WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET © 2024 The World Bank Group 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www.worldbank.org This work is a product of the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), collectively known as The World Bank Group, with external contributors. The World Bank Group does not guarantee the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the content included in this work, or the conclusions or judgments described herein, and accepts no responsibility or liability for any omissions or errors (including, without limitation, typographical errors and technical errors) in the content whatsoever or for reliance thereon. The boundaries, colors, denominations, links/footnotes and other information shown in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank Group concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. The citation of works authored by others does not mean the World Bank Group endorses the views expressed by those authors or the content of their works. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations of the World Bank Group, their respective Boards of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The contents of this work are intended for general informational purposes only and are not intended to constitute legal, securities, or investment advice, an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment, or a solicitation of any type. Some of the organizations of the World Bank Group or their affiliates may have an investment in, provide other advice or services to, or otherwise have a financial interest in, certain of the companies and parties named herein. Nothing herein shall constitute or be construed or considered to be a limitation upon, or waiver, termination or modification of, any privilege and immunity or exemption, as applicable, of any of the organizations of The World Bank Group, all of which are specifically reserved. Rights and Permissions This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 IGO License. Under the Creative Commons--NonCommercial--NoDerivatives license, you are free to copy, distribute, and transmit this work, for noncommercial purposes only, under the following conditions: Attribution Please, cite the work as follows: World Bank Group. 2024. World Bank Group Gender Strategy 2024 – 2030: Accelerate Gender Equality to End Poverty on a Livable Planet. Washington, DC: World Bank. License: Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO). Noncommercial—You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works—You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Third-party content—The World Bank Group does not necessarily own each component of the content contained within the work. The World Bank Group therefore does not warrant that the use of any third-party- owned individual component or part contained in the work will not infringe on the rights of those third parties. The risk of claims resulting from such infringement rests solely with you. If you wish to re-use a component of the work, it is your responsibility to determine whether permission is needed for that re-use and to obtain permission from the copyright owner. Examples of components can include, but are not limited to, tables, figures, or images. All queries on rights and licenses should be addressed to World Bank Publications, The World Bank Group, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; e-mail: pubrights@worldbank.org. ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET The World Bank Group will support concerted action, financing and programs at scale to end gender-based violence and elevate human capital, expand and enable economic opportunities, and engage women as leaders CONTENTS v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii ABBREVIATIONS ix OVERVIEW 1. THE URGENCY AND FUNDAMENTALITY OF GENDER EQUALITY 02 Progress toward gender equality has been slow, uneven, and sometimes reversed 06 Gender equality is central to ending poverty on a livable planet 07 Lessons learned reveal the need to engage differently to advance gender equality 2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 11 The policy arena shapes gender equality outcomes 13 Drivers of change for gender equality: Innovation, financing, and collective action 3. STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES 19 Foundational well-being: End gender-based violence and elevate human capital 23 Economic participation: Expand and enable economic opportunities 26 Leadership: Engage women as leaders 4. IMPLEMENTING THE 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY 29 Learning from implementing the 2016–2023 Gender Strategy 30 The World Bank Group will engage with greater ambition—and engage differently 31 Direction #1 Gear up for the new ambition: Knowledge, capacity, and partnerships 32 