Reducing feminised poverty has always been a core UNIFEM priority. To support women in reshaping conditions at both ends of the economic spectrum, the fund’s programmes help bring gender equality into trade and economic policies, and expand women’s access to markets, goods and services.
Since poverty traps women in multiple layers of discrimination and hinders their ability to claim their rights, ending feminised poverty has always been a core UNIFEM priority. Not only do women bear a disproportionate burden of the world's poverty, but in some cases, globalisation has widened the gap, with women losing more than their share of jobs, benefits and labour rights. From tax systems to trade regimes, however, economic policies and institutions still mostly fail to take gender disparities into account. With too few seats at the tables where economic decisions are made, women themselves have little chance of rectifying the deepening of existing inequalities.
UNIFEM responds with strategies that make a difference
UNIFEM helps women reshape conditions at both ends of the economic spectrum, enlarging women's participation in both the overarching policies governing resource flows and the everyday practicalities of gaining secure livelihoods.
· Bringing gender into trade and economic policies: The path out of poverty for most women requires economic frameworks that address their exclusion from the economic mainstream. UNIFEM supports efforts to make budgets, national poverty reduction strategies, data systems and trade policies close gender gaps and protect human rights.
· Expanding access to markets, goods and services: With many poor women either locked out of economic opportunities or into a growing number of low-wage informal jobs, UNIFEM assists women in securing the tools that offer a way out, including job training, information on labour laws and rights, credit, and access to land and water. With a focus on fostering opportunities across economic sectors, UNIFEM also helps build the capacity of economic institutions and networks to provide women with these forms of support.
What is Gender Responsive Budgeting? (GRB)
Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is about ensuring that government budgets, and policies and programs that underlie them, address the needs and interests of individuals that belong to different social groups. GRB looks at biases that can arise because a person is male or female, and considers disadvantage suffered as a result of ethnicity, caste, class or poverty status, location and age. GRB is not about separate budgets for women or men nor about budgets divided equally. It is about determining where the needs of men and women are the same or different and providing appropriate allocations for those needs.
UNIFEM has contributed to building interest, capacity and commitment to incorporate GRB in budgetary processes by supporting initiatives in over 30 countries. UNIFEM's global programme Gender Strengthening Economic Governance: Applied Gender Analysis to Government Budgets, launched in 2001, provided technical and financial support to gender budgets initiatives in Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific.
During the first four years of the programme, focus was on:
· making available gender budgeting tools and methodologies;
· increasing stakeholders' capacity to advocate for and carry out gender budget analysis;
· improving budgeting and planning processes to enhance gender equality; and
· increasing resource allocation to support implementation of gender equality plans and policies.
The second phase of the program, launched in 2005, aimed to include a focus on ensuring that national budgeting processes adequately reflect the priorities of poor women in particular. Initiatives are currently underway in Morocco, Senegal, Mozambique and Ecuador. In the four countries, the program seeks to transform budget execution processes and policies to reflect responsiveness to principles of gender equality and make concrete changes in resource allocations towards women's priorities.
The broad strategies adopted by the programme focus on positioning the GRB initiatives within the framework of mainstream fiscal policy as well as national planning, programming, budgeting and monitoring processes. The program builds capacity of key national actors in the budget process in at least two priority sectors seeking to improve the effectiveness of the response to women's priorities in these sectors. It also seeks to design budget monitoring systems in selected areas through supporting participation of civil society groups dedicated to social and gender justice in budget processes to ensure that priorities of poor women are reflected in budget allocations.
UNIFEM's programming on GRB has received financial support from the governments of Belgium, Canada, the European Commission, Italy, and the UK, as well as from partner UN organizations.