paper on Doha, November 2008

GENDER EQUALITY AT THE CENTRE
OF FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT

WIDE position paper for the Follow-up International Conference to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, Doha, Qatar, 29 November -2 December 2008

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The European Union plays a major role in leading the promotion of gender equality, women´s human rights and the empowerment of women in development policies of the international donor community. Since the adoption of the Monterrey Consensus (2002) and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005), the EC and Member States have reflected their commitment to gender equality in a number of crucial documents--such as the 2005 EU Consensus on Development and the 2007 EC Communication on Gender Equality and Women´s Empowerment in Development Cooperation-that commit EU donors to ensure the effective implementation of strategies and practices that genuinely contribute to the achievement of gender equality and women´s rights worldwide.

The upcoming Review Conference on the Monterrey Consensus, to be held in Doha, Qatar, next 29th November 2nd December, provides the EU with a new opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to policy coherence in the context of gender equality and women´s human rights by ensuring that macroeconomic issues are linked to development and social policy objectives.

With regard to the EU´s contribution to the UN Follow-up conference on the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, Doha (29th November 2nd December),

WIDE recommends a set of proposals:

1. Gender equality: at the centre of the financing for development process

The Doha draft outcomedocument that is to be reviewed by the UN General Assembly places gender equality in Chapter 7 of the Monterrey Consensus, as one of the four "New challenges and emerging issues", together with climate change, the commodity prices crisis of food and energy and the poverty eradication challenges facing middle-income countries. The EU background documents on guidelines for the EU participation in Doha also adopt the positioning of gender equality in Chapter 7.

Gender equality is not an emerging issue. In line with its commitment to gender mainstreaming, the EU must challenge the sidelining of gender and place gender at the centre of the financing for development process. WIDE welcomes the EU commitment to focus on "supporting gender equality" as one of the issues which will "require significant progress" in Doha.Gender equality is indeed still a challenge.

The EU must not only name gender as a cross-cutting issue, but also mainstream specific proposals and commitments related to gender equality throughout all the different chapters of the Monterrey Consensus.

The EU must recognise gender equality and women´s empowerment as cornerstones for development and fully integrate them into all fields of action, above all in the core dimensions of the Monterrey Consensus.

Actions such as the promotion of gender responsive budgets, decent work for women and strengthening property rights for women, have their place in the framework of proposals related to the mobilization of domestic resources. Furthermore, clauses related to investments, trade, international financial and technical cooperation, debt and systemic issues must be thoroughly reoriented from a consistent and comprehensive gender perspective. The EU should promote gender impact assessment of trade, finance and investment policies as well as gender sensitive indicators for monitoring coherence, especially in the financial sectors: aid, debt, budgetary processes.

2. Reform of the international financial and economic system through the incorporation of social reproduction and the unpaid economy

The Monterrey Consensus (MC) was adopted in response to the need for a more coordinated approach to the issue of development financing, financial management and trade. The MC attempted to integrated trade, monetary and financial matters into a consolidated framework that would yield better development results.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the FfD-Monterrey Consensus, the Doha Development Agenda and their associated reform mechanisms (Aid for trade (AfT) and Aid Effectiveness) seek to deal with problems created bythe macroeconomic policies set in place in the global economy since the 1980s. On the whole, these policies have not been conducive to economic development, social development, gender equality and poverty eradication in the global south. A major concern of WIDE is to evaluate in what direction and to what extent the modalities and instruments of these interlinked processes (trade reform/aid for trade, aid reform/aid effectiveness, and debt reform/debt sustainability) may impact on the process of economic development and the shifting terrain of economic and social governance.

The current financial and economic crisis signals the failure of the existing system;the EU among others has acknowledged the need for global reform. Gender inequalities reflect and are related to structural imbalances in the global economic system.The imbalance between the productive economy, which is considered "the economy" and the reproductive economy or care economywhich is largely dependent on women, and which functions continuously in spite of crisis, is producing poverty and deprivation. This imbalance should be addressed as a systemic issue and must be tackled in any global reform of the economic system and its institutions.

3. Policy coherence and removing conditionalities: fulfilment of international commitments on gender equality and women´s rights

Policy coherence is a cross cutting theme, not only of the FFD process, but is also the principle underlying aid effectiveness and aid for trade. The policy coherence that has been behind the Washington and Post Washington Consensus, is singularly market driven policies of market liberalization (goods, services and finance), de-regulation and trade liberalization. The focus is on mainstreaming trade into development and creating supportive environment for business (primarily multinational corporations).

