USD 420 billion annual shortfall blocking gender equality in developing countries
Chronic underfunding, weak tracking systems, and unfair financial rules are stalling progress on gender equality. UN Women calls for urgent, sustained investment to close the gap and deliver on equality commitments.
New York — Developing countries are falling short by an estimated USD 420 billion a year in the funding needed to achieve gender equality under the Sustainable Development Goals. At the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Sevilla, Spain, UN Women welcomed the adoption by consensus of the Compromiso de Sevilla, which reaffirms Member States’ shared commitment to inclusive and sustainable development. Despite a difficult global context, the agreement signals a step forward in recognizing the essential role of gender equality in financing strategies.
FfD4 is a critical opportunity to build lasting momentum for financing gender equality, which is now widely recognized as essential for sustainable development and for strong, inclusive economies. What is needed next is a full decade of consistent and targeted investment to close gender gaps, unlock opportunity, and ensure no one is left behind.
UN Women is urging governments and financial institutions to move from promises to tangible, sustained investment that delivers for the women and girls most in need. The current gap underscores the deep and chronic underfunding of women’s rights and services and signals the urgent need for governments and financial institutions to reallocate resources accordingly. Most global financing continues to bypass the poorest countries, where the majority of low-income women live and where investment is most urgently needed. The money simply is not reaching the women and girls who need it most.
Despite the growing uptake of gender-responsive budgeting, just one in four countries has systems in place to track how public funds are allocated to gender equality. Without this information, it is nearly impossible to plan, budget, and deliver national development goals.
“We cannot close gender gaps with budgets that are lacking a gender lens”, said Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Deputy Executive Director, UN Women. “Governments must back their commitments with real investment and track how money is spent and what it achieves. Gender equality must move from the margins of budget lines to the heart of public policy. It takes money. It takes reform. And it takes leadership that sees women not as a cost, but as the future.”
At the international financing conference, UN Women is putting forth concrete recommendations to accelerate progress for women and girls and towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development commitments:
- Expand and scale up the use of gender-responsive budgeting to ensure national priorities align with gender equality goals. This ensures that funding goes where it is truly needed: to meet the specific needs and rights of women and girls across all sectors. Countries must also strengthen their institutions and political will to implement and monitor these budgets. This is key to systemic, lasting change.
- Implement urgent debt relief, fairer global financing rules, and progressive, gender-responsive tax reform. These measures are critical to ending austerity and generating the revenues needed for public investment in essential services like health, education, and care.
- Rebalance public spending to reflect long-term human development goals, including gender equality, peacebuilding, and inclusive social development. While recognizing legitimate security concerns, governments must invest more in care, inclusion, and resilience to meet their global commitments.
- Invest in public care systems such as childcare and eldercare—essential infrastructure that enables women’s full participation in the workforce and society. Investing 10 per cent of national income in care services would reduce poverty, increase household incomes, and create millions of decent jobs.
UN Women stresses that continued underinvestment is stalling progress on gender equality, the fulfilment of the rights and empowerment of women and girls, the 2030 Agenda, and the Beijing Platform for Action. As FfD4 concludes, UN Women urges world leaders to match political commitments with the sustained, transparent, and accountable financing needed to close the USD 420 billion gap—and finally deliver on promises to half the world’s population.