Direction #2 Deploy the drivers of change 34 Direction #3 Strengthen accountability for gender equality outcomes 35 Supporting implementation and monitoring results 38 Conclusion 39 ANNEX 1: IMPLEMENTING THE WORLD BANK GROUP 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY 40 ANNEX 2: RESULTS FRAMEWORK 43 REFERENCES v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The World Bank Group (WBG) Gender Strategy 2024–2030 is framed by the strategic vision of WBG President Ajay Banga, elaborated through the Strategic Engagement discussion with Executive Directors and WBG senior leadership. It has been jointly developed by the International Development Association (IDA), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). This is the culmination of two years of intensive internal and external engagement, starting with the yearlong Accelerate Equality campaign, followed by a year of informal dialogues and formal consultations. The strategy also drew from a series of technical inputs including the World Bank Group Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series, the Gender Innovation Lab Federation Causal Evidence Series, the Retrospective on Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response in World Bank Operations, Retrospective on Gender and Development and Retrospective of IFC’s Implementation of the World Bank Group Gender Strategy. It has been prepared under the direction of Hana Brixi (Global Director, Gender, WB) in collaboration with Nathalie Kouassi Akon Gabala (Director, Gender & Economic Inclusion, IFC), Mary Porter Peschka (Director of the Sustainability, Environmental, Social and Governance and Gender Solutions, IFC), Paul Barbour (Chief Strategy Officer, MIGA), Merli Margaret Baroudi (Director of Economics and Sustainability, MIGA), Kate Wallace (Sector Manager, Sustainability, Infrastructure and Manufacturing, Agriculture and Services, MIGA) and Moritz Nebe (Sector Manager, Economics, MIGA). vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Overall guidance was provided by Mamta Murthi Israel David Melendez, Bruce Ross-Larson and (Vice President for Human Development, Junya Yuan provided logistical, design and WB), Emmanuel B. Nyirinkindi (Vice President, editing support. Valuable contributions were Cross-Cutting Solutions, IFC), Susan M. Lund made by the Gender Innovation Lab Federation, (Vice President, Economics and Private Gender Leads and hundreds of other teams and Sector Development, IFC) and Ethiopis staff across the WBG. Tafara (Vice President and Chief Risk, Legal and Administrative Officer, MIGA). Axel Van The strategy benefitted from advice by the Trotsenburg (Senior Managing Director, WB), WBG Gender Advisory Council including Chatib Anna Bjerde (Managing Director of Operations, Basri (President Commissioner, Bank Mandiri WB), Makhtar Diop (Managing Director, IFC) and and Chairman of the Advisory Board, Mandiri Hiroshi Matano (Executive Vice President, MIGA) Institute), Gabriela Bucher (Executive Director, provided overall leadership. Oxfam International), Anila Denaj (Member of Parliament and Former Minister of Finance, The WBG’s Gender Leadership Council, including Albania), Mats Granryd (Director General, GSM Louise Cord, Amit Dar, Manuela Francisco, Arturo Association), Zainab Ahmed (former Minister of Herrera Gutierrez, Elisabeth Huybens, Soukeyna Finance, Budget and National Planning, Nigeria), Kane, Stefan G. Koeberle, Luis-Felipe Lopez- Sima Bahous (Executive Director, UN Women), Calva, Samia Msadek, Illango Patchamuthu, Cina Lawson (Minister of Digital Economy and Jean Pesme, Christine Zhenwei Qiang, Carolina Digital Transformation, Togo), Nourah Mehyar Sanchez-Paramo, Iffath Sharif, Ayat Soliman and (CEO, Nafith Logistics International), Rebecca Jill Wilkins, contributed strategically. Miano (Cabinet Secretary, East Africa Community, Arid and Semi-Arid Lands and Regional The core team was led by Laura Rawlings (Lead Development), and David Miliband (President Economist, Gender, WB), Atia Byll-Cataria (Head and CEO, International Rescue Committee). of Gender, MIGA), Amy Luinstra (Acting Manager, Operations, Gender and Economic Inclusion, IFC) Global consultations and Priyanka Tayal Kolasa (Acting Co-Manager & Strategy Lead, Gender and Economic Inclusion, The WBG conducted in-person consultations in IFC). Together with the core team, the strategy 28 countries and engaged with representatives development team also included Lucia Hanmer, of over 600 entities from more than 110 countries. Maria Ionata, Andrea Kucey, Brett Libresco, These included government representatives, Maria Beatriz Orlando, Diego Ubfal and Michael parliamentarians, academia, private sector, Woolcock from the World Bank, Henriette Kolb philanthropies, youth groups, feminist and Carol Marina Tojeiro from the IFC, and organizations, indigenous groups, UN agencies, Elizabeth Mensah