Global gender equality purse grows by $40 billion
President Uhuru Kenyatta last week joined world leaders at the Generation Equality Forum in Paris, France. The forum concluded with nearly $40 billion committed towards accelerating gender equality .
What you need to know:
- Generation Equality Forum concluded with nearly $40 billion committed towards accelerating gender equality in the next five years.
- The financial investments draw optimism towards reviving and speeding up the progress towards ending gender-based violence, promoting women’s economic rights and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Generation Equality Forum concluded with nearly $40 billion committed towards accelerating gender equality in the next five years.
The funding tackles a financial deficit that has, for more than 25 years, slowed implementation of Beijing Platform for Action, a roadmap for attaining gender equality across the globe.
Gender equality programs attract a mere four per cent in bilateral aid, a drop in the ocean in the financing of thousands of women and girl-focused projects across the globe.
Further, 62 per cent of the bilateral aid is gender blind, based on data from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which tracks-bilateral aid allocated in support of gender equality and women's empowerment.
The financial investments draw optimism towards reviving and speeding up the progress towards ending gender-based violence (GBV), promoting women’s economic rights and sexual and reproductive health and rights. This is alongside to supporting feminist action for climate justice, feminist movements and leadership, technologies and innovations that support equality between men and women.
Philanthropic foundations
A total of $38.5 billion was committed, including $21 billion from governments and public sector institutions, $13 billion from the private sector while philanthropic foundations pledged to grow the purse by $4.5 billion.
Particularly, United States government’s commits to inject $1 billion to support programs focused on ending violence against women and a further $175 million on preventing and responding to GVB globally.
Canadian government could also boost the global gender equality kitty with $100 million for addressing inequalities in the care economy across the world, a sector where women spend more than nine hours in unpaid labour.
Additionally, about 1,000 policy and program commitments devoted to improving the lives of all gender were made by at least 440 civil society and 94 youth-led organisations in the forum attended by nearly 50,000 people virtually.
“The Generation Equality Forum marks a positive, historic shift in power and perspective. Together we have mobilised across different sectors of society, from south to north, to become a formidable force, ready to open a new chapter in gender equality,” Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women said at the closure of the three-day forum on Friday.
Generation Equality Forum
She added: “The forum’s ecosystem of partners and the investments, commitments and energy they are bringing to confront the greatest barriers to gender equality –will ensure faster progress for the world’s women and girls than we have seen before.”
The task now lies with the UN Women to oversee implementation of commitments to ensure accountability and progress over the next five years.
“By implementing a new way of tackling global issues through efficient multilateralism, the Generation Equality Forum reversed the priorities on the international agenda and made gender equality, for too long underestimated, a long-term issue for the international community,” said Secretary General of the Generation Equality Forum Delphine O.
