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Opening Remarks Joanne Sandler, Deputy Executive Director of UNIFEM, opened and chaired the event. Findings from the World Bank show that gender equality fuels economy, but women remain the most wasted resource in the world. Greater investments towards gender equality need to be made. Implementing ILO’s decent work agenda for men and women is critical. Women are still paid 17% less for work than men. Women need access to and the ability to shape decent work, markets and financial institutions but all of these – jobs, markets and institutions – need women. This is why we are implementing Results-Based Initiatives (RBIs). RBIs are unique approaches with impact evaluation to demonstrate what works and what does not, with a focus on results. RBIs are now under implementation in Liberia, Egypt, Kenya, Mekong, and Peru. Through these RBIs, we hope to enable policies and institutions to become more responsive to providing women with more opportunities. Gender Equity Model in Egypt In response to a request from the Egyptian government to support gender equity, the World Bank, UNIFEM and ICRW are implementing an RBI that seeks to promote women’s access to employment, training and career advancement in private firms. The Gender Equity Model Egypt (GEME) is one of six RBIs funded by the Bank’s Development Grant Facility (DGF) to empower women economically, measure the key indicators of this empowerment, and attribute the outcomes to the interventions through impact evaluation components. Mr. Yasser Zaazou, a partner in the Egypt RBI, presented GEME and his experience with the Olympic Group. GEME aims to develop, promote and encourage gender equity in private firms and to institutionalize gender equity policies. These policies will facilitate equal opportunities for men and women in access to jobs, and better working conditions, as well as professional development, training and participation in decision-making processes. GEME targets medium and large firms with a sufficiently developed human resources department so that the firm will be able to execute, monitor, and evaluate project results. GEME’s impact evaluation component consists of a quasi-experimental design with a difference in difference estimation method. The impact evaluation is designed to assess two specific impacts:
OG is owned by Paradise Capital, and has three sister companies – Btech, Namaa and Mathal. When OG implements policies, these are filtered down and implemented in their sister companies. OG has 10 factories and over 7,500 employees, working in both Saudi Arabia and Sudan. OG realized that in order to achieve their Vision of becoming a globally competitive leader in household appliances and electronics, they needed innovation and diversity, which led to the development and promotion of gender equity policies. The technical support team discovered that the gender equity policies were in line with what OG wanted to achieve, but there was a lack of awareness among OG staff. The RBI helped to speed up implementation of the development of these policies, and foster innovation through the creation of new staff initiatives. Under GEME, new policies were developed and disseminated across OG covering gender equity, vacation, promotion, reward & recognition, transfers, grievance, flexible working hours, and performance development. An Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) was also conducted to build awareness of the new policies. The four-phase process included:
New initiatives developed for OG staff to build awareness for gender equity include:
Importance of Measuring Women’s Empowerment Anju Maholtra, Vice President for Social and Economic Development at ICRW discussed the importance of measuring women’s empowerment. Anju explained that one of most important achievements in field of gender equality is that the issue is gaining more traction. Investing in women is smart economics. More corporate players are starting to recognize the importance of gender equality – such as described by Mr Zaazou, in addition to Nike, and Goldman Sachs 10,000 women. This issue must be taken up by those that have resources and can make an impact. Numbers talk and continued investment requires demonstrated success. People want to know if the investment of time and resources is succeeding. How and why it is, or isn’t, succeeding. In the economic sector there has been a huge gap of evidence. Thus it is important to design interventions that are measurable and appropriate for impact evaluation. If we’re going to scale up these initiatives then it’s important to say what works. ICRW is the RBI partner responsible for evaluating the impact of the RBIs. ICRW’s mission is to empower women and reduce poverty to achieve gender equality. Thus, they were a natural partner to this initiative. ICRW’s role is to:
The RBI pilot intervention provides an opportunity from the design stage to build in rigorous impact evaluation and fill the current gap on measuring women’s empowerment. Once we see what the RBIs can do we can build on them in a positive way and say something meaningful about women’s empowerment. But impact evaluation is not always suited to measuring certain interventions, so this has presented a challenge. Some RBIs may not allow for evaluation that economists find credible. It’s important to note that good evaluation requires time and resources, so this is a commitment. RBI evaluations are taking place in the countries below, with the evaluation dependent on the type of intervention:
In setting up evaluations in this way ICRW wants to build on the work that’s already been done. Much has been achieved, most significantly the work around MDG 3. But there is still not wide agreement on What is Women’s Empowerment? What is Gender Equality? Women’s Empowerment is women’s ability to make strategic life choices and the resources that enable them to act in the first place. Gender equality is defined as equality for women and men under the law, of opportunity (human capital and productive resources) in rewards for work, and of voice. The RBIs are building on this conceptual agreement so that we have consensus on indicators and results coming out of RBIs. Both women’s empowerment and gender equality are multilateral and multi dimensional. One of underlying premises of the RBIs: if we act on the micro (individual/household) and meso (institutional or community) level, it will ultimately affect the macro (state or national) level. People are interested in micro and meso indicators such as economic, socio-cultural, relational, and political (only to name a few). Investments must be made to fill the data gap:
