Evidence shows that when women and men are relatively equal, economies tend to grow faster, the poor move more quickly out of poverty, and the well-being of men, women and children is enhanced. There is strong evidence that inequality between men and women tends to lower the productivity of labor and the efficiency of labor allocation in households and the economy, hence lowering overall growth and the conditions for sustainable poverty reduction. Gender inequalities also contribute to the non-monetary aspects of poverty—lack of security, opportunity and empowerment—that lower the quality of life for both women and men.

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Gender and development issues are core elements of our strategy to reduce poverty. There is a clear understanding that unless women and men have equal capacities, opportunities and voice, the ambitious agenda set out in the Millennium Declaration and the specific goals attached to it will not be achieved.

Both at the global and country level, we conduct a wide range of activities that support increased gender equality. Since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, we've provided about $7.3 billion to support girls' education projects. Over two-thirds of the loans in the areas of health, nutrition and population included gender-related objectives, with particular emphasis on HIV/AIDS and women's reproductive health.

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In September 2001, we adopted a new strategy for integrating gender issues into our country assistance efforts. The adoption of the new strategy was a critical step in fully implementing the commitments we made at the Fourth World Conference on Women. The strategy rests on a country-led and country-specific approach, while we play a supportive but proactive role with member countries. There are three central elements for integrating gender issues into our operations:

• Completion of periodic assessments that identify the gender-related barriers to poverty reduction and economic growth in each country where we have an active program
• Use of these findings in country dialogues to identify priority gender-responsive policies and interventions
• Making sure that project design, appraisal and supervision promote gender equality and women's empowerment in the sector priorities identified in our country assessment. Sectors are groupings of economic activities based on the types of goods and services produced that the bank uses to indicate which part of a country's economy is supported by its involvement.

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The Trust Fund for Gender Mainstreaming (GENFUND) was designed and financed by grants from the governments of Norway and the Netherlands to integrate gender issues into the work of the World Bank. It supports our strategic, innovative and catalytic work on gender equality with a strong focus on poverty reduction and an emphasis on activities that will produce good results and can be replicated. GENFUND activities complement our other programs and have helped put gender issues squarely on our agenda. More than $2 million has been allocated for numerous activities that include:

• providing for the different needs of men and women in post-conflict reconstruction in the Congo;
• creating a sex-disaggregated statistical database for the Latin America and Caribbean region; and
• targeting high-risk male groups in HIV/AIDS prevention projects in Senegal, the Gambia and Burkina Faso.

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We use Country Gender Assessments to highlight key gender inequalities that hinder economic growth and poverty reduction and to promote interest and support for gender mainstreaming at the policy level. They are also used to clarify methodological issues and to increase expertise and guidance on gender analysis.

Forty-one client countries had completed assessments by the end of fiscal year 2004, and some 86% are expected to complete a Country Gender Assessment by the end of this fiscal year. Positive impacts of these assessments can be found in:

• Kenya, where the recently completed Country Gender Assessment is at the center of the gender equality policy under development by the new government and is being widely disseminated;
• Yemen, where the participatory consultation process led to a National Republic of Yemen Gender Strategy and Action Plan approved by the cabinet; and
• Russia, where the government requested our comments on their strategy for gender equality, as well as our assistance in preparing an action plan for the implementation of the strategy.

Another example of our work in gender and development is the creation of Gender Technical Facilities (Support Services) in Latin America and the Caribbean. This technical support helped our client countries use bank resources to achieve important results for women, such as:

• the higher retention of pregnant girls in schools in El Salvador, accomplished by training school staff and promoting changes in outdated school regulations;
• an increase in women's access to land, made possible by better information dissemination on land registration in Guatemala; and
• higher participation by women in road rehabilitation projects in Nicaragua.

A third way we address gender in our work is through the design of Country Poverty Assessments, which measure the extent and causes of poverty in a given country and propose a strategy to lesson its effects. These assessments now include gender analyses, which are used to identify the relationships between gender, poverty and development.

Finally, our Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) now incorporates gender and development issues. The CAS is a comprehensive diagnosis-drawing on analytic work by the bank, the government and/or other partners-of the development challenges facing a country. It identifies the key areas where the bank's assistance can have the biggest impact on poverty reduction.

In Fiscal Year 2004, 81% of all country assistance strategies proposed actions to address gender issues in at least one economic or social sector.

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