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UN Women - http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/financing-for-gender-equality
Financing: Why It Matters for Women &
Girls
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.