Development Finance for Gender Equality 2024

5. Conclusions and recommendations

Abstract

This chapter closes with overarching conclusions and policy recommendations. It also suggests areas for future work.

To ensure that every development intervention contributes to advancing gender equality, gender equality needs to be considered throughout policy frameworks, in design and planning, programming and financing, implementing, monitoring and evaluation, and in development partners’ own internal structures and systems. The 2024 DAC Recommendation on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance and the 2022 Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls: DAC Guidance for Development Partners together set out a comprehensive standard and provide good practice guidance for how to do this.

Financial reporting against a robust system, such as the OECD Creditor Reporting System and the DAC gender equality policy marker, enables tracking of efforts for gender equality and the mobilisation of additional finance.

Based on OECD data and the reporting by various development actors, this report estimated that USD 108.4 billion of international development finance included gender equality objectives on average per year in 2021-22, while an additional USD 271.2 billion was available but either lacked a gender equality focus or its focus was not reported. These data also allow highlighting development partners’ positive efforts and identifying behaviours and trends that should be changed. For example, it is clear that positive change towards a stronger focus on gender equality by Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members is underway in the energy sector, in particular for energy generation from renewable sources. On the contrary, DAC members need to urgently strengthen efforts to support gender equality in crisis situations.

5.1. DAC members’ development finance for gender equality

• The volume of bilateral official development assistance (ODA) with gender equality objectives has increased over time, along with the increase in ODA overall. However, the share of aid with gender equality objectives out of total aid has dropped for the first time after a decade on the rise, from 45% in 2019-20 to 42% in 2021-22. This drop in share happened in several sectors and for 20 of the 32 DAC members. DAC members should reverse this tendency, ensuring that the focus on gender equality takes an upwards turn while at the same time pursuing capacity development on the DAC gender equality policy marker and statistical reporting to ensure robust data.

• Integration of gender equality objectives is particularly low in major aid recipients affected by conflict, showing that DAC responses to recent global crises have paid little attention to gender equality. For example, only 32% of ODA to Afghanistan, 29% to Yemen and 11% to Ukraine integrated gender equality objectives in 2021-22. It is crucial that DAC members maintain a focus on gender equality in their interventions, especially in contexts exposed to fragility and conflict.

• There is no evidence of correlation between the extent that ODA integrates gender equality and levels of gender inequality, meaning that ODA with gender equality objectives is not necessarily going to the countries where inequality is more pronounced. While all development co-operation should have a positive impact on gender equality, this is even more important in ODA for the most unequal countries.

• DAC members are increasingly using multilateral organisations as a channel for bilateral ODA with gender equality objectives, while civil society organisations (CSOs) are used less and less. CSOs based in partner countries generally receive a marginal share of the ODA channelled through CSOs. Even if funds channelled through intermediary development actors can also reach organisations based in partner countries, it is important that DAC members continue supporting CSOs based in partner countries directly, as they hold contextual expertise and are critical to understand and address structural drivers of inequality.

• DAC members have recently started including gender equality objectives in their other official flows but much more can be done. Reporting of these flows can also improve to allow a more comprehensive picture of how different forms of finance are responsive to gender inequalities and discrimination.

5.2. Thematic focus of bilateral ODA for gender equality

• Gender equality objectives remain unevenly integrated across sectors in ODA by DAC members, with humanitarian aid and aid in the energy sector consistently showing the lowest focus on gender equality. Other social infrastructure and services, education, and agriculture and rural development have the highest focus on gender equality. DAC members can pursue their efforts to increase the focus on gender equality across all sectors, to promote this development objective and, as a minimum, avoid that any development interventions perpetuate inequalities or have unintended harmful consequences on gender equality.

