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Major World Bank Programs |
Gender | |
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Poverty reduction activities Environmentally sustainable development |
The Bank's commitment to promoting gender equality and implementing the
recommendations set out in the United Nations Conference on Women, held in Beijing in
September 1995, continued in fiscal 1997. Gender analysis and policy are strategically
linked to economic and policy activities through integration into country assistance
strategies--in fiscal 1997, for example, the Ghana and Uganda CASs included gender analysis--economic and
sector work, and poverty assessments. Gender issues are systematically addressed in
project design and preparation, especially in those that traditionally have addressed gender
issues such as education, health, population, nutrition, and rural development sectors.
But more attention is also being given to gender issues in sectors such as transport and
energy.
Nepal's rural water supply and sanitation project is exemplary. It will deliver health and hygiene benefits to rural people and improve women's incomes as they are able to spend time--formerly spent carrying water--in more productive ways. The project is providing nonformal education to increase women's literacy to help them better use that time. Women will also be members of water-user committees responsible for project design, planning, and management at the community level. Incorporating gender issues into Bank work is being facilitated through research, preparation of toolkits such as the toolkit on gender in agriculture and the toolkit on gender in water and sanitation. Workshops, such as the Asia Gender Symposium held in November 1996, are also playing a role, as well as programs such as EDI's grassroots management training program (see box 2-1). A gender "home page" on the Bank's internal Web site is helping to integrate gender knowledge into the Bank's knowledge management system; it will be made available on the external Web site in fiscal 1998. The Gender Consultative Group, comprising fourteen leading gender specialists from all regions and representing a range of organizations and professional backgrounds, held its second annual meeting with the Bank in May 1997. The group met with the president, senior management, and regional staff to present the perspectives of different sectors of civil society on priority gender issues that the Bank should address and to provide feedback on the implementation of the Bank's gender-related policies and programs. A second annual progress report on the implementation of the Bank's gender policies was published in June 1997. |
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