Unattainable gender equality in developing nations due to an annual deficit of US$420 billion
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) has highlighted the urgent need for increased and targeted investment to close a funding gap of $420 billion annually, required to achieve gender equality in developing countries. This gap, according to UN Women, underscores a deep and chronic underfunding of women's rights and services and signals the urgent need for governments and financial institutions to reallocate resources accordingly.
UN Women's call to action comes at a critical juncture, with the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Sevilla, Spain, reaffirming Member States' shared commitment to inclusive and sustainable development. The conference has concluded with UN Women urging world leaders to deliver on their promises to half the world's population.
To accelerate progress for women and girls towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development commitments, UN Women has put forth concrete recommendations. These include expanding and scaling up the use of gender-responsive budgeting, ensuring financing reaches the poorest and most vulnerable women, implementing urgent debt relief and fairer global financing rules, and leveraging UN System-Wide Acceleration Plans.
Governments should align national priorities with gender equality goals through expanded use of gender-responsive budgeting, ensuring funding decisions actively promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. However, despite the growing uptake of gender-responsive budgeting, only one in four countries has systems in place to track how public funds are allocated to gender equality.
Rebalancing public spending to reflect long-term human development goals, including gender equality, peacebuilding, and inclusive social development, is necessary to meet global commitments. Investing in public care systems such as childcare and eldercare is essential infrastructure that enables women's full participation in the workforce and society, reducing poverty, increasing household incomes, and creating millions of decent jobs.
UN Women emphasizes the need for tangible, sustained investment that delivers for women and girls most in need. The organization urges world leaders to match political commitments with sustained, transparent, and accountable financing to close the $420 billion gap.
In addition, UN Women calls for renewed political commitment to safeguard existing gains and advance gender equality through legal, political, and financial systems that actively promote rather than hinder women’s rights. To dismantle systemic barriers, political leadership and comprehensive policy and institutional reforms, including budget reforms, are essential. Gender equality must be a cross-cutting objective in all national policies and financing strategies aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 5.
Lastly, UN Women advocates for leveraging the UN System-Wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan (GEAP) launched in 2024, a comprehensive framework designed to transform the UN system internally and support member states in achieving gender equality through targeted "accelerators" that drive concrete results.
In conclusion, UN Women advocates for sustained, targeted financing strategies focused on closing the large funding gaps through gender-responsive budgeting, fair financial reforms (including debt relief), reallocation of resources to reach the poorest women, and leveraging UN-wide acceleration mechanisms — all underpinned by renewed political will and comprehensive policy reforms — to accelerate progress for women and girls by 2030.
- In line with the UN Women's call for action, it is crucial for finance ministries and financial institutions to prioritize and reallocate resources towards gender-responsive budgeting to facilitate the achievement of gender equality in developing countries.
- To ensure that global commitments towards gender equality are met, governments and financial institutions must work collaboratively to close the $420 billion funding gap identified by UN Women through targeted investments in businesses that prioritize the empowerment of women and girls.
