Context
During the past decades, women’s and girls’ education and health levels have improved greatly. Two-thirds of all countries have now reached gender parity in primary education, while in over one-third, girls significantly outnumber boys in secondary education. But in many parts of the world, too many women are still dying in childbirth, or, at alarming rates, not being born at all. Women continue to lack voice in the household and the ability to participate in decisions that impact them, their families, and their societies; and, their economic opportunities remain very constrained. This inequality is manifestly unfair. It is also bad economics: under-investing in women puts a brake on poverty reduction and limits economic and social development. Gender equality is a longer-term driver of competitiveness and equity that is even more important in an era of increasingly globalized economies. No country can afford to fall behind because it is failing to enable women and men to participate equally in the economy and society.
Strategy
The World Bank Group promotes gender equality in developing countries through lending and grants, and knowledge and analysis. Over the last five years (FY06 - FY10) more than $65 billion, or 37 percent of the World Bank's lending and grants, were allocated to gender-informed operations in education, health, access to land, financial and agricultural services, jobs, and infrastructure. Last year, the share of gender-informed support reached almost half of our total lending, some $26.3 billion. (Gender-informed operations systematically consider gender inequalities and try to address them in design, implementation, expected impact and monitoring).
In September 2011, the World Bank Group launched World Development Report 2012: Gender and Development, the first in the series to focus on gender. The 2012 World Development Report identifies four areas where gender gaps are most significant―where direct policy efforts are required since higher incomes alone will do little to reduce existing inequalities:
Reducing excess female mortality and closing education gaps; Improving access to economic opportunities for women and reducing earnings and productivity gaps between women and men; Increasing women’s voice and agency in the household and in society; and, Limiting the reproduction of gender inequality across generations. Actions in these areas will require domestic policy interventions as well as the support of the international community.
Please also view Implications of World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development for the World Bank Group.
Gender is also a special theme of the Bank’s $49.3 billion fund for the poorest, the International Development Association (IDA), for 2011 - 2014, which means the Bank will be putting more emphasis on gender-related projects. These policy priorities and initiatives build upon the foundation laid by the four-year Gender Action Plan (GAP), which boosted attention to innovative programs to promote women’s economic empowerment; and complement the implementation of the Three-Year Road Map for Gender Mainstreaming (2011 - 2013) to direct more of the Bank’s technical assistance, projects and programs towards giving women better economic opportunities.
The World Bank Group is also exploring the gender differentiations in legal and regulatory environments which ultimately shape women's economic opportunities, through the report series Women, Business and the Law.
As a member of the World Bank Group, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) complements the Bank’s work with governments, by supporting the participation of women in business. IFC is working with the private sector in ways that empower women and are both good for business and good for development. A suite of investment and advisory services have been developed to increase women’s access to finance and access to markets for women entrepreneurs, reduce gender-based barriers in the business environment, and create business opportunities built around improved working conditions for women employees. Having successfully partnered with financial institutions to reach the women’s market (including the provision of capacity building to women entrepreneurs and increased access to finance), IFC now aims to ensure that by 2013, 25 percent of the small and medium enterprises that receive IFC loans through financial intermediaries are women-owned.
Results
Bank assistance has helped contribute to the following:
· In developing regions, gender parity has risen—from 91 girls for every 100 boys enrolled in primary school and 88 girls for every 100 boys enrolled in secondary school ten years ago—to 96 girls for every 100 boys enrolled in primary school and 95 girls for every 100 boys enrolled in secondary school today.
· Female life expectancy has increased by 20 to 25 years in most places in the past 50 years, to reach 71 globally in 2007 (compared with 67 for men).
· Maternal deaths fell from 546,000 in 1990 to 358,000 in 2008. As 99 percent (355,000) of these deaths still occur in developing countries, the Bank is redoubling its efforts on reproductive health.
· The lives of thousands of adolescent girls and young women are improving through job skills and training funded by the Adolescent Girls Initiative, which includes Afghanistan, Haiti, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Jordan, Liberia, Nepal, Rwanda, and South Sudan.
· Thanks to projects with the private sector, thousands of women in developing countries are gaining access to credit to fund their businesses, such as in Tanzania.
· More and more women are getting land titles and certification, as it is the case in Ethiopia and Aceh. Studies show that land titling is key in women’s ability to increase the productivity of their land and have access to capital.
Key country results include:
Education
In India, the IDA-financed Elementary Education Project has helped the government enroll nearly 20 million out-of-school children into elementary school. As a result of the program, India is now very close to achieving gender parity in primary education. By 2009, 94 girls were enrolled for every 100 boys in primary school compared to 90 in the early 2000s. Moreover, the gap between girls and boys is narrowing and the primary completion rate is expected to reach gender parity by 2013.
In Bangladesh, the Female Secondary School Assistance Program, launched in 1993 and financed by IDA, supported a government program to improve access to secondary education for girls by providing tuition stipends. Girl’s enrollment in secondary schools in Bangladesh jumped to 3.9 million in 2005, from 1.1 million in 1991, including an increasing number of girls from disadvantaged or remote areas. This has enabled Bangladesh to achieve one of its Millennium Development Goals ahead of time—gender parity in education.
In Yemen, several IDA projects have contributed to impressive gains in gross enrolment ratios for all levels of education. Increase in enrolment in primary education to 87 percent in 2008-09 from 68 percent in 1998-99. Gains in girls’ enrolment were even higher with an increase to 78% in 2008-09 from 49% in 1998-99, reducing by half the gap with male enrolment. Starting in 2007, authorities committed to contract and train female teachers over a three-year period. In addition, conditional cash transfer schemes were introduced in two governorates in 2008 and 2009 to support girls’ attendance in school. More than 30,000 girls have received the transfers so far.
