Aid for Gender Equality

Venue: Eigtveds Pakhus, Asiatisk Plads 2 G, Copenhagen

UNU-WIDER is delighted to invite you to the ReCom – Research and Communication on Foreign Aid event titled ‘Aid for Gender Equality’. The research results meeting will reflect on what works, and what could work in foreign aid in the pursuit of more equal societies with opportunities for all.

The event is open to the public and we especially welcome experts in the field as well as policy makers, researchers, students, and practitioners interested in gender and equality. More information about the results meeting can be found at the web site: wider.unu.edu/recomgender/.  If you cannot make it to Copenhagen there will also be a webcast and Twitterfeed from the meeting.

In recent decades, aid donors have recognized that gender equality and women’s empowerment are central to improving living standards, well-being, and economic growth. This has led to a fourfold increase in the flows of foreign aid toward gender equality related initiatives, from US$6.5 to US$25.5 billion in 2002 to 2011. Yet, donors, policy makers and academics have not paid much attention to the actual impact of foreign aid in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.The agenda of the results meeting is two-fold:

1.      To present and disseminate the conclusions of our studies on the relationship between donor assistance and changes in gender equality and female empowerment; and

2.      To discuss the future role of foreign aid in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment within the post-2015 context.

With us in Copenhagen are leading experts in gender issues, alongside development professionals from bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, parliamentarians from the Nordic countries, members of the international NGO community as well as policy makers from aid-supported developing countries.