Financing for development matters for mothers

Why Financing for Development matters for mothers

While maternity-related or women’s issues are not explicitly addressed, the topics discussed under the Financing for Development (FfD) framework have a huge impact on the lives of people, in particular women–even more so for those who are mothers.

These topics notably include taxation, debt, trade, and more generally macro-economic policies and how these impacts governments ability to mobilise domestic resources to invest in social protection and in essential public infrastructure and services, and implement SDGs–the main reasons why financing is needed. They were largely discussed at both the Feminist Forum and the Civile Society Forum which took place just before the Forum in Sevilla and in which MMM participated.

Governments inability to invest in social protection and essential public infrastructures and services–including water and sanitation, electricity and energy, healthcare, education, social and care services, etc.–disproportionately impacts women who heavily rely on these public infrastructure and services:
– Women fill the gaps with their unpaid care work (e.g. to fetch water, care for a sick relative, bring a child to a distant school, etc.).
– The resulting privatisation of services like health and education make them inaccessible in particular for mothers and children
– It also reduces decent work opportunities in the public health and education sectors, again disproportionately impacting women who tend to dominate these sectors.

Unfair taxation impacts mothers

At the national level, taxation systems around the world generally fail to account for the disproportionate unpaid care responsibilities and informal labour that women take on, too often reinforcing existing gender inequalities instead. Gender-blind tax systems tend to perpetuate the economic invisibility of women’s labour and widen income and wealth gaps over time.

This is in particular the case in developing countries where indirect taxation—mainly consumption (e.g. VAT) and trade taxes—often make up 60% or more of revenues, and direct taxes (e.g. income, corporate, wealth taxes) are underutilised, poorly progressive, and constrained by narrow tax bases. Low- and middle-income countries typically only collect 10–15% of GDP in total tax revenue, compared to about 34% in high-income countries.

Indirect taxation, which is prevalent in developing countries, has regressive effects, disproportionately impacting lower-income households—where women, single mothers in particular, are overrepresented.

Feminist organisations from the global South have therefore repeatedly called for the transformation of national tax systems to implement progressive taxation on income and wealth, with tax incentives or deductions for care work (e.g. childcare expenses).

At the global level, the international rules that govern taxation have also been inadequate and unfair for developing countries. Typically, multinationals use gaps in tax regulations to shift their profits to low or non-tax locations. As a result, developing countries loose much needed revenues from tax avoidance, tax evasion and illicit financial flows, again with a disproportionate impact on women.

But there is hope. Pushed by developing countries and in spite of opposition from developed countries, on the road to FfD4, work on a UN framework convention on international tax cooperation was launched in 2024, and negotiations is currently under way to reform the current international tax system. This is a very important step towards a fairer, more inclusive and effective international tax system. MMM has joined other feminist organisations to follow its development and ensure that a gender lens is taken in the drafting of this new treaty.

The debt crisis exacerbates inequalities

Today, more than 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt interest payments than on health or education. Debt costs remain disproportionately high in developing countries who face higher interest rates. As a result, 61 countries allocated more than 10% of their government revenues to debt interest in 2024, diverting resources for much-needed development spending.

High levels of sovereign debt generally translates into austerity measures, whereby public services and social protection are cut to manage debt. Women—especially mothers, and even more so when they are single—often bear the brunt of these austerity measures, which increase their caregiving work and restrict access to healthcare, education, and social support. Feminist organisations have long denounced the structural adjustment programs and loan conditionalities from international financial institutions like the IMF that impose austerity as undermining gender equity.

The effects of the debt crisis are further exacerbated by a general decrease of overseas development assistance (ODA). Not only developed countries have long failed to deliver on their commitment to dedicate 0.7% of their GDP to ODA, but ODA decreased by 9% in 2024 and the OECD estimates that it will further decrease by 9 to 15% in 2025.

