Gender Equality

The international community recognizes that gender equality contributes to development. Since 2018, France has been promoting a feminist diplomacy, based on the recognition and real exercise of every individual’s rights, through France’s International Strategy for Gender Equality (2018-2022).

In 2013, AFD defined its Strategy on Gender and the Reduction of Gender Inequalities based on three priorities: prevent gender inequality in its operations, promote gender and women’s empowerment and support progress in societies on these issues.

Today, it is pursuing its commitment with new, ambitious objectives for 2022: 

• 50% of the volume of commitments are to be gender-responsive and rated 1 or 2 according to the rating criteria of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC)
• €700 million will fund projects whose main objective is to reduce gender inequality (OECD DAC marker 2). 

To analyze the integration of gender into our projects, we have set up a rating system based on the classification established by the OECD (DAC markers):   

• DAC 0: the project does not target gender equality 
• DAC 1: gender equality is an important and deliberate objective of the project
• DAC 2: gender equality is the main objective of the project.

Worldwide, wealth is still poorly distributed between women and men, with men owning on average 50% more wealth than women. Women are overrepresented in precarious and low-paid jobs, particularly in the health and social sectors. The Covid-19 health crisis has led to an increase in gender-based violence and further widened the gap between the richest and poorest all over the world.

Gender mainstreaming is a powerful tool to increase the positive effects of our actions. Gender equality and women’s empowerment are therefore a priority.

Our projects aim to:

• Develop healthcare, sexual and reproductive rights and comprehensive sexuality education
• Fight sexist discrimination and gender-based violence, including harmful practices (female genital mutilation, child and forced marriages)
• Promote women’s empowerment and their participation in political, economic, cultural and sporting life
• Promote the social and political leadership of women
• Develop access to primary, secondary and higher education for girls
• Develop the “Women, Peace and Security” agenda and the role of women in crises
• Develop gender and climate projects. 

Gender is a crosscutting thematic area, meaning it concerns all our areas of action (such as poverty, education, water, health and climate justice) in all the countries we work with. Issues related to gender and the empowerment of women and girls are consequently mainstreamed into all our activities.

Back in 2018, AFD placed gender equality at the center of its work, with the objective of having 50% of the volume of its commitments contributing to gender equality by 2022 (according to the OECD DAC 1 and DAC 2 markers).

Between 2018 and 2020, this objective was largely achieved, with the share of DAC 1 and DAC 2 projects financed by AFD rising from 50% to 67%.
In 2019, our results for gender equality were highly encouraging: AFD committed €4.7 billion in loans and grants for such projects, including €749 million for DAC 2 projects (both loans and grants).

To prevent gender inequality in the operations it finances, promote gender as one of the objectives of its operations, foster women’s empowerment and support progress in societies on these issues, AFD works closely with these partners:

• Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE)
• High Council for Gender Equality (HCE)
• UN Women and UN Women France
• UNICEF
• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
• Coordination Sud Gender Commission 
• Gender and Development Platform
• Women Engaged for a Common Future (WECF)
• European Commission
• Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO UK)
• International Development Finance Club (IDFC)
• World Bank
• Inter-American Development Bank
• African Development Bank
• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• Aga Khan Foundation

Announced by the French President during the G7 in 2019, the Support Fund for Feminist Organizations (FSOF) has a budget of €120 million and aims to support feminist civil society organizations operating in partner countries where France’s development policy is deployed. 
  
The fund is co-managed by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and AFD. It aims to build the organizational, financial and technical capacities of feminist organizations in partner countries and promote exchanges and networking between them to give them the means to take action at the local, regional and international levels.

Sixty-five percent of these funds focus on Africa, with the remaining 35% dedicated to Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Hosted by AFD, the first Finance in Common Summit gathered 450 public development banks to discuss the key issues of the 2030 Agenda. 

Through an ambitious declaration, these banks managed to form a global coalition determined to take action for the planet and people. This joint commitment is combined with the will to align financing with the Paris Agreement, support biodiversity and scale up the fight against inequality, with a focus on gender. 

The summit led to a proposal for a Paris Development Bank Statement on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment, signed by 26 banks, which defines four priority areas for action:

• Strengthen the commitment of Public Development Banks to gender equality through a dedicated institutional strategy
• Increase the share of financial flows for gender-responsive operations
• Contribute to gender-responsive climate policies
• Improve dialogue and collaboration with all stakeholders on gender issues, including feminist civil society organizations.

In this context, AFD organizes working groups with UN Women on issues related to financing equality, good practices and accountability. The results will be presented at the Generation Equality Forum.