It is a dangerous time for gender as a development priority. As Donald Trump entered office early this year for his second term as President of the United States, critics warned the transition would result in greater threats to women and girls. The attack on women, girls and gender minorities has come rapidly. The US government’s anti-gender position comes alongside the shutdown of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and major cuts to Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) by other wealthy shareholders to the World Bank Group (WBG) and IMF, including the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as other quiet reductions of resources for women’s rights initiatives in countries such as Canada. Amidst the deepening global siege on women’s rights, civil society organisations (CSOs) are defending feminist demands across multilateral spaces. These realities bring fresh questions over the approach of institutions like the WBG and the IMF to gender equality, given their controversial track record, making it more important than ever that they listen to feminists and critics, especially in the Global South.

Despite cuts, feminists are holding the line on multilateralism

In March, the 69th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) took place at the United Nations (UN) in New York on the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Feminists’ calls for the review of Beijing30+ were strong. Advocates spoke and shared position statements throughout the fortnight to highlight what feminists value about multilateralism. They provided a clear path, built on historic wins borne out of pressure from CSOs and feminists. They stressed institutions and leaders must continue to strongly support these efforts in the face of retrogression. Katie Tobin of US-based Women’s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO) emphasised the importance of previous hard-won UN agreements such as the 2002 Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, which concretised crucial commitments to anti-racism, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which operationalised the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development, all of which were agreed upon the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Thus far, the influence of the US’s stated positions and actions – in withdrawing from the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, in its statements at this year’s Fourth UN Financing for Development Conference (FfD4) preparatory meetings, and in its refusal to accept language relating to gender at CSW69 – do not seem to have swayed other governments, and language on the importance of gender remains present across all three processes.

"As countries work to strengthen their tax systems, multilateral institutions and lenders must prioritize the cancellation of illegitimate debt, which continues to drain resources from the majority world. Without such action, essential funding will remain diverted from critical investments in sectors vital to the well-being of women, girls, and other marginalized groups."Grace Namugambe, FEMNET

Countries and institutions must act on the calls from feminists and wider civil society, such as supporting debt cancellation strategies – including the creation of a UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt – that go beyond current failed approaches. Global South feminists have argued sovereign debt is inherently a feminist issue in which the impact on women and gender minorities is often obscured and overlooked, despite the fact that it is women and marginalised groups who pay the price. Grace Namugambe, of pan-African civil society organisation FEMNET, commented, “The debt crisis and austerity measures are systematically undermining progress toward gender equality. As countries work to strengthen their tax systems, multilateral institutions and lenders must prioritize the cancellation of illegitimate debt, which continues to drain resources from the majority world. Without such action, essential funding will remain diverted from critical investments in sectors vital to the well-being of women, girls, and other marginalized groups.”

Progressive taxation is also consistently advocated for as a crucial feminist issue. All of this exists amidst a deepening crisis of social reproduction and paid, unpaid and underpaid care work, which props up economies without being sufficiently valued. Feminists have long called for a recognition of ‘decent work’ to be adopted by institutions, including in the recent African Civil Society Organisation’s Position Statement on Beijing+30 Review. Instead, the Bank and Fund continue to focus on women’s ‘labour force participation’ (see Dispatch Annuals 2024).

Billions to trillions is not the answer

Crucially, this political reality brings fresh questions over the approach of institutions like the World Bank and the IMF to gender equality. There are hard won gains civil society has fought for in recent years on the Bank’s gender work (see Observer Autumn 2024), including recognising the value of care, and centering human rights and Sustainable Development Goal 5 in the newest gender strategy. However, through the promised reform of the Bank under its ‘Evolution Roadmap’, gender initiatives remain rooted in the logic of a private sector-led approach to development, which sees women as an untapped source of ‘human capital’ that can be profited from (see Observer Autumn 2023, Autumn 2018). This approach marries well with the increasingly transactional and financially austere approach to development amidst ODA cuts.

Countries must not fall down the ‘billions to trillions’ trap that promises to produce the financing needed by mobilising and derisking private investment, as resources will be funnelled into mitigating risks for private investors – who may fail to adequately deliver – and away from essential public services relied on especially by women, girls and gender minorities currently facing attack on the global stage. Notably, the WBG and the IMF have failed to implement calls from civil society to address structural barriers to gender equality by acknowledging the gendered harms of macroeconomic policy promoted through lending (see Briefing, Learning lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic: The World Bank’s macroeconomic policies and women’s rights), as well as to support decent work, sufficiently funded essential public services and most crucially, breaking from the macroeconomic policies that continue the cycle of debt, austerity and regressive taxation.