Paragraph 8 of the Monterrey Consensus states that "In the increasingly globalizing interdependent world economy, a holistic approach to the interconnected national, international and systemic challenges of financing for development - sustainable, gender-sensitive, people-centred development - in all parts of the globe is essential.»A key pillar of policy coherence is adherence to international agreed social, gender equality and women´s rights commitments. The EU should deliver on its commitments to international human rights frameworks on women´s rights and development, such as the Beijing Platform for Action, CEDAW,the MDGs, and the ILO conventions. The EU´s commitment to women´s human rights must be reflected in all policy documents and council conclusions in the run up to the Doha conference, and accountable processes of monitoring the implementation of such commitments must be put in place.

This would mean ensuring ´a critical and socially progressive linkage between social policy, macroeconomic policy and development´[1]-wherein the ultimate ends are poverty eradication, gender equality, human development and environmental sustainability. The EU should promote gender impact assessment of trade, finance and investment policies as well as gender sensitive indicators for monitoring coherence, especially in the financial sectors: aid, debt, budgetary process. Gender impact indicators and methodology should be integrated into EU, EC and member states´ work programmes on policy coherence. Gender should be included in the eleven priority areas of the EC coherence framework and should also be addressed in a specific chapter in future EC reports on policy coherence for development.

Policy coherence should also be reinforced in ODA processes. The EU must remove conditionalities related to ODA or linked to trade negotiations. Instead it should strengthen its mechanisms of mutual responsibility, accountability and transparency and those of the recipient countries. ODA processes must be coherent with the principle of mutual responsibility and the obligations of governments to fulfil internationally agreed development norms, goals, targets and actions which have been identified in the Beijing Platform for Action, CEDAW and the ILO Conventions.

Key recommendations

Chapter 1. Domestic resource mobilization

• Domestic resource mobilization should incorporate gender-responsive budgetingto ensure that commitments to gender equality, poverty eradication and social welfare protection areadequately funded. Increased resources should be allocated for:
  
  -training of government officials on the use of participatory and gender responsive budgets;
  -collection and utilization of gender disaggregated data, including time-use surveys that measure women´s unpaid work and its contribution to the national economy, therebymaking visible women´s actual economic contribution in the National Accounts System;
  -meaningful and regular participation of women´s rights advocacy groups and representatives of civil society in participatory and gender responsive budget processes.
• Progressive and fair taxation schemes including tax rebates and tax relief, are needed for people living in poverty, and women in particular. These include:
  
  -tax rebates to women in recognition of their contribution to society, the historical discrimination against women in land ownership and their disproportionate burden of family responsibilities;
  -tax relief for the poor and for single-headed household , themajority of whom are women who either care for the very old or for very young people.
• National enforcement of policies and regulations that promote decent work should be prioritised as strategies towards poverty reduction, gender equality and equitable growth, as well as mechanisms of good governance.. Such policies should include:
  
  -need for quality jobs for women workers;
  -training that improves women´s options across different sectors of the labour market;
  -access to finance for women entrepreneurs, especially in small and medium enterprises;
  -provision of health insurance including access to reproductive health care services;
  -provision of maternity benefits and access to affordable child care;
  -protecting the rights of women workers to self-organization and self-representation in social dialogues.

Chapter 2.Global Financial Regulation, Foreign Direct Investment and Private Capital Flows

• WIDE joins calls for a multilateral mechanism that would subject investors and transnational corporations to more lawfully binding norms and standards.

Chapter 3.Trade

• Trade is not gender neutral: It is essential to establish coherence between the EU´s commitment to gender equality and women´s human rights within Europe, activities in the area of development cooperation and international trade policies..
• The EU must implement its commitments to the integration of a holistic and consistent gender perspective into all trade relations and agreementsbetween the European Union and the countries of the South, as well as of the Eastern countries in transition.
• All European Union trade related policies, including those of its member states, the statutes of the WTO and other international trade policy committees and forums must include a commitment to the achievement of gender equality.
• All trade agreements, especially those that were finalized relatively recently, such as the Cotonou Agreement must constantly be examined and monitored for their social and gender-specific consequences. Civil society should be actively involvedwith priority given to women NGOs and women´s networks, women´s movements, women operating at a grass-roots level and women researchers.
• All international organisations promoting international trade, in particular the European Unionand the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as national ministries of commerce and trade in the North and South should promote the participation in decision-making at the highest level of female experts with experience in gender issues.
• Trade and investment policies should support local and regional production, exchange and supply, as the basis of needs and rights oriented provisioning and trade. Fair rule for domestic and international trade should be informed by human rights and social justice

Chapter 4: International Financial and Technical Cooperation

The EU and member Statesmust commit to reach 20% ODA for gender equality and women´s empowerment by 2015, ensuring that there are year-to-year increases. The action plans of donors, recipient countries and the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) should include strategies for reaching this target.

