Bangkok Post - March 7, 2008
Dr. Jean D'Cunha**

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 and 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% in the Republic of Korea, 65% in Indonesia, 62% 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 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." Says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: "Achieving gender equality and empowering women is a goal in itself. It is also a condition for building healthier, better educated, more peaceful and prosperous societies. When women are fully empowered and engaged, all of society benefits. Only in this way can we take on the enormous challenges confronting our world - from conflict resolution and peace building to fighting Aids and reaching all the other Millennium Development Goals."

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 marginalisation from employment, and another $16-$30 billion per year because of gender gaps in education. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee 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 wo-men'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 analysed 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, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (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.

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 lives, 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.

** Dr Jean D'Cunha is Regional Programme Director, UNIFEM East and Southeast Asia.

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