UN Women initiated a grant facility in 2012 to support and fund CSO initiated innovative approaches to enrich the existing knowledge base on financing for gender equality. The grant supported activities of five CSOs including AWID (Association for Women's Rights in Development) to strengthen accountability mechanisms, build capacity of national partners and support gender advocates’ role in promoting budget transparency.
Tracking financial allocations and monitoring how and where they are spent is key to increase accountability in financing for gender equality. AWID partnered with the Instituto del Tercer Mundo/Social Watch, feminist economists, other women’s rights organizations and research institutions to develop an innovative donor scorecard, FundHer, to assess donor funding. The scorecard assesses the performance of the range of actors (bilateral, multilateral, private, global north and south) based on indicators deemed critical in achieving gender equality and women’s rights. The scorecard assesses both quantitative and qualitative aspects of donor funding towards gender equality commitments, and helps shape concrete proposals for effective funding policies and programs that put gender equality and women’s rights at the center of development cooperation.