from MIGA. multilateral development banks, and other development partners. A special effort was made The extended team included Agartha Adubofuor, to engage civil society organizations, with support Charlotte Ampaire, Anna Tabitha Bonfert, Sarah from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Bunker, Meghna Chadha, Sandra Karolina Thousands of stakeholders with diverse Jensson, Elizabeth Koechlein, Sundas Liaqat, expertise were engaged through in-person Meg McClure, Shirley Bekoe Ohene, Simona meetings, virtual dialogues, an online survey, Palummo, Saman Rejali and Harsh Vardhan Sahni written inputs, and participation in global fora. from the World Bank; Laila Elrefai and Heather Summaries of these discussions, consultations Kipnis from the IFC, and Hiroyuki Hatashima and and feedback statements are available on the Hilary Steiner from MIGA. Chiara Broccolini, WBG consultations website. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET vii The WBG External and Corporate Relations team Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, was an invaluable partner in the consultations. Peru, Rwanda, Tanzania, Thailand, Türkiye, In addition, Abigail Goodnow Dalton, Elizabeth United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Mensah, Mary Porter Peschka, Laila Elrefai, and Viet Nam. Carla Pittalis, Abhilasha Sahay, Diego Ubfal and Najibullah Ziar were instrumental in organizing Stakeholders also provided inputs in numerous global consultations, in collaboration with global and regional fora including the Women hundreds of WBG staff in the country offices. Deliver conference in Kigali, Women Political Leaders summit in Brussels, meetings of the Rich inputs were received from a wide range Organization for Economic Cooperation and of public, private, and non-governmental Development – Development Assistance stakeholders through in-country consultations Committee on Gender Equality in Paris, the in Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Democratic 67th session of the Commission on the Status Republic of the Congo, Egypt, El Salvador, France, of Women in New York, and the WBG and India, Indonesia, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kenya, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Kyrgyz Republic, Malawi, Mauritania, Morocco, Meetings and Annual Meetings. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 viii ABBREVIATIONS Acronym Description AFE Africa Eastern and Southern AFW Africa Western and Central Covid-19 Coronavirus Disease 2019 CPF Country Partnership Framework CSO Civil Society Organization DPO Development Policy Operation EAP East Asia and Pacific FCV Fragility, Conflict, and Violence GBV Gender-Based Violence GIL Gender Innovation Labs GSIP Gender Strategy Implementation Plan IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development IDA International Development Association IFC International Finance Corporation LAC Latin America and the Caribbean MENA Middle East and North Africa MIGA Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency SAR South Asia Region SEA/SH Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and Sexual Harassment SRHR Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights STEM Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math UFGE Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality UN United Nations We-Fi Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative WBG World Bank Group WSME Women-Owned Small and Medium Enterprises WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ix OVERVIEW Gender equality is an urgent imperative. broad-based commitment. Results improve when Crises, conflict, and global trends such as approaches are comprehensive—with reforms climate change, natural resource scarcity and and investments addressing multiple constraints technological transitions exacerbate inequalities. simultaneously—and when they are supported by In many societies, reversals and backlash against collective action. gender equality as well as sluggish economic growth and government fiscal and debt burdens Consistent with the World Bank Group’s mission, compound the challenge. Progress on gender the 2024–2030 Gender Strategy expresses equality Sustainable Development Goal 5 is the bold ambition to accelerate gender equality worryingly off-track. to end poverty on a livable planet. It proposes to engage differently, building on the lessons Gender equality for all people is a matter of from the 2016–2023 Gender Strategy, and on fairness and justice. Gender equality is a principle feedback from a wide range of stakeholders. of international law recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In its ambition, the new strategy prioritizes three strategic objectives: end gender-based It is also essential for development. Growing violence and elevate human capital, expand and evidence shows