Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 5.c.1 “Proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment” has been recently reclassified as Tier II by the Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDGs. The indicator measures progress towards Target 5c of the SDGs to “adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels”. It links the policy and legal requirements for gender equality with resource allocations for their implementation. By tracking resource allocations, governments introduce deliberate measures into the planning and budgeting cycle to meet their gender policy objectives such as eliminating gender based violence or increasing women’s employment. By making these allocations public, governments commit to higher levels of transparency and accountability in budget decision making.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview and guide to complex issue of linkages between aid and gender equality. Moreover, the position paper addresses the intricate linkages and identifies existing challenges for future action in development practice and research with a view to increasing aid efficiency.

The present study is a contribution to mark the 10th anniversary of the adoption of UNSCR 1325, and provides an overview of DAC members' funding targeted to gender equality in fragile and conflict-affected states. It was prepared with the assistance of members of the DAC Network on Gender Equality (GENDERNET) and the DAC Working Party on Statistics (WP-STAT). The main findings of the study are, On average, one-third of DAC members' aid to fragile states targets gender equality as a principal or...

The report "Gender Equality, the new aid environment and CSOs" was researched and written by the Gender & Development Network (GADN) because of a growing concern about the fast changing aid structures, such as direct budget support, pooled funding schemes for supporting civil society and other forms of donor alignment and their possible implications for work on gender equality and women?s rights issues, in the Global North and South. The report highlights some of the key questions emerging for...

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (PD) commits donors and partner countries to reform aid management and delivery in order to strengthen its development outcomes. Through the Declaration, development partners commit to implementing common arrangements for planning, funding, disbursing, monitoring, evaluating and reporting on donor activities and aid flows at country level. To respond to these requirements, donors have collectively put in place a number of mechanisms to better coordinate...

Well-being gender budgeting (WBGB) experiences use a multidimensional approach for planning and budgeting combining the Capability Approach along with gender responsive budgeting. However, what happens to the other well-being budgeting initiatives that do not explicitly include this «gender focus» in their conceptualization? This article explores the gender biases that can be found in well-being budgeting and the challenges of integrating a gender perspective into these practices. It...

This research was carried out by Ms Nalini Burn, GRB Expert under the programme "Integrating gender responsive budgeting into the aid effectiveness agenda" launched by UNIFEM and the European Commission (EC) in 2008. The first part of this case study briefly outlines the development management context: examining official development assistance to Morocco, focusing on two donors, the European Union (EU) and Spain; describing the planning and budgetary system and process as well as the extent and...

This report synthesises findings from a two year research and advocacy programme "Just Budgets" carried out in partnership with four leading African civil society organisations. The aim of the programme was to explore how gender responsive budgeting (GRB) could be applied to new aid modalities (budget and sector support) in order to strengthen gender equality outcomes in development cooperation. The research was a response to aid financing reforms articulated in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid...

The third report in a new research series on resources for women's rights organizing from the Association for Women's Rights in Development, this...

The main research question of this study To what extent do post-conflict reconstruction initiatives allocate resources to promote gender equality, address women's needs and involve women in decision-making around strategies and related resource allocations? In the Post-Conflict Needs Assessments examined in this paper, less than 5 percent of activities and only 3 percent of budget lines mentioned women's needs. Low and diminishing levels of gender-responsiveness were also evident in PRSPs....