International development finance geared toward advancing gender equality is losing ground amid rising conflict and pushback in more countries, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), comprising 32 member countries, spent US$60.4 billion in official development assistance (ODA) with gender equality objectives in 2021 to 2022, accounting for 42 percent of total spending. But while total spending went up, the proportion invested in gender equality dropped from the previous period, when it stood at 45 percent. As well, 20 member countries (62.5 percent) decreased their focus on gender equality. Obstacles include cultural resistance, alarming increases in poverty and inequality, rising conflict and violence around the world, as well as climate change and related phenomena which disproportionately affect women and girls.
“Every development intervention has an impact on gender equality, whether intended or not,” the report reads, “and excluding gender equality objectives from policies, programmes or investments leads to missed opportunities to advance on several fronts in parallel.”
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Integration of gender equality into development initiatives varies across sectors, with DAC members showing a stronger focus on it in other social infrastructure and services, education, and agriculture and rural development. Such focus is dangerously lacking, however, in humanitarian aid, and inconsistent when it comes to sexual and reproductive health and rights – areas which are subject to well-funded efforts to reverse course.
Humanitarian aid, up over 35 percent to US$29.3 million, saw a drop in the percentage focused on gender equality, from 19 percent from 2019 to 2020 to 17 percent the following year, despite women and girls being disproportionately impacted by violence and displacement. Sexual and reproductive health and rights, framed by the report as “fundamental” to achieving gender equality, have faced “well-funded attempts to reverse progress” in recent years. While overall funding has increased, the specific areas of reproductive health care and family planning – both of which afford women more control over their lives and futures – dropped from 2021 to 2022. Funding for women’s rights organisations and feminist movements also remains abysmally low, accounting for less than 1 percent of ODA.
“Every form of finance is needed,” the report argues but so is better information. While other development actors, including multilateral organisations, banks and private sector investors committed over US$200 billion to ODA in 2021 to 2022, much of this investment either lacked gender equality objectives or did not report objectives at all. Only around 28 percent of development finance from all actors currently includes gender equality objectives, with the overwhelming majority of ODA a “missed opportunity to achieve gender equality and inclusive development.”