Trade agreements are not gender neutral

Trade policies and global trade agreements also impact women’s economic opportunities and vulnerabilities. While international trade can create jobs for women, especially in export-oriented industries like textiles and agriculture, these are often characterised by low wages, poor working conditions, and limited rights. Trade liberalisation may increase competitiveness, but it can also drive informalisation of labour, disproportionately affecting women who lack legal and social protections. Furthermore, trade policies rarely include gender impact assessments, which means their unintended consequences on women’s economic security are largely unaddressed.

For trade to be truly inclusive, women’s voices must be part of the policy-making processes, and trade frameworks need to integrate gender considerations, including care-related aspects, from the outset.

MMM at the Financing for Development Conference in Seville

MMM was present in Sevilla with an exhibition at the Care Pavillon set up by the Global Alliance for Care in the historic centre of Sevilla.

The exhibit featured a selection of photos from the Portrait of a (Working) Mother series, an interdisciplinary project initiated by Marina Cavazza, photographer, and Eglė Kačkutė, scholar, that weaves together photography and narrative to explore motherhood, career, and international mobility, and highlights the lived experiences of mothers raising children while building a professional and family life.

These photos – and the stories behind – were used to illustrate some key finding of our State of Motherhood in Europe Survey, echoing what 9’600 mothers are saying about motherhood and the need for greater investment in care.

Our take on the Sevilla Commitment and FfD4 outcomes

The 41 pages Sevilla commitment (or Compromiso de Sevilla) clearly falls short of any significant breakthrough to change the system and reform the screwed and unjust global financial architecture. It is rejected by most civil society organisation working on the issues of taxation, debt and trade as insufficient in the face of the major poly-crisis that the world face today.

In particular, the FfD4 outcome document falls short of addressing the debt crisis, and lacks any hint of  commitment to establish a UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt as long advocated by civil society. It merely acknowledges the need for reforming the current structurally unjust international debt architecture, which sustains this debt crisis, but does not offer much concrete proposal of reform.

Still, however weak, there IS an outcome document, and it does include a few key positive elements that concerns mothers.

Financing for development is also investing in care and social protection

In particular, UN Member States did commit to “increase investment in the care economy and recognise, value and equitably redistribute the disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work done by women.”

While this does not seems much, we at MMM welcome this commitment, the very first time that a call to address the unequal distribution of unpaid care work is made as part of a Financing for Development framework.

Similarly, the Sevilla commitment promotes social protection–including social protection floors–as an investment and a key element of a national development strategy. It also offers support for developing countries that commit to increase social protection coverage by at least two percentage points per year, an important step to address the current reality that nearly half of the global population lacks any form of social protection, and that 41% of new mothers do not receive any maternity protection benefit.

Moving ‘Beyond GDP’ gains momentum

FfD4 is not an end, and the conference also resulted in a number of announcements and proposals to move forward, as part of a Sevilla Platform for Action.

Among these, the Coalition of the Willing on Beyond GDP was launched as a global alliance of countries and partners focused on integrating more comprehensive metrics of development into policy and financing practices, moving beyond the sole focus on GDP.

Beyond GDP refers to the growing recognition that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) alone is an insufficient measure of societal progress and well-being. In particular it does not include the costs that unpaid domestic and care work has for women–in particular mothers, nor the costs of the environmental degradation, climate change and biodiversity loss that the narrow focus on GDP growth has caused.

This discussion is important because it will redefine what progress and development success is; and it aligns with our advocacy work on the need for systemic transformation to wellbeing economy, i.e. to an economy in service of life. It is also important for mothers who perform the bulk of unpaid domestic and care work, invisible and unrecognised.

MMM will therefore actively follow and participate in these upcoming beyond GDP discussions to ensure that the new system recognises the economic and social contributions of mothers, and adequately support them in their different roles.

The UN FfD4 conference was a great opportunity to learn about FfD issues and how they affect women, in particular when they are mothers, in their everyday lives, concerns and prospects, in particular through the lens of care. It was also a great opportunity to strengthen connections, in particular with members of the Global Alliance for Care and the Global Coalition on Social Protection Floors of which we are members, and build new ones, in particular with organisations working to advance women’s rights in Latin America and in Africa.