Why aid isn't reaching women

Guest blogger Brita Fernandez-Schmidt is WOMANKIND’s Head of Programmes and Policy. She’s just taken part in the Women in Development Europe conference — and was inspired by a groundswell of support for a global movement to challenge how donors deliver aid.

I have just spent three days with women from 40 different countries, from Uruguay to Uzbekistan and Senegal.

We talked about the Paris Declaration, the Financing for Development agreements, and the Millennium Development Goals — all international documents and agreements ultimately aimed at reducing poverty and achieving sustainable development, but unfamiliar to many, including organisations WOMANKIND works with on the ground. And that is the first problem ― if those of us working in women’s organisations don’t even know about them; we clearly have not had much input into their creation in the first place.

Let´s start with the Paris Declaration. Endorsed in 2005 by the rich countries that provide international aid, it focuses on harmonising aid (donors coming together to agree how aid is delivered), aligning it with the recipient government's agenda, ownership, effectiveness and managing for results. Sound principles we all agree with when it comes to delivering aid …so what is the problem?

Whose aid agenda?

Well, in Madrid we all agreed: the problem is that the Paris Declaration is being sold as a merely technical concept to delivering aid, when quite clearly it is highly political. Whose agendas are we aligning to, who owns the agenda, who defines effectiveness and how?

Unless we unpack and answer those questions, the Paris Declaration will not be able to fulfil any positive potential. So we need to listen to women and men on the ground. As a Nicaraguan delegate said: ‘what women want are tangible answers to their needs — employment, better health care, access to education.

And we must learn from the past. Many women in Madrid were questioning the need for a new ´development paradigm´ every seven years ― the issues haven’t changed! Women are still not being asked for their opinion, are still not setting the agenda and, as far as some of those I talked to are concerned, they believe that this is why nothing much is changing.

Making aid mechanisms work for women

So what can we do? ― the million-dollar question. We talked about getting our citizens involved, particularly those in donor countries. It is their taxes that end up as aid; they have a right to know that the money is not reaching the poorest ― and is not adequately reaching women.

I found myself thinking that we should all ask our MPs about where our money is going in terms of the development aid the government provides ― and how it is supporting women and the equality between women and men. WOMANKIND also believes that it is important to take the Paris Declaration agenda and make it work for women. Let´s talk about women´s ownership and aligning agendas to women´s needs and concerns.

And let´s remind governments of the long-standing commitments they made when they signed the Beijing Platform for Action — the most comprehensive Women and Development agenda in the last 20 years. And, that in two years’ time we will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) — the principal legal instrument addressing women’s human rights and equality.

We ended the Madrid meeting fired up to return to our countries to create a global women´s movement linked to other movements critical of the current aid architecture. The next step is to formulate concrete demands that cannot be dismissed when governments revisit the aid agenda.