EU Funds can be transformative: they’ve helped reduce inequality across the EU. Yet when it comes to equality between women and men, they’re not reaching their full potential. This is why the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) has released a step-by-step toolkit to help those working with EU Funds better fit their programmes to the gender equality goals of the EU and its Member States.

Gender budgeting is now more important than ever and needs to be considered when the EU gets ready to deploy stimulus packages and investments to address the effects of the Covid-19 crisis, including the use of €37 billion in EU Funds.

EIGE’s new gender budgeting toolkit has been designed with practitioners in mind. It is a collection of 11 tools that help users keep in mind the different needs of women and men throughout EU Funds process, from the development of indicators to the definition of project selection criteria, the involvement of partners, and the monitoring, reporting and evaluation of programmes. It will support managing authorities involved in EU Funds programming, intermediate bodies implementing EU Funds projects, gender equality bodies, and staff working at the EU level with EU Funds, helping them implement the horizontal principle of gender equality.

The toolkit highlights good practices from EU Member States and pinpoints links to relevant EU Funds regulations and provisions, helping users know how, why and where to apply the tool. This will help EU Member States align their EU Funds programmes with the EU’s and national gender-equality strategies and regulatory frameworks.

As the Covid-19 crisis has shown, care is a vital part of our economies, yet often missing from balance sheets. That is why EIGE has developed a model that allows Member States to make the connection between time use, multiple care roles and EU Funds interventions, allowing a better reflection of the value of care in our economies. This is in line with the EU’s new gender equality strategy, which highlights the need for EU Funds to support work-life balance measures.

Gender budgeting is a strategy to achieve gender equality through allocating public resources in a way that addresses the specific needs of women and men. It is a tool for gender mainstreaming, to which the EU has been committed since 1995. Gender budgeting can help ensure economic recovery measures post-Covid-19 are gender-fair and leave no one behind.

EIGE's gender budgeting toolkit is currently in English but will soon be available in 22 EU languages. It is available both as an online tool and in pdf format.

For more information please contact Helena Morais Maceira, phone: +370 5 2157 457, helena.moraismaceira@eige.europa.eu

For media enquiries please contact Veronica Collins, phone: +370 5 2157 449, veronica.collins@eige.europa.eu

Further reading

Gender Budgeting: Step‐by‐step toolkit. Guidance for mainstreaming gender into the EU Funds

Toolkit for gender budgeting in the EU Funds: Fact Sheet

Advancing work-life balance with EU Funds. A model for integrated gender-responsive interventions

Advancing work–life balance with the EU Funds: Fact Sheet

Gender budgeting: Mainstreaming gender into the EU budget and macroeconomic policy framework

Gender Equality index 2019: Thematic focus on work-life balance