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Financing: Why It Matters for Women & Girls

 

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UN Photo/Christopher Herwig

The Issue

 

From letting women have a say in where village water holes are built, to ensuring cash-transfer programmes benefit all, to making sure women have maternal health clinics nearby and can access them when the need arises ­– financing for gender equality is the means to ensure that women’s needs are met in development planning.

 

Financing for development is about money. For development to reach people in all parts of the world, adequate financing is required so that commitments made by world leaders translate into action. For funds to benefit everyone equally and equitably, targeted efforts are often needed. For example, if women don’t have access to safe transportation or low-cost childcare, few will be able to take advantage of important social or vocational programmes.

 

But inclusive development isn’t cheap, and project planning and financing often neglects the specific needs of women. For decades, there has been chronic underinvestment in women’s empowerment, which has hampered progress on women’s rights and gender equality.

 

financing for development logo

 

To disrupt the status quo, and ensure that financing for gender equality doesn’t get sidelined at the “Third International Conference on Financing for Development” in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 13-16 July 2015, UN Women is focusing on this historic opportunity to endorse comprehensive global financing for women everywhere.

 

This is the first of three key global conferences in 2015 that will determine the international community’s roadmap for the next 15 years (to be followed by the UN Summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda in New York in September and the UN Climate Change Conference which will seek a legally binding universal agreement on climate change in Paris in December). The negotiated outcome adopted in Addis Ababa will set the stage for the ambitious new sustainable development goals of the post-2015 agenda, which is set to include a stand-alone goal on gender equality. But such a goal and gender-sensitive targets across other goals can become a reality only with the right financing. 

 

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The knowledge, technology and money to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment exist. Now is the time to make important choices. We need commitment to unprecedented levels of financing – in scale, scope, and quality ­– to implement gender equality objectives of the post-2015 development agenda, from all sources, at all levels. Women everywhere need dedicated and consistent investment and resources. Let’s seize this moment!

 

What financing for development looks like for women:

In OECD-DAC reviews, only 5 per cent of all aid targeted gender equality as a principal objective in 2012-2013. When it comes to investing in women’s economic empowerment, the percentage was even lower – 2 per cent – and aid to economic and productive sectors has remained flat.

Investments in gender equality are vastly insufficient and only a small proportion of aid addresses women’s specific needs. Women everywhere need prioritized, dedicated and consistent investment and resources.

 

Woman pushes a wheelbarrow in India. Photo: UNDP/Amitava Chandra

Photo: UNDP/Amitava Chandra               

 

Globally, women on average are paid 24 per cent less than men.

Concerted efforts are needed by all stakeholders to transform the global economic and financial architecture. We need to address the structural causes of inequalities with specific policies. To address gender inequality in pay, governments, employers and trade unions can focus on an array of solutions from national minimum wage policies to providing well-paid, protected public sector care jobs to ensuring that equal pay laws are implemented.

 

Four young women in front of bookcase in Afghanistan. Photo: World Bank/Graham Crouch

Photo: World Bank/Graham Crouch

 

Gender parity in school enrolment is close to being reached worldwide, particularly at the primary level; however, very few countries have achieved that target at all levels of education. On average around the world, adult women have 7.3 mean years of schooling while men have 8.2.

Girls who enroll in school must also be able to complete their education, at all levels, and not drop off along the way. States need to prioritize investments in such as dedicated toilets for girls, adequate infrastructure, literacy and technology programmes, as well as pre-school care so mothers can go to school.

 

Globally, only half of women participate in the labour force, compared to three quarters of men. In developing regions, up to 95 per cent of women’s employment is informal, in jobs that are unprotected by labour laws and lack social protection.

Reforms and innovations are needed in the provision of social transfers and social services to ensure that they reach women and girls and respond to their needs. These can narrow gender gaps in poverty rates; enhance women’s income security provide a lifeline for poor women.

 

According to the WHO, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age in developing countries.

Gender inequality contributes to the spread of HIV, with violence against women or unequal power dynamics increasing infection rates. Women often have less information about HIV and fewer resources to take preventive measures, as well as less access to treatment and support. Women also assume a disproportionate burden of care for those affected.

 

We need to integrate women's needs into strategies and budgets to help halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, as well as to mitigate its impact on women.

 

Globally, women spend 2.5 times more of their time on unpaid care and domestic work than men.

Providing paid leave and child-care services makes it easier for women and men to combine paid and unpaid work, expanding women’s employment choices, and access to education and training.