How chronic underfunding and broken financial systems are blocking progress for women and girls worldwide.
Picture this: every year, the world falls short by $420 billion in funding needed to achieve gender equality. That’s not a typo—it’s the staggering reality facing developing countries as they struggle to meet their commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals.
At the recently held Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Sevilla, Spain, world leaders came together to tackle this crisis. While they adopted the Compromiso de Sevilla—reaffirming their shared commitment to inclusive development—the question remains: will this translate into the sustained investment that’s desperately needed?
The Money Isn’t Reaching Those Who Need It Most
Here’s the harsh truth: despite growing recognition that financing gender equality is essential for sustainable development and strong economies, the money simply isn’t reaching the women and girls who need it most.
Most global financing continues to bypass the poorest countries, where the majority of low-income women live and where investment is most urgently needed. This chronic underfunding of women’s rights and services isn’t just a numbers problem—it’s a systemic failure that demands immediate action from governments and financial institutions.
We’re Flying Blind on Gender Budgets
Even more concerning? Despite the growing uptake of gender-responsive budgeting, just one in four countries has systems in place to track how public funds are allocated to gender equality. Without this crucial data, planning and delivering on national development goals becomes nearly impossible.
As Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, put it perfectly: “We cannot close gender gaps with blind budgets. Governments must back their commitments with real investment and track how money is spent and what it achieves. Gender equality must move from the margins of budget lines to the heart of public policy. It takes money. It takes reform. And it takes leadership that sees women not as a cost, but as the future.”
A Roadmap for Real Change
So what needs to happen? UN Women has outlined four concrete steps that could accelerate progress for women and girls toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development:
1. Scale Up Gender-Responsive Budgeting
Countries need to expand and strengthen their use of gender-responsive budgeting to ensure national priorities actually align with gender equality goals. This means not just allocating funds, but building the institutional capacity and political will to implement and monitor these budgets effectively.
2. Fix the Broken Financial System
Urgent debt relief, fairer global financing rules, and progressive, gender-responsive tax reform are critical to ending austerity and generating the revenues needed for essential services like health, education, and care.
3. Rebalance Public Spending Priorities
While security concerns are legitimate, governments must invest more in care, inclusion, and resilience to meet their global commitments. This means shifting toward long-term human development goals, including gender equality, peacebuilding, and inclusive social development.
4. Invest in Care Infrastructure
Public care systems—childcare, eldercare, and other essential services—are the backbone that enables women’s full participation in society. Research shows that investing just 10% of national income in care services would reduce poverty, increase household incomes, and create millions of decent jobs.
The Time for Action is Now
The bottom line? Continued underinvestment isn’t just stalling progress on gender equality—it’s undermining the rights and empowerment of women and girls, threatening the 2030 Agenda, and blocking progress on the Beijing Platform for Action.
As FfD4 concludes, the message from UN Women is clear: world leaders must match their political commitments with sustained, transparent, and accountable financing. The $420 billion gap isn’t just a number—it represents missed opportunities, unfulfilled potential, and broken promises to half the world’s population.
The question isn’t whether we can afford to invest in gender equality. It’s whether we can afford not to.