• The EU must go beyond the current framework approach to aid effectivenessthat is found in the Paris Declaration, which is largely stimulated by donor governments' concerns,and promote a more balanced understanding of aid effectiveness that is clearly linked to the overarching objective of development effectiveness, which includes gender equality.
• The EU and Member States must guarantee that ODA processes uphold the mutual responsibility and obligations of governments to fulfil the internationally agreed development norms,goals, targets and actions which have been identified in the Beijing Platform for Action, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the International Convention on Population and Development, among others, without resorting to impositions and conditionalities within the narrow framework of aid giving.
• The EU should develop gender-sensitive indicators, tools and methodologies for the evaluation of the quality and development effectiveness of aid, in support of mutual responsibility and accountability for gender equality on the part of both donors and recipients; with resources being allocated to enable women´s rights advocates meaningfully participate in national, regional and international processes.
• The EU must meet its commitment to approve the "EU Action Plan on Gender Equality and Women´s Empowerment in External Relations" by June 2009aspart of the process towards the EC Communication on the Integration of cross-cutting issues in EU development programmes and in external relations, of which the action plan should be an annex.

Chapter 5.External Debt

• Current strategies for debt relief are mainly oriented to resolve fiscal and financial, rather than development problems. A more critical round of review and redefinition of the Debt Sustainability Frameworkmust be undertaken, involving not only national governments but also civil society, including women´s rights organizations.
• The revised Debt Sustainability Framework must give centrality to human development goals and human rights, including gender equality and women´s empowerment.
• Loans and debt cancellation must be de-linked from policy conditionalities. Donors must not unilaterally determine where to use funds freed from debt cancellation; a transparent, accountable and democratic process of deciding on where to utilize the funds must include in-country CSOs.

Chapter 6. Systemic issues

• The EU should work to ensure that FFD follow-up mechanisms, consultative processes, and opportunities for technical inputs in all of its multi-stakeholder arenas are effective spaces for consistent and regular inputs on gender equality by women´s rights organizations and networks and gender equality experts.
• The EU must develop new indicators to measure the impact of gender inequality in economic growth by measuringthe value of women´s unpaid work and addressing the imbalance between productive economy and reproductive economy.
• The EU must deliver and promote policy coherence and consistency between the Monterrey Consensus and the Beijing Platform for Action.

Chapter 7. New challenges and emerging Issues

• Financing to address the food and climate crises should not be in the form of loans: ,the food energy and climate crises render peoples of the South, and women, who dominate the food sector, more vulnerable to the accumulation of new loans. Governments should not offer or enter into loan-financing for seed purchases and similar food and agriculture programs, or loan-financing of climate mitigation and adaptation mechanisms.
• Gender equality is a continuing challenge. Given the EU´s weak record in turning policy commitments to gender equality and women´s empowerment into practice, the main challenge, as well as amajor opportunityto ensure the effective implementation of strategies and practices that genuinely contributes to the achievement of gender equality and women rights worldwide, to ensure the effective implementation of strategies and practices that genuinely contribute to the achievement of gender equality and women rights worldwidelies in the implementation of the commitmentsoutlined inthe 2005 EU Consensus on Development and the 2007 EC Communication on Gender Equality in Development Cooperation.

Chapter 8. Staying engaged assuring effective follow-up to Monterrey Consensus

• WIDE commits itself to keep fully engaged in all follow-up processesand to build bridges between commitments and actions on development, trade, finance, debt and systemic issues and women´s rights and gender equality commitment and goals which are consistent with the holistic agenda of the Monterrey Consensus. Engendering the financing for development process cannot be realized without a holistic approach that looks at the inter-connections among trade and finance in all its different forms aid, investment, debt and domestic savings and their systemic underpinnings.

Brussels, November, 2008

Paper based on WIDE documents from Carmen Cruz, Mariama Williams, and Brita Neuhold; the formal Submission on Women Consultation for FfD ( New York, June 16-17 2008) and interventions of Marina Durano, (DAWN) on behalf of the Women WG on Financing for Development in the meeting to review Doha draft outcome document UN GA 8th 11th New York.

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[1]Floro, M and Hoppe, H. Engendering Policy Coherence for Development. Fredrich Ebert Stiftung, Occasional Paper: Dialogue on Globalization 17, 4/2005,quoted in Mariam Williams Policy coherence, policy conditionalities and policy dialogue and gendered development: Key issues in the Aid Effectiveness and FFD process from a gender perspective, WIDE draft paper 2008

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