Foreign Policy and Financing for Gender Equality: Options and Opportunities
English

This brief is part of this movement to push what is possible. It is intended as a prompt to encourage governments and other funders to both bring financing for gender equality into broad foreign policy discussions as well as addressing the funding gaps for specific investments in global gender equality.

Financing for gender equality has multiple dimensions: building more just and representative global financial structures and systems, investing in Sustainable Development Goal 5, mobilizing domestic resources for policies and programs that support more equitable national economies and societies and funding feminist movements and organizations.

This document pulls together feminist demands or asks around financing for gender equality from multiple sources: ongoing conversations in feminist spaces on financing gaps and opportunities, the Twelve Calls for Action developed by Walking the Talk consortium (including their background paper), feminist discussions during the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4), discussions at the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women, debates during the five feminist foreign policy ministerials (the latest one hosted by Spain in 2026) and elsewhere.

The goal of this note is to set out concrete foreign policy financing commitments that can be made by states in the short term to build momentum on gender equality financing, as well as more transformational initiatives. There are commitments that all states can make — not just those providing official development assistance (ODA) — and there are commitments that can be mobilized across multiple foreign policy spaces and multilateral discussions.

A governmental decision to invest in gender equality requires:

  • Political will and commitment

  • An understanding (and recognition) of the links between gender equality and the multitude of foreign policy discussions and

  • Creativity to think through what might be possible.

This document focuses on the latter two requirements and we hope that it will also contribute to the first. It is divided into two parts: first, financing opportunities across traditional foreign policy topics followed by a deeper dive in gender equality resourcing priorities.

Published: October 2026

Author: Beth Woroniuk, Senior Fellow, Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative

Contributors: Informal Financing for Gender Equality Working Group, especially Olaoluwa Abagun (Athena Network), Spogmay Ahmed (Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative), Rachel Jacobson (Alliance for Feminist Movements), Jan Michalko (ODI), Jillian Montilla (Equipop), María Paulina Rivera Chávez (University of Potsdam) and Katie Whipkey (University of Pittsburgh)

Note: An earlier version of this document was released in April 2026. It focused on specific events happening in mid-2026. The focus of this version has been broadened and the content updated through discussions with activists and practitioners

For any inquiries, please contact beth@ffpcollaborative.org or general@ffpcollaborative.org.

Description

This document is intended to spur thinking and generate momentum around possible financing commitments to support global gender equality across foreign policy spaces and discussions. It provides a menu of options that states can consider, build on, adapt and adopt. It is a discussion document that can be used by other funders (philanthropic entities, development banks, etc.).

One of the “words of the year” for 2026 will no doubt be “rupture.” New risks and threats face humanity. The Doomsday Clock now sits at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe. Increased armed conflict, uncertain economic times, accelerating climate disasters, declines in democracy and mounting concerns around artificial intelligence created spirals of disruption, uncertainty and despair.