Progress Reports - Increasing Accountability in Financing for Gender Equality (FfGE) Programme

Last October 2011 the European Commission (EC), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the International Training Center of the International Labour Organisation (ITC/ILO) have launched the progamme “Increasing Accountability in Financing for Gender Equality (FfGE)”, which will last 42 months.

The programme, managed by UN Women and supported by the EC and Spain, will work with governments, civil society and bilateral and multilateral donors to strengthen capacities and accountability systems for financing and implementing gender equality priorities in Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, Occupied Palestinian Territory (Opt), Senegal, Ukraine, Cameroon, Tanzania, Nepal, Peru, Bolivia and Rwanda, as well targeted activities in Zambia

The overall aim of the programme is to increase the volume and effective use of aid and domestic resources to implement national commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women will take the lead in supporting national partners in mainstreaming gender in national and joint coordination processes. EU Delegations will also strengthen efforts to mainstream gender equality in the programming cycle, including through technical capacity building provided by ITC/ILO.

The programme outcomes are:

• National action plans for gender equality have defined targets, financing and implementation arrangements are aligned with national planning and budgeting processes.
• Strengthened capacity and accountability of national governments to implement gender equality commitments and address women’s priorities in national planning, budgeting systems and programming.
• Strengthened capacity and accountability of donors and stakeholders in aid coordination mechanisms to achieve commitments towards gender equality in stable and fragile countries.
• Feminist economists and gender equality advocates engaged effectively in contributing to stronger policy coherence on gender equality in economic and development effectiveness policy fora.

The programme builds on past experience, lessons learned and knowledge in the areas of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB), Gender and Aid Effectiveness (AE) and costing of gender equality priorities. It also builds on the processes related to the aid effectiveness agenda as outlined in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) and the Accra Agenda for Action (2008) as well as the agreed conclusions adopted by the 52^nd Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 2008 (on adequate financing for gender equality) whose progress has been reviewed at the 2012 CSW.

This Blog post will be updated periodically with short reports on programme progresses.

For more information, please contact:

EC  - Camilla Landini Camilla.landini@ec.europa.eu