National fiscal stimulus packages from a gender equality perspective

This publication was developed as part of the UN Women–ILO joint programme, “Promoting decent employment for women through inclusive growth policies and investments in the care economy”. It summarizes the key findings and lessons learned from applying the UN Women–ILO policy tool, “How to assess fiscal stimulus packages from a gender equality perspective”, in Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Palestine, and Senegal.

The report provides recommendations for using fiscal policies to address gender inequalities and alleviate the effects of COVID-19 on women. It identifies five areas of interest to track in order to assess the gender responsiveness of the economic response and recovery efforts: livelihoods, social protection, health, food security, and public infrastructure and housing. The report also identifies commonalities, specificities, and lessons learned from the assessments of the national fiscal stimulus packages from a gender perspective.

The analysis highlights the importance of developing global policy tools and guidance to scale up UN Women’s work beyond the geographical boundaries of implemented programmes. The analysis shows great variation among countries in terms of the gender responsiveness of their economic responses and recovery efforts. However, a common theme among countries remains the lack of fiscal space, resulting in relatively weaker and inadequate fiscal and monetary responses to effectively address the issues.