6. Report from the Online Discussion on Financing for Gender Equality & Empowerment of Women
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
Summarizing a four-week online discussion that was organized in 2007 by the Division for the Advancement of Women in preparation for the 2008 Commission on the Status of Women, this report underscores various issues and makes several recommendations on using private and public resources for gender equality. It emphasizes the importance of incorporating gender-responsive budget initiatives into national policies and government expenditure and points out that women’s participation is crucial to the development of these budgets and gender-specific indicators.  Other topics of note include the need for male involvement in all gender and development proposals and advocacy; for corporations to work towards developing women leaders and gender-sensitive human resource policies and the view that an independent, women-specific UN agency with adequate stature resources, operational capacity, and a mandate is needed to replace the UN’s current ineffective gender equality architecture. (Adapted from Siyanda, UK – www.siyanda.org)
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7. Financing for Gender Equality: Report of the Secretary General.
United Nations
Composed for the 2008 UN Commission on the Status of Women, the secretary general’s report analyses the current state of financing for gender equality, highlights gaps and challenges and proposes recommendations for consideration by the Commission.  In particular it emphasizes the lack of resources allocated to execute global commitments on financing towards the empowerment of women and stresses the need to move from analysis to implementation.  Recommendations include the development of methodologies and tools to systematically incorporate a gender perspective into public finance management; strengthening dialogue and exchange between finance ministries and national women’s machineries; and ensuring that direct funding makes its way to women’s organizations and women’s funds. 
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8. Financing for Gender Equality: Recommendations from the Eighth Commonwealth Secretariat Women’s Ministers’ Meeting
Commonwealth Secretariat, UN Division for the Advancement of Women
The 8th Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting was held in Kampala, Uganda, from 11-14  June 2007 under the theme “Financing Gender Equality for Development and Democracy.” This paper synthesizes the significant issues and papers that were presented including the implications of new aid modalities; gender-responsive budgeting in the context of the Paris Declaration; benefits, challenges and recommendations on microfinance and women; the impact of trade on sources of gender financing; the role of national machineries; and financing for gender, peace and democracy.
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9. Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development
United Nations
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10. Report on the International Consensus on Financing for Development
United Nations
An official report of the proceedings at the Monterrey conference that led to the consensus on financing for development.
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11. Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness
High Level Forum
(English, Spanish and French)
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12. Report from the Online Discussion on Financing for Gender Equality & Empowerment of Women
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
Summarizing a four-week online discussion that was organized in 2007 by the Division for the Advancement of Women in preparation for the 2008 Commission on the Status of Women, this report underscores various issues and makes several recommendations on using private and public resources for gender equality. It emphasizes the importance of incorporating gender-responsive budget initiatives into national policies and government expenditure and points out that women’s participation is crucial to the development of these budgets and gender-specific indicators. Other topics of note include the need for male involvement in all gender and development proposals and advocacy; for corporations to work towards developing women leaders and gender-sensitive human resource policies and the view that an independent, women-specific UN agency with adequate stature.
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13. Financing for Development, Gender Equality and the Follow-Up to the Monterrey Consensus
Pawadee Tonguthai
UN Division for the Advancement for Women, 2007
An introductory piece that employs a gender perspective to critique the Monterrey Consensus and the progress made on its recommendations.
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14. Financing Decent Work
Gemma Adaba
UN Division for the Advancement for Women, 2007
Arguing that a major shortcoming of dialogues on development assistance is their failure to incorporate frameworks for financing gender-sensitive, people-centered development, this paper calls for the implementation of policies that result in real cash transfers to poor households, and to women in those households, such that their lives and livelihoods are substantially improved. In terms of making this possible, it focuses on two key areas with promising implications for financing decent work for women – (1) financing access to basic services for all and (2) creating inclusive financial sectors in the shape of national development banks.
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15. Financing for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women: the Critical Role of Autonomous Women’s Funds in Strengthening Women’s Movements
Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
Women's funds are autonomous grant-making organizations that work closely with the communities that they serve. This paper describes the scope and experiences of the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF), the first Africa-wide women's fund, and highlights the challenges it has faced in delivering grants to the grassroots. On the basis of this experience, this paper points out several ways forward, including the greater investment of donor agencies in movement building; donors who are interested in partnerships with groups working on the ground and in putting the needs of these organizations ahead of bureaucratic policies; and mapping of women’s funds in global south and Central and Eastern Europe.
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16. Financing for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women: Uganda’s Experience
Margaret Kakande
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
This paper draws out key recommendations arising from Uganda's experience of gender-sensitive budget initiatives, including alignment of major global goals to the new aid modalities (MDGs to financing modalities, e.g.), the use of basket funding to support the development of social development sectors that address gender equality and unconditional support to gender budgeting initiatives.
