Gender Equality Matters: The Way Forward: Webcast Archive

The video above is an archived video presentation of an event that took place on September 23, 2011.

Gender equality matters for development, as shown in this year's World Development Report (WDR). It matters because it is a core development objective in its own right, and because gender equality is smart economics - it can improve other development outcomes as well as the prospects for the next generation. It also matters for development policy-making because broad-based economic development closes some, although not all, gender disparities.

While the last quarter century has seen the unprecedented narrowing of many gender gaps in education, health and labor market opportunities, not all gender disparities shrink with economic development. Therefore, corrective policies are needed to focus especially on the gaps that persist even as countries get richer. Bringing a gender perspective to development policy-making can also help make other policies more effective, even when they do not target gender equality itself.

Key questions to be addressed include:

• Where is the payoff for development from addressing gender disparities potentially the largest?
• Where do higher incomes by themselves reduce gender gaps?
• Where would reorientation of policies yield the greatest benefit?