Chapter 13: Financing of the women, peace and security agenda

Despite the wealth of evidence highlighting the benefits that investing in women can bring in terms of conflict prevention, crisis response and peace, the failure to allocate sufficient resources and funds has been perhaps the most serious and persistent obstacle to the implementation of the women, peace and security agenda over the past 15 years. The scarcity of funds for the WPS agenda is in line with the enormous global funding gap for gender equality more generally. Research shows a consistent, striking disparity between policy commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment, and the financial allocations to achieve them.

The lack of prioritization, and failure to effectively use this tool for change is demonstrated no more clearly than by looking at global spending patterns. As described in Chapter 8: Preventing Conflict, 15 years on, the world continues to pour resources into short-term militarized responses rather than investing in conflict prevention, social justice and inclusion. As the data in this chapter reveals, of the aid that is being channeled to fragile and conflictaffected states, it is still negligible amounts that are being routed towards furthering gender equality and women’s participation, or meeting women’s needs.