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17. Financing for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in Eastern Europe
Kinga Lohman
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
Based on the experience of women's human rights organizations in Eastern Europe, this paper assesses the impact of reduced financing for women's human rights organizations in the region that has been caused by the withdrawal of donors.  It argues that the main challenges in financing for gender equality in Eastern Europe are related to the fact that the politicians and civil society organizations often believe that gender equality already exists and that specific policy and/or financing are not needed to address inequalities. Moreover, since most of the countries in Eastern Europe are middle income countries, many donors are not interested in the region. In response to these challenges and others, the report argues that a consortium of women's rights donors, including bilateral, multilateral, private, public and other donors, is urgently needed. Specific actions to be taken by donors, governments and the European Commission are also proposed. (Adapted from Siyanda, UK – www.siyanda.org)
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18. Financing for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women: Some Theoretical and Practical Issues from a Trade and Macroeconomic Policies Perspective
Mariama Williams
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
The international political economy is currently dominated by a wide range of reform agendas, including on aid, trade and debt. This paper suggests that policies, discussion and action agendas should move beyond poverty reduction to look at structural issues of inequality and economic injustice that reinforce old forms of poverty as well as create new inequalities. In particular, financing for gender equality and women's empowerment must focus attention on housing, sanitation, health care, education and skills training, with particular attention to unpaid work, the care economy, basic school (and early childhood), employment and enterprise development and the development of public infrastructure within communities. The paper makes recommendations for both broader macroeconomic policy domains and specific suggestions for trade policy and reform. (Adapted from Siyanda, UK – www.siyanda.org)
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19. Financing for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women: Asian Development Bank
Shireen Lateef
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
This paper reflects on the Asian Development Bank’s  efforts at financing gender equality and women’s empowerment through its technical assistance and lending operations in the context of constantly shifting and competing priorities, new global agendas, `gender mainstreaming’ and the shift towards more program and sector based approaches.
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20. Gender and the Paris Declaration in Zambia
Paul Lupunga
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
The paper discusses Zambia’s use of the Paris Declaration on Aid effectiveness to promote gender equality and increasing quantity and quality of assistance towards the empowerment of women. In particular, it explores the five aspects of the declaration with reference to the Zambian case and highlights gaps, challenges and recommendations.
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21. Gender Budgeting: Experiences from Tanzania
Edward H. Mhina, 2007
Drawing on the author’s experiences and organizing as a member of the Tanzania Gender Networking Program, this paper focuses on the achievements of gender responsive budgeting initiatives in Tanzania, the roles of various stakeholders in such initiatives and the impact of such initiatives in increasing resources for gender equality.
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22. Gender Responsive Budgets Have a Place in Financing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment
Rhonda Sharp
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
The evidence is emerging that gender responsive budgets are a positive force in promoting a more equitable distribution of public resources and benefits of development for women and improving overall budgetary processes and outcomes. Drawing on examples from the Australasian and the Pacific Island Countries and Territorities,’ this briefing paper addresses expectations from gender responsive budgeting, assessments of a government’s achievements in this area and means to sustain gender responsive budget in the midst of shifting aid modalities. (Adapted from UNIFEM’s Gender Responsive Budgeting Portal - www.gender-budgets.org)
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23. Money Matters: The Strategic Relevance of Donor Funding Targets and Conditionalities for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality Results
Ireen Dubel
UN Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
Presenting the experiences of Hivos in ensuring that women's empowerment and gender equality remains high on its funding agenda, this paper presents ten recommendations designed to contribute to increasing and mobilizing resources for women's empowerment and gender equality. These include (a) the agenda of women's rights must be driven by civil society actors and not by governments, donor agencies or the private sector; (b) upgrading women's empowerment and gender equality to a sector status should have consequences for the Paris Aid effectiveness agenda, for ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results and mutual accountability; and (c) multilateral, bilateral, international non-governmental organizations (INGO) and private foundation funding should insist on women's specific programs, interventions, resources and gender performance criteria as a strategy to strengthen mainstreaming of gender equality within the intermediary grant making institutions. (Adapted from www.siyanda.org)
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24. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and Gender Equality
Cathy Gaynor
Division for the Advancement of Women, 2007
This basic piece introduces and lays out the various aspects of the Paris Declaration and analyses it from a gender perspective. Some opportunities to influence the Paris Declaration agenda are identified, including the need for gender specialists to engage in communications and dissemination work as well as in monitoring progress, and to support gender responsive understandings of the declaration in agencies and at country level.
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25. Public Finance Management, Including Gender-Responsive Budgeting
Katrin Schneider
Division for the Advancement for Women, 2007
Gender responsive budgets are not separate budgets for women, but instead, general budgets that are planned, approved, executed, monitored and audited in a gender-sensitive way. Research shows that expenditure patterns and the way governments raise revenue impact women and men differently due to their socially determined roles in society, their different capabilities and constraints. This paper highlights achievements in the realm of gender budgeting and challenges to the institutionalization of gender budgeting perspectives in public finance. Recommendations include the inclusion of gender perspective into national policy documents such as Poverty Reduction Strategies and national development plans and the implementation of targeted women-specific policies, in addition to general gender mainstreaming, until a level playing-field has been established.
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26. Other Expert Group Meeting papers
Two other papers that could not be downloaded from the web. To read summaries, click here or write to csw52@un.org