The World Bank In Gender

Gender equality is a fundamental human right and essential for a more peaceful, prosperous, and livable world.

• Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls are central to addressing the world’s unprecedented intertwined global crises from food insecurity and climate change to conflict, fragility, and violence, to sluggish economic growth.
• Urgent action is needed to address gender-based violence (GBV). One in three women worldwide has experienced violence. Gender-based violence hurts not only the individual survivors, but their families, communities, and entire societies – often across generations, undermining a women’s quality of life, and access to paid work and employment.
• Expanding economic opportunities for women can drive inclusive growth. Low female labor force participation and occupational segregation lead to inefficiencies and misallocation of talent that, if addressed, would boost incomes, and stimulate growth.  On average across countries, long-run GDP per capita would be almost 20% higher if gender employment gaps were closed.
• Women’s leadership enhances long-term economic, environmental, and social outcomes, and strengthens institutions.  Research has correlated higher net profit margins for firms and lower CO2 emissions with more women in decision-making roles.

The World Bank has committed to accelerate gender equality. In 2022, the Bank launched a year-long #AccelerateEquality initiative, to explore progress made and lessons learned over the last 10 years in closing gender gaps and promoting girls’ and women's empowerment. 

A series of thematic policy notes and causal evidence briefs, along with data, research, global knowledge, and lessons from experience has informed the forthcoming World Bank Gender Strategy 2024-30 to be launched in 2024.

Last Updated: Apr 05, 2024

Gender equality is an urgent moral and economic imperative. Yet achieving gender equality is uniquely challenging and complex.

The draft World Bank Gender Strategy 2024–30 puts forward a bold ambition to accelerate gender equality to end poverty on a livable planet in alignment with the World Bank’s evolution process.

Building on implementation of the World Bank Gender Strategy 2016-23, the new strategy proposes to engage with greater ambition—approaching gender equality for all as essential for global development—and to engage differently.

The WB Gender Strategy 2024-30 includes three strategic objectives to:

1. End gender-based violence and elevate human capital;
2. Expand and enable economic opportunities; and
3. Engage women as leaders. 

The Strategy has been shaped by extensive and inclusive engagement with public and private sector clients, development partners, civil society, and other key stakeholders through formal consultations, and will be formally launched in 2024. 

A series of thematic policy notes and causal evidence briefs, along with data, research, global knowledge, and lessons from experience has informed the strategy.

Last Updated: Apr 05, 2024

The World Bank’s key corporate targets on gender equality are on track.  Looking forward there is increasing emphasis on replicating and expanding evidence-informed approaches to deliver outcomes at scale. Three recently published retrospectives feature lessons learned from the World Bank’s work on gender equality:

• Gender Equality in Development: A Ten-Year Retrospective
• Retrospective of IFC’s Implementation of the World Bank Gender Strategy 2016- 2023
• Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response in World Bank Operations: Taking Stock After a Decade of Engagement (2012-2022)

The World Bank uses a “gender tag” to track Bank operations that use gender analysis to design actions to advance gender equality and include indicators to measure results. There has been a dramatic rise in the share of operations that are gender tagged, from 50% in 2017 to 92% in 2022.

Gender Innovation Labs (GILs) in Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia, generate public goods to promote gender equality. GILs conduct impact evaluations of development interventions seeking to generate evidence on how to close gender gaps in human capital, earnings, productivity, assets, voice, and agency. The GIL research supports evidence-based policy making for governments, development organizations, and the private sector to address the underlying causes of gender inequality.

The WB also curates data through the Gender Data Portal, which is a comprehensive source for the latest sex-disaggregated gender statistics providing open access to over 900 indicators compiled from officially recognized international sources covering demography, education, health, economic activities, assets, leadership, gender-based violence, and more. This Portal allows users of all technical backgrounds to easily access and explore the data through interactive data visualizations and compelling narratives with the goal of influencing policy and decision-making.

Results Highlights:

Ending Gender-Based Violence and Elevating Human Capital:

By 2023, the World Bank had increased the percentage of operations that incorporated GBV prevention or response from 38 in 2012 to 390. These operations exist in every sector, every region, and at every level of country income in 97 countries.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a $100 million GBV Prevention and Response Project, was made possible through World Bank support. It sought to boost participation in programs that prevent GBV and to improve access to quality services for GBV survivors across different sectors. Implemented through non-governmental and civil society organizations, the project has reached 7 million people.

The Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project in Angola aims to empower youth, particularly girls, by improving access to education and health services. With support from the World Bank, the project supports NGOs delivering sexual and reproductive health services in safe spaces, including sessions for boys emphasizing positive masculinity. Community leaders support girls to stay in school, delay marriage and pregnancy. Second Chance programs provide opportunities to return to education and acquire basic and life skills with about 250,000 additional physical spaces created. Additionally, the program finances scholarships for 900,000 students and supports the creation of additional physical schooling infrastructure with WASH facilities, improved school management and quality.

Expanding and Enabling Economic Opportunities:

In Zambia, the World Bank is putting more cash directly into the hands of women through cash transfer programs. These programs help women take control of their own, and their families’ economic destinies. They have helped more than 973,000 families, and sent livelihood packages, including, life and business skills training, mentorship, and support through savings groups, to 75,000 women.

In South Asia, the World Bank supports WePOWER, a professional network for women that supports women's participation in energy projects and institutions and promotes normative change regarding women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. By 2021, WePOWER had completed 1,400+ gender focused activities, benefitting more than 28,000 women. These initiatives included STEM awareness sessions, study tours, internships, hirings, technical trainings, and building female-friendly facilities.

The Takaful and Karama Cash Transfer Program, supported by the World Bank, has rapidly scaled, and expanded since its launch in 2015. With a budget increase from $116 million to $1.2 billion by 2023, mainly funded by the Egyptian government, the program now reaches 5.2 million households, benefitting approximately 22 million individuals.  Notably, 75% of beneficiaries are women, receiving smart cards to enhance financial inclusion and decision-making. Participation in the Takaful program promotes 80% school attendance and health visits for mother and child, as well as avoiding early marriage. Evaluations show significant impacts on women's autonomy and household welfare, while incentives for education and healthcare have also been effective.

The Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Economic Dividend (SWEDD) project series tests, adapts, and scales innovations with the support of IDA and the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality. It addresses the root causes of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, and early school drop-out among adolescent girls, and promotes young women’s economic empowerment. With the involvement of governments, civil society organizations, and international partners such as the United Nations Population Fund, SWEDD mobilizes a wide range of allies, including teachers, religious and community leaders, future husbands, husbands, and fathers, to facilitate change on the ground. It deploys a comprehensive set of activities, such as ‘safe space’ clubs and reproductive health services for girls, community schools for husbands, and vocational training for women to enter male-dominated jobs.

Engaging Women as Leaders:

In Panama, the World Bank support the National Indigenous Peoples Development Plan Project. This project has helped increase the participation of indigenous women in decision-making spaces such as the National Council for the Integral Development of Indigenous Peoples (CONDIPI). In 2018, only 8% of CONDIPI participants were Indigenous women. In 2023, more than 35% were women, marking a 27% increase in women’s participation over just 5 years.

As well, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (“We-Fi”): has shown the essential role of women entrepreneurs. Since 2018, We-Fi has worked with hundreds of partners in over 60 countries to support women entrepreneurs, catalyzing billions in funding to provide finance and training, and address systemic data & policy gaps.

Last Updated: Apr 05, 2024