The World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Report calculates that in 134 countries for which data is available, greater gender equality generally correlates positively with higher gross national income.

Gender Gap Report 2010, World Economic Forum, cited in UN Women Strategic Plan 2011-2013

Providing girls with an extra year of schooling increases their wages by 10-20% and women with more years of schooling have better maternal health, fewer and healthier children and greater economic opportunities.

Progress of the World's women 2009

Agricultural outputs in many Sub Saharan Africa countries could increase by up to 20% if women’s access to agricultural inputs was equal to men's

Despite agriculture being the most common source of work for rural women in most developing regions, just 20 percent of landholders in developing countries are women, and their landholdings are smaller than those of men.

FAO 2010 The State of Food and Agriculture 2010-2011

Globally, 53 percent of women work in vulnerable employment, with a rise to 80 percent in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Of the 215 million international migrants in 2010, half are women – the bulk concentrated in the unprotected informal manufacturing and service sector

World Migration Report 2010, International Organization for Migration

In sub-Saharan Africa, the lack of universal access to water means that women spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water – the equivalent of a year's worth of labour by the entire workforce of France

Progress of the World's Women 2009

Good practices
Page 5 of 8

 

Principle: Mutual Accountability


In Rwanda, UN Women programming has aimed to integrate gender into the agriculture SWAp by supporting the Conseil de Concertation des Organizations d'Appui aux Initiatives de Base (CCOAIB), an umbrella organization for local Rwandan NGOs in development, to undertake a capacity assessment of fourteen member organizations to identify levels of awareness and skills in gender-responsive planning and budgeting among member organizations. Through this work, the programme will strengthen the role of CSOs in budget tracking in order to advocate for increased financing for gender equality and pro-poor outcomes in the agriculture sector. CCOAIB conducted a desk review of the agriculture policy, plan and budget from a gender perspective; and designed and carried out a local level budget tracking survey. The focus of the local level survey was to examine budget allocations at the central and decentralized levels, and analysis of results will be used to identify existing gender gaps and propose measures for addressing them. The data analysis emerging from the survey was used to identify gender gaps and to develop an inventory to identify resources allocated to different programmes in the agriculture sector. Such information was subsequently used to understand whether and how rural women are benefiting from agriculture policies and services. Preliminary survey results were shared and validated by stakeholders, including officials from the agriculture sector and the Parliament's Budget Commission. A consultation was held that brought together COCCAIB and the Rwandese Forum for Women Parliamentarians (FFRP) to mobilize their support to raise awareness of parliamentarians on GRB during budget consultation meetings with MINECOFIN and sectoral ministries, particularly the agriculture sector. Evidence from the survey will be provided to the national Gender Monitoring Office and the National Institute of Statistics to develop gender sensitive indicators in the agricultural sector. The data and information emerging from these efforts will provide a robust evidence-base from which to advocate for integrating gender into the agriculture SWAp.

 

In Tanzania, capacity development efforts targeted economists and budget officers in selected ministries, departments and agencies to apply GRB at the sector level and align sector programmes with gender indicators in Tanzania's National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (Mkakati wa Kukuza Uchumi na Kupunguza Umaskini Tanzania/MKUKUTA). UN Women is working with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs and the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) to design a participatory process with the GRB pilot ministries to customize MKUKUTA gender indicators for inclusion into the sectors' strategic plans and annual work-plans. The programme successfully integrated gender indicators into the third cluster on governance and accountability in the MKUKUTA II Monitoring and Evaluation Framework.

 

In Cameroon, UN Women conducted a gender-aware beneficiary assessment of reproductive health services in order to inform the health SWAp being finalized by the Ministry of Public Health. This study offers gender-sensitive data on the socio-cultural factors that lead to high maternal mortality rate in Cameroon. The programme made significant progress in strengthening the capacity of CSOs to conduct GRB tracking in the health sector through a partnership with Dynamique Citoyenne, a network comprising over 400 organizations covering the 10 regions of Cameroon. Dynamique Citoyenne organized a workshop to develop a methodology for tracking government allocations and expenditures in the health sector. Representatives from MINFI, MINEPAT, the Ministry of Public Health, EC, GIZ and CSOs, as well as health specialists, provided expert advice and input into the design of the methodology, validated by Ministry of Public Health medical experts. MINFI was represented in the training to verify the information pertaining to the budget. The CSOs will use the data collected from the tracking exercise for high-level, evidence-based advocacy with parliamentarians, allowing greater scrutiny of the budget from a women's health perspective. CSOs will use evidence from the budget tracking to demand an increase in budgetary allocations for reproductive health to reduce the high maternal mortality rate in Cameroon.