Where's the Money? Exploring the Budget Gaps in Women, Peace and Security Initiatives

The United States released its latest Women, Peace and Security Strategy and National Action Plan in October 2023. The WPS Strategy formalizes a national plan for implementing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda - a global, comprehensive strategy calling for progress toward gender equality and justice as a foundation for peace and security. Introduced through civil society activism, the WPS agenda was formalized by the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) adoption of Resolution 1325 on WPS (UNSCR 1325) in October 2000, which formally recognized the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls for the first time, as well as the crucial role women play in all security and peace processes. 

This is the fourth iteration of the U.S.WPS National Action Plan and Strategy. But it raises a critical question: where is the funding? 

Many countries recognize the importance of UNSCR 1325 and have established financial mechanisms to support related initiatives. This includes programs that promote women's participation in peace and security processes, and efforts to combat gender-based violence. However, the financial allocations are sparse and  still limited. 

Despite strong statements and declared commitments to gender equality and the advancement of women’s roles in peace and security, the persistent budget gaps reveal an alarming reality. As governments around the world proclaim their support for WPS initiatives, the failure to align these commitments with adequate financial resources undermines the very goals they aim to achieve. This article explores the crucial role of gender budgeting in bridging these gaps and ensuring that WPS initiatives are not just symbolic gestures, but well-funded, impactful strategies that effectively advance global peace and security.

What is Gender Budgeting? 

Gender budgeting examines how government programs and policies can promote women’s development and incorporate these ideas into the laws, regulations, and practices that govern budget setting. A gender-responsive budget therefore takes into account the unique and diverse needs of every individual in society and is intended to offset current policies, economic models and budgets that can lead to biased spending plans. 

By not considering a gender perspective, budgets can have unintended negative consequences, particularly as it relates to women's peace and security. For instance, a common consequence of the under-funding of safe public transportation in Latin America is increased risk of gender-based violence and reduced mobility for women. When gender gaps such as these are brought to the surface, governments can target available resources more effectively to address gender imbalances and support sustainable, inclusive advancement for everyone. 

Gender Budgeting Benefits and Challenges 

Gender budgeting seeks to mainstream gender analysis of issues within government policies, and in so doing promotes greater accountability for government commitments to gender equality and WPS. Gender budgeting is not intended to analyze programs that are targeted to women, but rather to examine greater effects of all government programs and policies. Furthermore, gender budgeting outcomes depend on women and gender-diverse groups participating meaningfully in government budgeting. In practice, gender budgeting means that each phase of the budget cycle—from income projections to monitoring of outcomes—includes intentional efforts to ensure gender responsiveness.

While gender budgeting activities aim to facilitate a change in the government budget to improve gender equitable resource allocation, there are additional benefits. These include enhancing democracy, civil society participation, and strengthening peace and security. These are important benefits for any country, but particularly for fragile and conflict-affected states. 

Generally, most of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries practicing gender budgeting primarily consider the impacts of budget measures on gender equality, while a handful of governments, including Sweden, Finland and Canada, have expanded the scope of practice to include intersectional considerations and WPS perspectives. Even so, and 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. 

Research shows a consistent and striking disparity between policy commitments to gender equality and women’s advancement, and the financial allocations to achieve them. Nations' inconsistent financial commitments lead to erratic and insufficient funding for WPS implementation. When funding is allocated, a lack of transparency in fund allocation and expenditure makes it difficult to track the impact and effectiveness of these investments. Moreover, policymakers and budget officials often lack adequate training and awareness about gender budgeting, resulting in inadequate resource allocation. The absence of robust data and metrics to measure the outcomes of WPS funding further hinders informed decision-making.

The lack of prioritization and failure to effectively use funding for change is demonstrated no more clearly than by looking at global spending patterns. The world continues to pour resources into short-term militarized responses rather than investing in conflict prevention and social justice. Recent reports by the OECD and the UN Secretary-General on the WPS agenda find that fragile states and economies, including conflict-affected countries, lag far behind other developing countries in achieving global gender-related goals and targets. Further, in conflict and post-conflict settings, domestic finance is often either completely depleted or vastly insufficient to address the risks to sustainable development resulting from fragile situations. 

Alternative sources of development finance, such as private finance or technology and innovation investments are equally scarce. As a result, donor funds make up the bulk of financing. These are, however, generally focused on emergency response, such as humanitarian assistance, during the crisis itself, leaving little left over for rebuilding the state and establishing peace dividends for society. In many cases, donor countries determine how funding is allocated without taking local community needs into account.

WPS National Action Plans 

The international WPS framework of policy mechanisms and transnational advocacy efforts has provided the political rationale for the development of National Action Plans (NAPs) by governments for the implementation of WPS resolutions.

As of August 2024, 110 UN member states have adopted National Action Plans (NAPs) for the implementation of WPS resolutions, with some states having moved on to the fourth or fifth iteration of their NAP.  Some of these NAPs have led to significant progress in integrating gender perspectives into peace and security efforts, and many have taken the agenda forward by identifying issue areas that are specific to their country’s context. For example, Gabon has a dedicated pillar to mainstreaming gender into climate change and environmental management policies and Guatemala has integrated economic security strategies to address the specific economic and social needs of women in the country. 

