Closing the remaining sticky “first-generation” gaps, while starting to tackle emerging issues, is fundamental to poverty reduction and shared prosperity. The UFGE supports evidence on the effectiveness of multi-sectoral, non-traditional approaches to improving sexual and reproductive health and close the remaining gender gaps in education. It also invests in knowledge on emerging and less understood areas such as getting more girls and women into science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and aging.
Priority Themes
Improving human endowments—health, education, and social protection
Removing constraints for more and better jobs
Considerable demand exists for knowledge on how to lift constraints to increase the quantity and quality of jobs for women, and close earnings gaps. The UFGE invests in evidence on the most effective solutions to addressing stagnation of female labor force participation, occupational sex segregation, and the lack of care services and safe transport.
Removing barriers to women’s ownership and control over assets
UFGE financing has helped the World Bank Group contribute to knowledge on women’s ownership and control of assets. More rigorous evidence is necessary to ensure projects are adopting effective approaches. For example, this includes understanding how joint registration impacts credit and joint production decisions, and testing alternatives for solving the collateral problem.
Enhancing women’s voice and agency and engaging men and boys
UFGE-financed research and data has made operational inroads in areas such as gender-based violence, but much more remains to be done. Growing evidence from low- and middle-income settings demonstrates that gender-based violence is preventable. An obvious next step is to increase global knowledge on how to transition from small evidence-based interventions to large scale national programs in successful, sustainable ways.