• While humanitarian aid grew over the decade, its gender equality focus shrunk to only 17%. Similarly, the share of aid with gender equality objectives to extremely fragile contexts seems to decrease as the volume of aid increases. The low and decreasing inclusion of gender equality objectives illustrates important and concerning challenges with maintaining commitments to gender equality while responding to urgent crises and humanitarian situations. DAC members need to ensure a focus on gender equality in emergency situations and extremely fragile contexts, where this is especially important. Successes in improving gender equality integration in ODA to the peace and security sector may serve as avenues for learning.

• The gender equality focus of aid in the energy sector has increased significantly over the past decade. Aid to energy generation from renewable sources has increased considerably, so has the integration of gender equality objectives. This suggests a stronger focus on gender equality in new programmes related to clean energy, reflecting the DAC’s recognition of the importance of addressing these objectives in tandem. At the same time, the energy sector more broadly remains one of the sectors with the lowest focus on gender equality, at 30%. DAC members can accelerate efforts to support women’s empowerment in this sector, learning from those members with high shares of aid integrating gender equality.

• Despite DAC members’ recognition of the importance of women’s rights organisations and feminist movements, ODA to enhance their effectiveness, influence and sustainability remains low, at around USD 0.5 billion. This represents less than 1% of ODA for gender equality. A few DAC members stand out as consistent and strong supporters. Other DAC members could follow these champions.

• Funding with the policy objective of supporting reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) has increased. USD 14.7 billion of aid had RMNCH objectives on average per year in 2021-22, an overall increase compared to USD 11.9 billion on average in 2019-20, driven by 18 DAC members. The additional funds with RMNCH objectives were largely committed in the area of COVID-19 control, while support in the areas of reproductive health care and family planning declined from 2019-20 to 2021-22. DAC members should ensure sustained levels of funding for reproductive health and can further strengthen their statistical reporting on RMNCH.

• Compounding inequalities that intersect with gender position the women who also face these forms of discrimination as the most disadvantaged in their society across the globe. It, however, remains challenging to track funding at the intersection of gender and other inequalities. Only 22 DAC members examine either some or all aid against the DAC policy marker for the inclusion and empowerment of persons with disabilities, meaning that the disability focus of most bilateral aid is unknown. It is important for more DAC members to report against this DAC policy marker, to gain a more complete picture of funding flows and allow for more in-depth analysis of support at the intersection of gender equality and disability.

5.3. Development finance for gender equality by actors beyond the DAC

• Multilateral organisations and banks play a major role in supporting gender equality and women’s empowerment in partner countries. It is positive that the United Nations system has adopted a gender equality policy marker, which can be translated into the DAC marker system, to monitor its development outflows. This will allow for increased transparency and accountability for gender equality as financial information becomes available.

• Other multilateral organisations and development banks could helpfully use a common framework for monitoring their development outflows for gender equality to increase transparency. Given that many these organisations and banks already report their development finance to the OECD, they could also screen their flows against the DAC gender equality policy marker, following the example of those banks that already do so.

• Several countries that are not members of the DAC report their development finance either to the OECD or to total official support for sustainable development, yet only a few screen their development finance against the gender equality policy marker or Sustainable Development Goal 5. More non‑DAC and South-South co-operation providers could screen and report the gender equality focus of their development finance.

• DAC members and multilateral organisations and banks increasingly report the private flows mobilised through development finance. When doing so, they could also better report the gender equality focus of these mobilised flows.

• Private philanthropies that report their development finance to the OECD use the DAC gender equality policy marker. With 28% of their finance including gender equality objectives, mainly in the areas of health and population and reproductive health, these actors could further strengthen their focus on gender equality. In addition, more foundations could report their development funding with gender equality objectives.

5.4. Areas for future work

This report is the first edition of what is intended to become a regular publication on development finance for gender equality. Each edition will have selected focus areas. Future research might address a different selection of sector/themes than those highlighted in this edition or focus more in-depth on one or a few specific partner countries. Should development actors beyond the DAC, such as multilateral organisations and banks, strengthen their reporting to the OECD and the DAC gender equality policy marker, more detailed analysis could be undertaken around their efforts to advance gender equality.