Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ

Why is unlocking women’s economic potential so important?

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Removing barriers to women’s economic participation is one of the highest-return strategies available to any economy. Research suggests that in many countries, removing barriers to women’s participation in the labor force alone could raise output by 15-20 percent and produce strong income gains.

With 1 billion young people entering the workforce over the next decade and only 400 million jobs expected, unlocking women’s potential is essential to the World Bank Group’s (WBG) core mission of ending poverty and driving growth.

What is the World Bank Group’s approach to gender equality?

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The World Bank Group Gender Strategy 2024–2030 sets out three objectives:

• End gender-based violence and strengthen human capital
• Expand women’s economic opportunities through more and better jobs, access to assets, and enabling services
• Engage women as leaders in decision-making

In practice, it combines public sector reforms, private sector investment, and evidence-based solutions to expand opportunity at scale by:

• Laying the foundation for job creation through education and skilling
• Health and legal reforms
• Supporting policy and regulatory reforms for a business-enabling environment
• Harnessing the power of the private sector to scale impact and drive innovation

How does women’s participation in the workforce connect to the World Bank Group’s jobs agenda?

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Job creation is at the heart of what the World Bank Group does. That goal cannot be achieved without women. Removing the barriers that lock women out of productivity, labor markets and entrepreneurship-- such as unequal legal rights, limited access to finance, unaffordable childcare, and unsafe commutes-- is one of the most direct routes to creating more jobs and growing economies.

What goals has the World Bank Group set for 2030?

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The best way to put an end to poverty is to give a person a job. To meet this challenge, the World Bank Group has set transparent targets that drive real change and keep us focused on delivering results. The WBG has set three measurable targets to build the ladder of opportunity for women:

• Support  250 million  additional women through social protection programs
• Enable  300 million  more women to access broadband connectivity
• Provide  80 million  more women and women-led businesses with capital These targets span areas where barriers are most acute and where investment yields the greatest returns for women and for economies.

How is the World Bank Group measuring progress towards unlocking women’s economic opportunity?

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Through the World Bank Group Corporate Scorecard and the Gender Strategy Results Framework, which track outcomes across all four WBG institutions — IBRD, IDA, IFC, and MIGA. The framework goes beyond counting projects to measuring whether investments are actually shifting outcomes for women: jobs created, businesses financed, legal protections strengthened, girls kept in school. The WBG also tracks shifts in the structural drivers of inequality such as norms, laws, and access to services and not just immediate outputs.

What barriers prevent women from reaching their full economic potential?

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The barriers are structural. Globally, women hold only two-thirds of the legal rights that men do. Many cannot own land, open a bank account, or sign a contract on equal terms. Beyond law, women carry a disproportionate share of unpaid care work, limiting where and how much they can work. Unsafe transport, digital exclusion, limited access to finance, and pervasive gender-based violence compound these constraints.

What is the World Bank Group doing to help remove barriers that prevent women from reaching their full economic potential?

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The WBG works across three mutually reinforcing areas:

• It lays the foundation by investing in girls’ education, women’s health, and legal reforms that give women equal rights to own property and access financial services.
• It builds opportunities by financing childcare infrastructure, digital connectivity, safe transport, and financial inclusion programs.
• It shapes the environment for women to lead by partnering with governments and the private sector to shift the norms, policies, and market practices that keep women out.

How does the World Bank Group support countries in advancing women’s economic participation?

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Through loans, grants, technical assistance, research, and convening power. Through these efforts, we help remove barriers that prevent women from owning land and otherwise hold them back, giving them a chance to be productive and, often, become entrepreneurs and create jobs for others. In Mozambique and Madagascar the East Africa Girls Empowerment and Resilience (EAGER) Program has supported 611,000 girls to stay in school with engagement of more than 2 million community members, including men and boys.  In Tamil Nadu, India, a WBG-supported initiative provides care and safety services to 1.6 million women and skills training to 600,000. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, programs like SWEDD/SWEDD+ is equipping young women with relevant skills and connecting them to real economic opportunities. These are not isolated stories but reflect a systematic approach applied across more than 100 countries.

How does the World Bank Group work with the private sector to expand opportunities for women?

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The private sector is central to the WBG’s approach. We are partnering with the private sector to shape businesses and business environments where women can lead, compete, and succeed. Since 2012, IFC's Banking on Women program has invested over $13 billion across 384 financial institutions in 89 countries, directly financing women and women-led enterprises with 43 percent of projects in fragile and conflict-affected states.

Programs like Sourcing2Equal connect women to corporate supply chains and procurement opportunities. The WBG focuses particularly on five sectors with the greatest potential to employ women at scale: infrastructure and energy, agribusiness, healthcare, tourism, and value-added manufacturing.

How does the World Bank Group address violence against women?

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Violence against women is also an economic issue. It determines where women can go, what jobs they can take, whether they can safely use public transport, and whether they can stay in school or work.

The World Bank Group does not tolerate gender-based violence. The Gender Strategy 2024–2030 places ending gender-based violence as its first objective precisely because it is a precondition for everything else. Our response works on two tracks: we require that GBV risks are identified, mitigated, and addressed in the projects we finance, and we also finance standalone operations to prevent and address violence where it is most acute.

The WBG integrates safety measures into infrastructure projects, supports legal and institutional reforms, and funds programs that help survivors rebuild economic lives.

Where can I learn more or access World Bank Group resources on women’s economic opportunities?

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World Bank Group Gender Strategy 2024–2030: The full framework and evidence base

Gender topic page: Data, reports, and country examples

Gender Priority Sector page: Opening Digital Doors, Building Secure Lives, Financing New Futures

IFC Gender: Private sector approach and programs

Women, Business and the Law 2026: Annual report on legal barriers facing women

Atlas for Development: Shaping the Future of Women in the Workplace

Gender Data Portal: The latest gender statistics