Funding trends

What are the important trends in gender equality ODA?

In 2022, ODA targeting projects related to gender equality from OECD DAC donors sat at US$50.3 billion. This figure represents about a 6% increase from 2021, but funding to gender equality as a percent of overall ODA decreased from 2021 to 2022.

Top donors

Who are the top donors of gender equality ODA?

In 2022, Germany and the EUI were the largest donors of gender-related ODA, including both principal and significant funding. Japan rose above the US and the UK, ranking third in terms of total gender equality-related development spending.

In 2022, Canada maintained its top position as the donor which most strongly prioritized gender equality-related projects, spending 90% of bilateral allocable ODA on projects with a significant or principal gender equality goal, far exceeding the DAC average of 42%. The Netherlands fell from second to fifth place in this ranking between 2020 and 2021, but rose again to second in 2022.

Analysis on gender equality-related donor finance typically looks at all funding tagged with the gender equality policy marker, meaning both principal and significant funding. While these analyses are important for understanding the broader finance landscape, they tend to give an inflated impression of donors' commitment to gender equality. This is in part because when the gender equality policy marker is applied, the whole value of a project gets counted as "gender-related" funding, even if only a small component of the project is actually furthering gender equality goals.

Because donors are required to meet higher standards to qualify funding as 'principal', principal-tagged gender funding serves as a better, though still imperfect, indicator for assessing donors’ actual commitment.

Looking at principal gender equality-related funding over time, the picture is rather grim. Although total gender equality-related funding increased in recent years, most funding supported non-principal projects. Funding to projects which had gender equality as a principal goal actually fell 7% between 2020 and 2021, and while it increased slightly in 2022 it has not recovered to 2020 levels.

Since 2017, principal gender ODA increased three times slower than overall ODA, growing by 1% on average, annually.

On the level of individual donors, approaches are mixed. For example, Canada has scaled up spending on principal gender projects almost five times faster than its overall ODA, while other gender equality policy 'champions' like the UK have not increased gender equality ODA as expected.

For more details on donors’ funding and policies for gender equality, see our  ‘Insights bundle: Three pillars of gender equality’.

Top Sectors

What are the top sectors for gender equality ODA?

Health & populations was the sector receiving the largest volume of funding to projects tagged with the gender equality policy marker in 2022. This trend was likely due to ongoing spending related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both health and government funding include gender-specific purpose codes and are highly funded sectors overall. Gender equality-related spending made up 40% and 60% of total funding to each of these sectors, respectively.

Humanitarian assistance ranked fourth in overall gender equality-related funding in 2022, receiving US$4.0 billion or 10% of total ODA related to gender equality.

Infrastructure rose from fourth to second in overall funding to gender equality, receiving US$6 billion in spending on projects tagged with the gender equality policy marker.

Definitions

What does gender equality mean?

According to the SDGs, gender equality means "women and girls, everywhere, must have equal rights and opportunity, and be able to live free of violence and discrimination." Gender equality is an important precursor to the achievement of development across all other sectors. As such, some donors have adopted an approach of "gender mainstreaming," or integrating gender equality into all kinds of development programs. In addition to being a cross-cutting issue, gender equality is a goal in-and-of-itself. Because of this dual nature, it can sometimes be hard to identify what exactly is being referred to in discussions about gender equality.

At the Generation Equality Forum in 2021, the global community agreed on a framework for understanding gender equality across six key action areas. The Generation Equality Forum was a major global gathering for gender equality, bringing together government delegates, UN representatives, youth leaders, civil society advocates, academics, and members of the private sector to bring new life to the global movement for gender equality and set a course toward bold gender equality outcomes by 2026.

What are the key debates and topics surrounding gender equality?

The Generation Equality Forum held two meetings in 2021, in Mexico City in March and in Paris in June, and culminated in the launching of a 5-year Global Acceleration Plan to achieve irreversible progress towards gender equality. The Acceleration Plan is based on a series of ambitious, concrete, and transformative actions, and is backed by US$40 billion in financial commitments pledged at the summit.

In addition, the Mexico City event officially launched the Forum’s multi-stakeholder Action Coalition partnerships across six major themes of gender justice. Each coalition identified critical goals in its theme to be achieved by 2026, which are helpful in understanding and defining the many dimensions of gender equality. (For more information on the Action Coalitions' design and goals, view the Generation Equality Forum Global Acceleration Plan.

In 2024, UN Women released the Generation Equality Accountability Report, which provided an in-depth analysis of progress made under the Global Acceleration Plan. The report outlined that financial pledges increased from the original US$40 billion to US$5.3 billion, and that US$40.4 billion of the pledges have been secured, and US$21.9 billion has been spent, listing sectoral allocations as:

• Economic justice and rights: US$30.9 billion pledged, with US$27.4 billion secured and US$12.4 billion spent;
• GBV: US$10.3 billion pledged, with US$8.5 billion secured;
• SRHR: US$6.7 billion pledged, US$3.3 billion secured, and US$2.3 billion spent;
• Feminist action for climate justice: US$560 million pledged, with key efforts on creating green jobs for women; and
• Technology & innovation: US$211 million pledged, with US$149 million secured and US$133 million spent.

Still, despite the additional funding and significant progress made in implementing the commitments, the report warned that women and girls face 137 more years of extreme poverty unless current funding and implementation trends accelerate. Challenges to progress include persistent funding gaps for CSOs, youth- and adolescent-led organizations, and grassroots initiatives, as well as insufficient data on marginalized groups due to poor tracking of key equality and GBV indicators.

The report recommended:

• Increasing investments in youth-led and grassroots organizations;
• Scaling up evidence-driven prevention strategies, particularly in areas like climate justice and digital inclusion; and
• Developing gender-disaggregated data for better tracking of progress.

According to the UN, as of 2024, none of the indicators under SDG #5 have yet been fully achieved. Nonetheless, some trends have been promising. Women now hold one-fourth of all parliamentary seats, which represents a significant rise over the past decade. Still, fully achieving the goals outlined in SDG #5 remains a challenge, with some indicators far from their respective targets. For instance, the rate of girls who are married as children is currently 1 in 4, and the Generation Equality Accountability Report cautioned that with current progress, child marriage is unlikely to be eradicated before 2092.

In 2024, the World Bank released a gender strategy for 2024-2030, titled Accelerate Gender Equality to End Poverty on a Livable Planet. The strategy outlines a comprehensive approach to advancing gender equality globally and emphasized the urgency of addressing gender disparities as a fundamental component of sustainable development and poverty reduction. The World Bank emphasized innovative financing and collective action as key drivers of change. It advocates for leveraging partnerships, enhancing data collection, and deploying targeted investments to address systemic barriers to gender equality.

The strategy's main strategic objectives are:

• End GBV and elevate human capital: The strategy prioritizes the elimination of all forms of GBV and aims to strengthen human capital by improving health, education, and social protection outcomes for women and girls;
• Expand and enable economic opportunities: The strategy focuses on increasing women's access to better employment opportunities, ownership of economic assets, and utilization of enabling services such as childcare and digital technologies; and
• Engage women as leaders: The strategy seeks to enhance women's participation in decision-making processes at all levels, recognizing their critical role in driving sustainable and inclusive development.