Health
In Ghana, health insurance coverage has been extended to people employed in the informal and rural sectors since the inception of the World Bank-financed National Health Insurance program. About 70 percent of the insured, including children and pregnant women, are exempt from paying premiums. As of 2009, at least 90 percent of pregnant women use antenatal care services, and births attended by skilled health staff rose from 40 percent in 1990 to 59 percent in 2008.
In Senegal, the Nutrition Enhancement Project, supported by the World Bank, now reaches about 40 percent of the population. Pre-natal consultation coverage—important for both mothers-to-be and the babies they bear—climbed from 52 percent to 67 percent. The percent of mothers who breastfeed exclusively for the first six months has nearly doubled from 30 percent to 58 percent. Counseling women on the ill effects of sugar water, formula, and other substitutes has had an impact in Senegal.
In Afghanistan, the Health Sector Emergency Reconstruction and Development Project helped millions of people in rural areas access primary health care for the first time. Health care for expectant mothers expanded, with the number of deliveries assisted in facility by trained health workers jumping from 6 percent to 23 percent and the number of pregnant women who received at least one prenatal care visit rose from 8,500 in 2003 to 188,670 in 2008. Around 20,000 community health workers—half of them women—have been trained and deployed throughout the country, increasing access to family planning and boosting childhood vaccinations.
In Djibouti, the Health Sector Development Project supported the government’s long-term health sector development program in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals for the reduction of under-five child mortality and maternal mortality rates. Working with the World Bank, Djibouti has brought down the child mortality rate to 67 deaths per 1000 live births in 2006 from 124 in 2002, while HIV/AIDS prevalence among young pregnant women (15-to-24 years old) decreased to 2 percent in 2009 compared to 2.9 percent in 2002. In addition, medically-assisted delivery reached 87.3 percent in 2006 compared to 44 percent in 2002.
Income and Employment
In Jordan, the New Work Opportunities for Women pilot project, the most recent addition to the World Bank’s Adolescent Girls Initiative, is helping young female community college graduates find work. As of March 2011, 207 young women were employed under the voucher component and 373 young female graduates completed the training sessions and started looking for jobs.
In Turkey, a study jointly conducted by the World Bank, explains the key factors underlying low female employment, the benefits of getting more women to work, and the policy priorities to generate more and better jobs for women. Since its release in 2009, it has contributed to mainstreaming female employment into the public debate as well as employment policies and programs. In February 2011, the government of Turkey extended incentives to employers for hiring women, and introduced incentives for self-employed women and part-time workers.
In Mexico, a World Bank funded initiative, the Gender Equity Model, was run by the National Institute for Women to promote equal opportunities for men and women and to help surmount cultural barriers in business practices. By December 2010, some 300 Mexican organizations had been certified as gender equitable and an average of 63 firms per annum continue to adopt the program. Findings from Mexico show that participating firms have eliminated pregnancy discrimination from recruitment practices, communication has improved, and 90% of participating organizations reported that workers’ performance and productivity have increased.
Private Sector
In South Sudan, where the civil war destroyed the private sector, the government and the World Bank’s Gender Action Plan launched the Business Plan Competition to support the growth and expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises. Twenty-five female entrepreneurs (out of 45 awarded proposals) were awarded US$20,000 each through a commercial bank to use as collateral. The project also channeled US$500,000 to local microfinance service providers to extend loans to women, provided technical assistance to women clients, and collected sex-disaggregated information for monitoring and evaluation.
In Tanzania the Gender Action Plan supported an IFC women-targeted project that increased women’s access to finance around the country. Initially supported by an IFC’s credit line of $5 million, Exim Bank’s program has since enabled 214 women to access over $8 million in credit to expand their small or medium sized businesses. Exim’s partnership with the microleasing institution SELFINA has further opened up opportunities for financing to female borrowers who have good repayment records.
Rural Development and Infrastructure
In Haiti, the Fostering Economic Empowerment for Women Agricultural Producers Project, funded by the Gender Action Plan (GAP), aims to focus policy on equipping women with the right skills—both technical and financial—to increase crop yields, access markets and increase their incomes. Key results include a consultation report on women producers and their needs, an assessment of the capacity building needs of the government, and the creation of preliminary project indicators to monitor gender inclusion in the agricultural sector.
In India, the Andhra Pradesh District Poverty Initiatives Project and the Andhra Pradesh Rural Poverty Reduction Project were designed to enable the rural poor to improve their livelihoods and quality of life, and to reduce their vulnerability to shocks. To this end, the projects facilitated small group organization and self management within rural communities, with a particular focus on women. Nearly 8 million poor women in rural areas have been organized into 629,870 self-help groups and 28,282 village organizations. As a result, incomes increased for close to 90 percent of poor rural households, including around 8 million women.
In Lao PDR, the House Wiring Assistance Program was designed to enable poor rural households, which are disproportionately female-headed, to access electricity. The project offers these households a concessionary credit of US$80 million to cover the high cost of connecting to the electricity grid. The implementation of the pilot project, Power to the Poor, was launched in September 2008. Connection rates in the 20 pilot villages increased from 78 percent to 95 percent overall, and from 63 percent to 90 percent for female-headed households.
In Vietnam, a World Bank project provided financing support to ethnic minority women to undertake road maintenance in rural areas, thereby increasing women’s employment in poor, remote areas, and developing a cost-effective way to maintain rural roads that are often poorly cared for. A total of 13,470 km has been maintained and 1,533 ethnic minority women from four communes were trained as rural transportation managers. As a result, women have achieved greater voice in community decision-making and a more visible role in managing affairs at the household level, arising from increased economic power and social status.
For more on gender results, please visit: |
RSS