Funding for Growth and Progress Needs to Be Gender-Inclusive, Considering Women's Needs
In the global pursuit of sustainable and inclusive development, the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) held in Seville in 2025, highlighted the urgent need to invest in gender equality through enhanced financing mechanisms.
The conference revealed that if the gender gap in internet access and usage is not closed, low- and middle-income countries stand to lose a staggering US$500 billion over the next five years. Moreover, approximately 740 million women worldwide lack access to a bank account, and many international financial institutions, finance ministries, and central banks have never had a woman at the helm.
Recognising these disparities, several initiatives were proposed to address the gender gap in finance, labour force participation, and access to technology in developing countries. Key proposals included:
- Placing adolescent girls at the centre of development and financing plans, emphasising investments in women and girls as critical for sustainable, inclusive development.
- Launching two special multistakeholder initiatives aimed at increasing financing for gender equality: one focused on investing in care systems to reduce women’s unpaid care and domestic workloads, and another broader initiative on investing in gender equality overall.
- Advocating for a public financing-first approach to support public services and gender justice, especially for women facing intersecting marginalisation, alongside calls for global actions on debt and taxation reforms that disproportionately affect women.
- Encouraging gender-inclusive investment strategies, including blended finance and innovative private sector engagement mechanisms, to improve women’s access to finance and technology.
- While a dedicated "gender paragraph" was retained in the final conference commitments, gender was absent from many broader discussions, indicating a partial but important step toward addressing these gaps.
Investing in gender equality could potentially increase global GDP by more than 20%. Women continue to dedicate a disproportionate amount of time to unpaid care work, which, if properly compensated, would add at least $10.8 trillion per year to the global economy.
However, women running medium-sized enterprises still struggle to access venture capital and working capital. The total finance gap for women-led micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises is an estimated US$1.7 trillion.
Organisations like GWL Voices, led by María Fernanda Espinosa, are actively involved in projects such as the Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery. Anita Bhatia, a member of GWL Voices, former deputy executive director of UN Women, and a former UN assistant secretary-general, is a key figure in these initiatives.
Despite progress, women remain woefully underrepresented at the top of international financial institutions and in senior finance-related positions in public institutions. In 2023, only 26 of the International Monetary Fund's 190 members had female finance ministers, and the global female labour force participation amounts to just under 47%, compared to 72% for men.
The FfD4 outcome document includes commitments to gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. These commitments, while a step in the right direction, underscore the need for continued efforts to close the gender gap in finance, labour force participation, and technology access in developing countries.
- The conference emphasized the potential for investing in gender equality to increase global GDP by more than 20%, noting that women's dedication to unpaid care work, if compensated, could add at least $10.8 trillion to the global economy annually.
- In an effort to address the gender gap in finance, several initiatives were proposed at the FfD4, including encouraging gender-inclusive investment strategies and advocating for a public financing-first approach to support public services and gender justice.
- Despite the advancements made, women continue to be underrepresented in senior finance-related positions in public institutions, with only 26 of the International Monetary Fund's 190 members having female finance ministers in 2023, and the global female labor force participation rates being significantly lower than those of men.
