Decade-long AFRGIL evidence, including Pathways to Prosperity and A Girl Can Dream report, shaped WBG operations, driving $1.7 billion in financing to reach 43 million adolescents.
UFGE-supported analysis on sexual harassment in agro-industries informed Bangladesh’s draft 2024 Sexual Harassment Bill and strengthened implementation of legal frameworks within local ministries.
Behaviorally informed school-based interventions are scaling to challenge harmful norms and prevent violence, reaching 160,000 students across the Pantanal and Amazon by 2028.
New gender statistics inform Burkina Faso’s National Gender Strategy, strengthening baselines, targets, and monitoring, enabling ministries to integrate evidence into design and accountability.
Pilots with 4,000 women-led firms tested loans, procurement, and networks, informing the $84 million WBG Tamil Nadu and Bihar Rural Transformation Project design.
UFGE-supported analysis found expanding women’s labor participation could raise GDP by up to 5 percent, informing WBG diagnostics and WBG Development Policy Financing reforms.
Analysis informed Moldova’s Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy and WBG Country Climate and Development Report, shaping a WBG Development Policy Operation supporting 300 women farmers.
UFGE support to MENAAP GIL shaped the WBG MENA Gender Action Plan 2025–30 and informed Morocco’s education program to expand preschool access.
The -IFC’s Morocco4Diversity Platform engaged over 20 companies, mapping women’s labor opportunities and advancing inclusive workplace reforms through Leaders4Equality and targeted advisory support.
SARGIL evidence exposed hiring bias, informing the $78 million WBG Digital Economy Enhancement Project, and Punjab’s job portal serving 127 million people nationwide.
The Leaders in Action program evidence shows how community sessions with household outreach can reduce intimate partner violence, informing government prevention strategies and strengthening norms.
EAPGIL evidence on women’s exclusion from land ownership shaped the WBG SPLIT operation mandating joint titling, increasing women’s inclusion in land titles.
For earlier impact stories refer to the UFGE previous Annual Reports
UFGE Annual Reports
2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019
2018 l 2017 l 2016 l 2015 l 2014 l 2013
Since 2012, UFGE has funded a total of 226 impact evaluations, generating evidence that help governments and companies invest effectively in policies and programs to unlock economic opportunities.
Name of Impact Evaluation | Country | Description |
Impact of Online Business Training and Peer Interaction for Women | Ethiopia | A randomized controlled trial in Ethiopia tested a business training program for women entrepreneurs delivered either in person or through a smartphone app. Although take-up was high across both modalities, completion rates were significantly higher for in-person training (71 percent) than for digital delivery (22 percent), yet neither approach led to improvements in business practices or performance. The findings highlight the limits of business training alone for women entrepreneurs and caution against assuming that digital platforms can easily scale impact. |
Export and Agro-Pastoral Market Development Project | Niger | The Agro-Pastoral Export and Market Development Project provided matching grants for training, credit access, market facilitation, technical assistance, and targeted infrastructure to male and female farming and livestock groups. The intervention improved women’s organizational capacity and business knowledge, leading to increases in agricultural production. However, women continued to face major constraints, as their average plot size was less than one-third the size of men’s plots, and they made up only 10 to 20 percent of management committees, limiting their influence in decision-making. |
Returns to Soft Skills Training for Recent Graduates | Rwanda | A 160-hour soft-skills training program designed by the University of Rwanda and the Rwanda Development Board improved graduates’ communication, networking, and interpersonal skills. The program accelerated youth entry into the labor market during COVID-19 disruptions, increasing income, hours worked, job search, and job networks up to 15 months after training. However, while it helped participants sustain employment through more permanent contracts in the informal sector, it did not facilitate transitions into formal jobs, and no gender differences in outcomes were observed. |
Keeping Girls in School | Zambia | The Keeping Girls in School program piloted an empowerment intervention to reduce school-related gender-based violence across three districts. The evaluation found that although discussions of violence and bystander reporting increased, the program did not reduce overall violence, shift girls’ attitudes toward gender roles, or change norms around school-related gender-based violence. Implementation gaps, limited school-wide reach, and weak accountability mechanisms hindered effectiveness, underscoring the need for scalable approaches that engage teachers, parents, and communities more consistently. |
Name of Impact Evaluation | Country | Description |
Evaluation of Bab Amal – “A Door of Hope" | Egypt | The Bab Amal program tested a poverty graduation model that combined productive assets, training, temporary consumption support, service referrals, and coaching for rural households. The evaluation found sustained impacts 40 months after the intervention, including higher livestock ownership, women’s employment, household income, consumption, and food security, with 88 percent of households voluntarily selecting women as asset recipients. Even a lower-cost program variant produced positive though smaller gains, demonstrating potential for scalable and budget-efficient poverty reduction. |
Job Talash: Barriers and Returns to Search on a Job Matching Platform | Pakistan | The South Asia Gender Innovation Lab partnered with a job search platform to test whether proactively calling job seekers to apply for positions would affect their behavior. Reducing this psychological barrier led to a 600 percent increase in applications for both men and women, with findings accepted for publication in the Journal of Labor Economics. The results are already informing policy discussions with the Punjab Labor Department as it designs a new province-wide job search platform. |