However, WPS National Action Plan commitments have been difficult to implement due to persistent under-investment in gender-inclusive peace processes in conflict and post-conflict settings. There is no data on how government agencies, donor conferences, peace agreements, or post-conflict planning frameworks allocate and spend resources for these issues. 

According to existing data, countries that invest budgets into the WPS agenda and where there is a higher rate of gender equality are also more peaceful, prosperous, and better prepared to adapt to the impacts of climate change. In fact, these impacts are more strongly correlated with gender equality than they are with GDP. However, many plans suffer from insufficient funding, limiting their impact. Funding for WPS is furthermore unclear and inconsistent, and regular, sustained, and active discussions are needed. Effective implementation requires strong political commitment at all levels of government, as well as adequate resources. With adequate and dedicated funding, NAPs can become tangible strategies that improve women's security and participation. In contrast, inadequate or poorly managed financial resources can impede the implementation of even the most well-designed plans. 

Observations From the Field 

Funding is widely acknowledged as critical to the implementation of WPS NAPs, but only a few countries have provided concrete budget plans by 2024. As of 2023, more than 50 WPS NAPs noted the need for a budget to implement WPS activities but did not specify the type of funding; only 25 NAPs included a detailed budget plan by 2024. 

Financial strategies for WPS initiatives are often vague or underdeveloped even in regions with significant resources. The majority of European governments with WPS NAPs have more resources available for implementation, but few have taken gender budgeting into consideration. Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and other  northern European countries, generally considered to be at the forefront of spearheading gender-related policies and programs, do not clearly explain their financial budgeting strategies for WPS initiatives. For example, while Norway has designated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ humanitarian budget to fund organization’s efforts to integrate a gender perspective into their work, this is the only reference to funding in the entire document. 

Another example is Finland, which became the largest core funding donor for UN Women (€19 million in 2020, 2021 and 2022). One third of the core funding was channeled to promoting Women, Peace and Security themes. This funding and contribution, however, is not dedicated to advancing Finland's own national WPS policies. Finland's government site mentions its resources and WPS initiatives focused on Enhanced Domestic Resource Mobilization (DRM). Even so, the evaluation report mentions that budget cuts are causing challenges in the budget allocation and implementation. 

On the other hand, the United Kingdom's fifth National Action Plan is among the first to address the budget matter and demonstrates the government's commitment to the WPS agenda. The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) aims to dedicate 15 percent of CSSF fundings toward WPS programming, and £12.5 million in new funding is being allocated to Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict (PSVI) Programming. 

On the other end of Europe, Georgia has incorporated a budgeting criterion into each pillar of its NAP to ensure that it was able to achieve the goals of its WPS initiatives. Most of their budget comes from the UN Women and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), but the fact that they have addressed this is crucial for their implementation.

Returning to the United States, the Biden-Harris Administration requested $2.6 billion of foreign assistance be allocated to advancing gender equality. This is more than double the annual commitments to promote gender equality and human rights around the world (and the 2024 Budget request includes a record $3.1 billion in foreign assistance for gender equality programs). However, the United States NAP document does not include a detailed budget plan for its WPS strategy, so the allocation remains vague and unclear.

A number of countries are making more concrete efforts to integrate budget planning into their WPS strategies, emphasizing the importance of dedicated funding, yet the percentage of those countries with a budget plan remains low. In Africa, 19 out of 35 countries (54 percent) with NAPs for WPS have addressed gender budgeting and have included a detailed implementation strategy. Senegal, for example, has added a detailed budget plan to their NAP that explains allocations needed for each initiative, but the source of those expenditures is unclear. Similarly Sierra Leone has added a detailed budget plan and dedicated a large portion of its budget to prevention.

Among Asia & Pacific countries, two out of 18 with NAPs - Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste - have included a section on budgets without mentioning specific amounts and in the Middle East, only Jordan had a budget plan, allocating 10,050,000 Jordanian Dinar for implementing its WPS NAP, including government and external funding resources. 

These observations highlight the global discrepancies between the acknowledgment of the necessity of funding and actual expenditures on WPS initiatives.

Emerging Conclusions and the Path Forward

As the international WPS agenda advances, it is clear that financial commitments must evolve alongside policy ambitions. The path forward depends on aligning financial strategies with the long-term vision of inclusive, resilient peacebuilding efforts. To address the persistent challenges and ensure the effective execution of WPS initiatives, the following key recommendations should be considered:

1. Financial allocations within WPS agendas must be prioritized by governments to ensure sustainable progress.
2. National and international peacebuilding efforts can be made more inclusive and resilient by aligning financial resources with policy goals.
3. Funding mechanisms and international cooperation could play an important role in supporting nations with limited resources to develop and implement effective WPS strategies. 
4. Transparency is fundamental to the success and sustainability of financial allocations within WPS agendas. When financial flows and decision-making processes are transparent, it builds trust among stakeholders, including civil society, international donors, and the general public. Trust is essential to maintaining support and ensuring that WPS funds are used effectively.
5. Evaluation of WPS agendas is important to the effective and efficient allocation of resources. By rigorously assessing the outcomes of current financial investments, governments and stakeholders can identify what strategies are working and where adjustments are needed. The process not only ensures accountability, but also provides insight into how funds can be used most effectively, guiding future allocations.