Every dollar counts for women

Jean D'Cunha , Bangkok | Sat, 03/08/2008 12:08 AM | Opinion

All ten ASEAN countries have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and have endorsed the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.

Integrating gender equality and women's empowerment concerns into National Development Plans or formulating Women's Development Plans is a growing feature in East and Southeast Asia. Countries in the region likewise have a plethora of gender equality legislation -- overarching gender equality laws, legislation on domestic violence, trafficking, HIV/AIDS, land rights, among others.

But there continues to be a yawning gap between policy and practice. Women are disproportionately present at the bottom of the job hierarchy in the poorly protected informal sector -- 41 percent in the Republic of Korea, 65 percent in Indonesia, 62 percent in the Philippines -- primarily in food processing, petty trading and home working.

In Asia and the Pacific, women work about 12 hours more per week than men, performing both paid and unpaid work. Women are poorly represented at higher levels of formal decision-making, and of 8.3 million people who were HIV positive in Asia at the end of 2005, 2.4 million were adult women. An important cause for this is that policy commitments are seldom matched by resources that help deliver on the gender equality agenda to make a difference to women's lives.

To call attention to this, the theme for International Women's Day 2008 is Investing in Women and Girls.

Reinforcing this is a World Bank estimate, that an increase of one percentage point in the share of women with secondary education is associated with a 0.3 percentage point increase in per capita income.

Lack of investment in women and girls is therefore an opportunity lost. According to the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the Asia-Pacific region loses US$42-$47 billion annually due to women's marginalization from employment, and another $16-$30 billion per year because of gender gaps in education.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) estimates that low-income countries would require about $23.8 billion annually to achieve the MDG on promoting gender equality and women's empowerment, by 2015. This translates into $7 to $13 per capita per year from 2006 to 2015.

Daunting as this challenge may be, there are achievements to build on -- budget allocations that have increased women's employment; microfinance and credit provided for women's businesses; private sector initiatives and innovative resourcing by women's funds and foundations to empower women. Moreover, over 50 countries worldwide are implementing Gender Responsive Results-based Budget initiatives.

On the basis of data and inclusive multi stakeholder consultations, mainstream national and sectoral budgets are analyzed to ensure that governments adjust their priorities by reallocating resources, spending and tracking impact of expenditure on gender equality and women's empowerment priorities.

Together with governments, civil society and other UN agencies, UNIFEM has technically and financially supported over 30 of these initiatives globally. In this region, the Municipality of Hilongos, and Sorsogon City in the Philippines are implementing gender budgeting initiatives in the agricultural and health sector respectively, with UNIFEM technical and financial support.

In the context of Cambodia's public finance management reforms, UNIFEM in collaboration with the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the World Bank developed tools on gender responsive budgeting and strengthened understanding on gender budgeting in the Ministry of Finance.

But the way forward requires much more. It demands political will and accountability of all development partners. This includes increasing the share of national budget and overseas development assistance for gender equality and women's empowerment concerns, building national capacity and setting up mechanisms to routinely monitor and report on the impact of national and ODA resource allocation and expenditure on women's live, promoting women's participation in hitherto male-dominated domains like trade, infrastructure and finance.

Finally we need a critical mass of capacitated women in positions of economic and financial decision making in these sectors, to make money really work for women.

The writer is Regional Programme Director, UNIFEM East and Southeast Asia.

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