It is critical to think about what kinds of indicators are important at macro level. Numbers are important to finding the problem and the solution. Power to the Poor: Lao PDR Morten Larsen presented the Power to the Poor Initiative in Lao PDR, which has set up a Housewiring Revolving Fund to enable the poorest households that are disproportionately female-headed to access electricity from a Rural Electrification Project. Households will repay loans through the regular monthly billing process from the savings incurred on traditional fuels. Making up a significant group among the poor, women- headed households were a targeted beneficiary group. Funding from the World Bank and AusAID, has allowed Electricité du Laos to pilot test the scheme, which has been successful and will now be replicated in three other provinces in the country. Impressive results have been achieved in the energy sector in Lao – from 16% of all households having electricity in 1995 to a rate of 60% in 2007. However, large gaps remain between urban and rural, where only 35% of rural households have electricity (1 in 3 households). A study showed that in the early 90s about 90% of households were connected, but the gap has widened over the past 18 years with only 70% of households connected. Many households cannot afford to pay to be connected. Female-headed households constitute 8% of all households, but 43% of poor households. Thus a gender-specific response to rural electrification in Lao was developed. Further cost assessment showed that non-electrified households using traditional fuel sources were spending more (US$3-5/month) than electrified households (US$1-2/month). One team member affirmed this finding, “It’s not cheap to be poor.” Success in the Power to the Poor project has been achieved through a revolving fund which provides a financial subsidy to the connected households; the households then repay the credit which goes back to the Power to the Poor revolving fund. Community mobilization and awareness campaigns were also undertaken, including the development of brochures to explain the pilot, safety measures and productive users of electricity. GAP funding in the amount of US$65,000 has helped to leverage additional funding from AusAID in the amount of US$500,000 that will expand the rollout of electricity to three additional provinces. To date the electricity company has completed installations in all 20 target villages. 537 households in these 20 villages have now been connected through the P2P credit, with an installation target by end 2009 of 2337 households, and an installation target by end of 2010 of 8,000 households. Now 9 out of 10 households have electricity. Benefits to the households include interest-free credit to repay over three years, improved power supply, and 60% cost reduction after Year 3. Assuming an average of 5.2 members per family, this project has the potential to reach 50,000 direct beneficiaries by the end of 2010. Power utility has already started the rollout of three more provinces, signing up to 500 additional villages in other parts of the country. Consultants will now be on the ground to see what the impacts: Are people able to pay back they credit? Are they using the electricity? Discussant – Mayra Buvinic, World Bank Mayra Buvinic, Director of PREM Gender and Development in the World Bank, offered comments as a discussant and appreciated the concrete examples of how the World Bank Group’s Gender Action Plan (GAP) is creating more economic opportunities for women. She went on to provide some context for the earlier presentations – as part of the larger GAP. Implementation of the GAP started in 2007 so the Action Plan is in its third year. There are mainly two pillars to the GAP that have increased tentative success rates:
The GAP’s initial budget was US$24 million, but is currently around $60 million, with US$40 million committed to Bank Group activities. The Action Plan has expanded with new initiatives and donors see the GAP as good vehicles to mainstream gender.
Gender is now truly in the agendas of international institutions, and the World Bank Group would never have been able to achieve this alone. Donor partners have been key supporters. This was not the case 5 years ago. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, put gender on the agenda of the G8 summit. The Danes launched the MDG 3 Torch Campaign. Collaboration with UNIFEM and ICRW and other partners at local levels have been critical to the success to date of the GAP. With the Danish Torch Campaign, one of the first torches given was to President Zoellick and he made 6 commitments to gender equality in April 2008, two of which were the Adolescent Girls Initiative and the Private Sector Leaders Forum. Another commitment targets Agriculture and Rural Development, so that the portfolio is en-gendered by 2010. Most significant is President Zoellick’s commitment to en-gender IDA16, the soft lending window of the Bank to developing countries. Successful en-gendering of IDA16 would ensure that gender is mainstreamed in the World Bank Group’s work. Questions and Comments Following the presentation, a Q&A session focused on the following issues: 1. The Gender Equity Model Egypt – Olympic Group
2. RBIs and Impact Evaluation – ICRW
3. Power to the Poor Project, Lao PDR
4. Gender Action Plan
Closing Remarks Christine Brendel closed the event by reaffirming many of the earlier points on gender mainstreaming, and expressed appreciation on behalf of the GenderNet to co-host this event. The Gender Network brings together the 23 donors of the OECD community and is a source of great and innovative ideas for advancing the gender equality agenda. Globally the Bank is an important and influential partner in development. It has been one year since President Zoellick received a Danish torch and made his six commitments. With regard to IDA16, GenderNet members will do all they can to influence their agencies to support President Zoellick’s commitments to increase IDA investments for gender equality later this year. Christine encouraged the participants to become familiar with the 2008 UN Millennium Development Goals Report. Eight of the eleven target areas are directly relevant to women and their families. Lastly, Christine thanked the World Bank Group for drawing attention to the financial crisis effects on women and children. Women should be considered as actors and producers, not simply victims of the crisis. One of the immediate responses has been the establishment of a microfinance facility by the German Development Bank (KfW) and the IFC. Microfinance institutions face problems refinancing debt as a result of the crisis. 85% of the poorest clients were women. PresentationsRelated LinksAdditional WorkshopsPlease visit the Training and Events page for a full listing of workshops.
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