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Capacity development for promoting gender equality in the aid effectiveness agenda
September 2007
United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
In the context of discussions on financing for development and aid effectiveness, and particularly with the roll out of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005, there has been growing recognition of the importance of integrating gender equality in national development planning and programming cycles. This has produced greater recognition of the capacity needed by both governments and gender equality advocates to advocate for and successfully integrate gender equality objectives and priorities in national plans and allocate sufficient resources to achieve them.
To date, few national development plans have strong gender equality elements, while national gender equality action plans have little or no connection to national development strategies. Although national
development plans occasionally make reference to national gender equality action plans, the linkages tend to be weak.
These weaknesses have become particularly evident in the new aid environment, as national development plans are increasingly defining the priorities for government expenditure allocation, including official development assistance to direct budget support or sector-wide approaches (SWAps).
These challenges emerged in a series of African regional and sub-regional consultations on gender equality and aid effectiveness. Held in Burundi in July 2006, Djibouti in November 2006, Ghana in
November 2006 and Zambia in July 2007, the consultations brought together representatives from governments, donor partners and civil society to share experiences and explore strategies for advancing gender equality goals in the new aid environment.
Participants highlighted the lack of capacity of gender equality advocates to effectively engage in new aid modality policy and planning processes on the one hand, and the lack of capacity of finance and planning officials to effectively incorporate the gender implications of the new aid modalities in policy formulation on the other. Drawing on these experiences and insights, this discussion paper outlines a capacity development strategy for advancing development effectiveness and gender equality in the new aid agenda.
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