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Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women: Paradoxes and possibilities
29 August 2007
Isabella Bakker
Division for the Advancement of Women, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN)
This paper focuses on the central paradox which the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment current faces: universal commitments to gender equality versus the relatively limited progress that has been made over the past years in implementation at the national level. With this in mind, the paper addresses the following question: how can increased implementation of gender equality commitments be facilitated through financial and macroeconomic measures?
Commitments on financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women have been made by Governments at the international level, including at the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995), the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly (2000), and the Millennium Summit (2000) and the 2005 World Summit. In its discussion of the resources required for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, the Beijing Platform for Action emphasized that funding had to be identified and mobilized from all sources and across all sectors.1
The Beijing Platform for Action called for sufficient resources to be allocated to national machineries for the advancement of women as well as to all institutions, as appropriate, that can contribute to the implementation and monitoring of the Platform for Action. Governments were also called upon to create a supportive environment for the mobilization of resources by non-governmental organizations, particularly women's organizations and networks, feminist groups, the private sector and other actors of civil society, to enable them to contribute towards this end.2
In addition, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW 1979), an international bill of rights for women, defines what constitutes discrimination against women and advances a national agenda for ending such discrimination. Currently over 90 percent of UN Member States, some 185 countries, are parties to the Convention.3
At its twenty-third special session, the General Assembly called upon Governments to incorporate a gender perspective into the design, development, adoption and execution of all budgetary processes, as appropriate, in order to promote equitable, effective and appropriate resource allocation and establish adequate budgetary allocations to support gender equality, development programmes that enhance women’s empowerment and develop the necessary analytical and methodological tools and mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation.4 Governments were also called upon to provide national machineries with the necessary human and financial resources, including through exploring innovative funding schemes, so that gender mainstreaming is integrated into all policies, programmes and projects.5
Footnotes:
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Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15 September 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.
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Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15 September 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.
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See http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/states.htm.
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General Assembly resolution S-23/3, annex.
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General Assembly resolution S-23/3, annex.
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