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Economic Justice in Africa — RFLD · Gender-Responsive Budgeting hub
RFLD. Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement
Economic Justice in Africa
Economic Justice & Climate · Field of intervention

Economic justice
in Africa.

RFLD's continental hub on women's economic justice and gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) — anchored in the OECD-DAC Gender Equality Policy Marker, AfDB's Africa Gender Index, and a curated library of national budget statements, regional GRB toolkits, and continental gender finance research.

Methodology anchor OECD-DAC Gender Equality Policy Marker (GEPM)
Country indicators AfDB AGI · WEF GGGI · IPU Parline
Resource library 45 GRB & gender-finance documents
Continental scope 5 regions · 55 AU member states
About this hub
A continental hub for women's economic justice and gender-responsive budgeting.

Economic justice is the bedrock of women's rights. Constitutional equality, anti-discrimination law, and political representation all matter — but without fiscal commitments backed by real budget lines, gender-equality policy stays on paper. This hub is RFLD's continental resource centre on women's economic justice and on the practice of gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) — the discipline of analysing, marking, and tracking how public budgets and donor flows reach women and girls.

We do not publish unsourced country scores. The country profiles below draw on three established external indices — AfDB's Africa Gender Index 2023, the WEF Global Gender Gap Index 2025 sub-Saharan Africa rankings, and IPU Parline data on women's parliamentary representation. The GRB classifier uses the OECD-DAC Gender Equality Policy Marker, the international standard donors and ministries use to mark gender-responsive allocations.

This page sits within RFLD's Economic Justice & Climate field of intervention. It complements RFLD's WAFF Fund regranting work, the BRAVE flagship's economic-empowerment stream, and the continental fiscal-justice advocacy we coordinate with the African Union and ECOWAS.

Methodology · transparent and auditable

How this hub measures.

Three external sources anchor this hub. Each is publicly documented, methodologically peer-reviewed, and linked directly from the country indicator table below. RFLD does not publish proprietary country scores on this page — instead, we curate, contextualise, and link to the authoritative sources, while publishing our own analysis through the resource library and the GRB classifier.

Indicator 01
AfDB Africa Gender Index (AGI)
Composite index covering 5 dimensions: economic, social, political representation, legal/institutional environment, and women's voice. Scores all assessed African states 0–100. Latest edition: 2023.
Source: African Development Bank · Africa Gender Index
Indicator 02
WEF Global Gender Gap Index
Annual benchmark of gender parity across economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Scored 0–1 (parity = 1.0). Used here for the Economic Participation sub-index.
Source: World Economic Forum · Global Gender Gap Report 2025
Indicator 03
IPU Parline · women in parliament
Inter-Parliamentary Union's global database of women's representation in national parliaments. Updated continuously. Used here for women's share of seats in lower or unicameral chambers.
Source: IPU Parline · Women in National Parliaments
Methodology note · OECD-DAC Gender Equality Policy Marker

The framework underpinning the GRB classifier below

The OECD Development Assistance Committee's Gender Equality Policy Marker (GEPM) is the international standard for marking development cooperation activities according to whether gender equality is an objective. Donors, ministries of finance, and multilateral organisations use it to track gender-responsive allocations across budget lines. UN Women's Toolkit for Gender Mainstreaming for Gender-Responsive Budgeting (in our resource library below) and the IMF's 2025 chapter on Gender Budgeting Practices in Sub-Saharan Africa both build on this marker system.

The classifier uses three OECD-DAC values:

  • GEM 0 · Not targeted — the activity has been screened against the marker but does not target gender equality as an objective.
  • GEM 1 · Significant — gender equality is an important and deliberate objective, but not the principal reason for undertaking the activity.
  • GEM 2 · Principal — gender equality is the principal objective of the activity and fundamental to its design.

For an allocation to qualify as GEM 1 or GEM 2, three minimum criteria must all be met: (i) the activity is intended to address gender inequalities; (ii) it is designed based on prior gender analysis; and (iii) it includes monitoring indicators disaggregated by sex. The classifier below walks through these criteria for any programme, budget line, or grant.

Tool · OECD-DAC GEPM classifier

Classify a budget line or programme.

Use this tool to mark a programme, budget line, or grant against the OECD-DAC Gender Equality Policy Marker. Answer the four diagnostic questions on the left and the classifier returns the appropriate GEM code (0, 1, or 2), an explanation of what the code means, and recommendations for strengthening the gender responsiveness of the allocation. This is the same logic ministries of finance, donors, and multilaterals use to track gender-marked spending.

Programme classifier

All four questions are required for a complete classification.
Question 01
Is gender equality an explicit and intentional objective of this programme or budget line?
Question 02
Was the programme designed on the basis of a prior gender analysis (assessment of how women, men, girls, and boys are differently affected by the issue)?
Question 03
Does the programme include monitoring indicators disaggregated by sex (and ideally by other intersecting variables — age, disability, rural/urban)?
Question 04
Does the programme allocate specific resources (budget lines, staff time, or activities) to addressing gender inequalities — not merely benefiting women incidentally?
▶ Answer the four diagnostic questions to receive an OECD-DAC GEPM classification with explanation and strengthening recommendations.
Country indicators · five regions · 55 AU member states

Continental indicators.

Women's economic justice indicators across all 55 African Union member states, drawn from three publicly documented external sources. AGI = AfDB Africa Gender Index 2023 score (0–100). GGGI = WEF Global Gender Gap Index 2025 score (0.000–1.000, parity = 1.000). Parl = women's share of seats in the lower or unicameral chamber, IPU Parline. Filter by region, or open the country page for the full RFLD context note. Where data is not available from a source for a given country, the cell is marked n/a.

Filter by region
Country Region AfDB AGI 2023 WEF GGGI 2025 Women in parliament
Sources. AfDB Africa Gender Index 2023 (full report PDF) — composite scores 0–100 across economic, social, representation, and legal dimensions; not all 55 AU states are covered in the AGI sample. WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2025 (full report PDF) — annual benchmark with overall index 0.000–1.000. IPU Parline (monthly ranking) — women's share of seats in lower or unicameral chambers, updated monthly. Figures shown are RFLD's snapshot as of the most recent IPU update; verify on the IPU site for live figures, particularly following recent or upcoming elections. Western Sahara is included as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, AU member state, but is not assessed by AGI, GGGI, or IPU; entries are marked n/a accordingly.
Curated library · 45 documents

GRB & gender finance resources.

A working library of national budget statements, regional GRB toolkits, continental gender-finance research, and thematic gender-economic-justice publications. Each entry links directly to the original publisher. Filter by region or theme; every resource includes its publishing institution and year so you can cite cleanly.

Filter by region
Engage with this work

Get in touch.

For partnerships on gender-responsive budgeting work, requests for analysis of national budget statements, training on the OECD-DAC Gender Equality Policy Marker, applications to the WAFF Fund, journalist enquiries, or to flag missing or out-of-date country data — please reach the appropriate channel below.

Strategic partnership & funding
John Gbenagnon · Director of Strategy & Development
gbenagnon.john@rflgd.org
GRB technical analysis & budget review
Major Gogo Ashifie · Director of Finance
finance@rflgd.org
WAFF Fund · application enquiries
Programmes team
programs@rflgd.org
Data corrections & resource submissions
Continental operations team
admin@rflgd.org
Press & journalist enquiries
Communications team
communications.info@rflgd.org
RFLD.
Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement
Economic Justice in Africa · Cotonou · Accra · Dakar · Banjul