Financing gender-responsive social protection

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The Social Protection Inter-Agency Cooperation Board (SPIAC-B)’s Joint Statement to this year’s UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) calls on governments and partners to “invest in financing gender-responsive social protection systems, to extend their coverage and adequacy”. In its Agreed Conclusions, the CSW urges stakeholders to “Take steps to significantly increase investment to close resource gaps…” and to optimise “fiscal expenditures to extend social protection coverage”.

 
Why do the levels of resources spent on social protection matter to gender equality? How does the social protection financing “mix” (e.g. type of tax, other revenue etc.) matter to women’s outcomes? What are the main challenges, opportunities and initiatives underway on financing gender-responsive social protection? 
 
This webinar brought together leading experts to discuss the implications for women’s outcomes and gender equality of: 

  • the options for securing adequate levels of social protection financing – both contributory and non-contributory;
  • alternative social protection financing instruments; and 
  • related challenges, such as existing gender inequalities in the world of work and the explicit/implicit gender bias in existing tax and spending policies.

The webinar also discussed revenue-expenditure links and the role of gender budgeting initiatives in gender-responsive social protection financing. 

 

Speakers:

Evelyn Astor, Economic and Social Policy Advisor, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)

Caren Grown, Senior Director for Gender, World Bank

Flora Myamba, Independent expert on social protection in Africa 

Moderator:

Francesca Bastagli, Head of Social Protection and Social Policy, Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

 

 

This webinar was the third of the Social Protection and Gender Equality Series, which was organized by ODI and DFID.