Beyond the Climate Crisis: Women and Girls Empowered through Budgetary Solutions

Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is increasingly recognized as an important approach for mainstreaming gender into policies and budgetary processes and de facto for advancing gender equality, supporting SDG  implementation, the 2030 Agenda and other global goals as well as for contributing towards the achievement of the commitments of the Western Balkans countries under the Action Plan on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in External Relations 2020–2025 (GAP III). To address and ensure the systematic involvement of women in both planning and implementation of climate action, it is crucial to monitor financial flows that simultaneously target gender and climate consideration. Practically, achieving this goal entails employing a combination of tracking and targeting methodologies on both fronts, namely Gender-Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and climate finance tracking.

With the support of UN Women, GRB has been introduced into the policy framework in Serbia with the aim of complete integration into the budgeting system by 2024. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, this process is still in its early stages, with different requirements and integration levels at both the state and entity levels, however, progress is underway concurrently through the implementation of programme-based budgeting. Responding to this imperative, UN Women has undertaken a comprehensive study in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to further explore the opportunities for simultaneous tracking of financial flows targeting gender and climate. This study involves a thorough examination of policies and budget allocations in selected sectors through the dual lenses gender and climate culminating in the provision of recommendations and action plans.

Objective

UN Women Europe and Central Asia will be hosting a roundtable to share the findings collected from the GRB and Climate Finance Study conducted in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The focus of this event is to explore avenues for strengthening synergies in addressing gender equality and climate change while improving the tracking of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) financing. The roundtable will serve as a platform to share best practices and lessons learned, emphasizing strategies to tackle the core drivers of gender-based vulnerabilities and leveraging climate action as a catalyst of gender equality and women’s empowerment.  
The event will:

• Facilitate a donor roundtable multi stakeholder dialogue on the findings at the local level in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, under the regional UN Women programme “Transformative Financing for Gender Equality Towards More Transparent, Inclusive and Accountable Governance in the Western Balkans.”
• Exchange best practices and lessons learned on fostering the exchange of best practices and lessons learned regarding the tracking of financial flows targeting gender and climate actions encompassing experiences at both at local and national level.

Expected Outcomes

• Explore strategies to amplify the consolidated impact on gender and climate in Europe and Central Asia emphasizing the importance of positioning climate action as a significant accelerator of gender equality and empowerment.
• Expansion beyond traditional gender-relevant sectors. Discuss and devise approaches to extend focus beyond traditional gender-relevant sectors like social protection, education, and employment. Explore inclusion strategies for sectors such as climate change, access to energy, and energy efficiency, recognizing their pivotal role in advancing gender equality and empowerment.

For more information, see the concept note. Register to the event here.

The webinar language is English. Simultaneous translation to Serbian will be provided.