how removing gender barriers enable economic opportunities, and engage unlocks economic productivity, reduces poverty, women as leaders. The strategic objectives will deepens social cohesion, and enhances well- be measured by six outcomes (Figure 1) that being and prosperity for current and future reflect both the intrinsic value of gender equality generations. Women’s participation and and its contribution to poverty reduction and leadership improves the management of natural development. resources, strengthens resilience, and makes economies more competitive. The strategy acknowledges the centrality of investing in women and girls while recognizing Yet, experience shows that achieving gender the disadvantages facing men and boys and equality is uniquely challenging and complex. the vulnerabilities arising from the intersection It calls for changes spanning country laws of gender with poverty, ethnicity, disability, and policies, norms, public and private sector and other characteristics. It reaffirms the World activities, and personal lives. Such changes Bank Group’s commitment to nondiscrimination, are unachievable without a sustained and inclusion, and equality of opportunity, FIGURE 1  Strategic Objectives and Outcomes of the 2024–2030 Gender Strategy STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES  OUTCOMES END GENDER BASED VIOLENCE 1: Progress in ending all forms of gender-based violence AND ELEVATE HUMAN CAPITAL 2: Stronger and more resilient human capital 3: More and better jobs, including jobs of the future EXPAND AND ENABLE 4: Greater ownership and use of economic assets ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES 5: Wider access to and use of enabling services ENGAGE WOMEN AS LEADERS 6: Advances in women’s participation in decision-making WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 x OVERVIEW encompassing sexual and gender minorities. face heterogeneous challenges and have The strategy will be tailored to specific contexts, differences in policies and legal frameworks. such as fragility, and to the needs of specific Country Partnership Frameworks will elevate groups, such as adolescent girls. It will involve gender equality outcomes in synergy with other men and boys to address issues specific to them development priorities, engage more actors in and issues that impede gender equality. the gender space, and advance gender equality as One World Bank Group across public and In its conceptual framework, the strategy private sectors. identifies innovation, financing, and collective action as drivers of change toward gender The World Bank Group will mobilize concerted equality (Figure 2). Innovation promotes reforms action through data, knowledge and advocacy and programs based on data, evidence, with partners including those in civil society technology, and behavioral insights, among to facilitate reforms and implementation. It will others, as well as learning from and refining local assist clients to address structural limitations approaches. Financing involves securing and and advance gender equality outcomes allocating public and private sector resources through institutional and policy reforms and while distinguishing the different roles of public programs at scale. To expand and sustain such and private finance for investments in people, advances, the World Bank Group will help secure prosperity, and a livable planet. Collective action public resources and mobilize private sector enlists the concerted effort of a wide range capital. More broadly, the World Bank Group’s of stakeholders and partners. The drivers of engagement across sectors will further contribute change can influence the policy arena (swaying to gender equality. formal and informal institutions and actors, while navigating their power relations) toward policies, The World Bank Group will translate its programs, practices, and behaviors that advance 2024–2030 Gender Strategy into targets and gender equality. measure progress toward gender equality outcomes. It will anchor accountability for gender The World Bank Group will implement the equality outcomes in its Scorecard and report on strategy in line with its country-led engagement progress during implementation. model, which recognizes that countries FIGURE 2  Conceptual Framework of the 2024–2030 Gender Strategy Drivers of Ch n e Ambition Innovation Fin ncin Collective Action Gender Equality to End Poverty on a Livable Planet Institutions Actors Power Rel tions Polic Aren WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 THE URGENCY AND FUNDAMENTALITY OF GENDER EQUALITY 02 THE URGENCY AND FUNDAMENTALITY OF GENDER EQUALITY 1. Progress toward gender equality is reforms, access to assets, and financial inclusion essential, urgent, and challenging.1 The world have advanced, albeit slowly. is experiencing crises, conflicts, and megatrends with disproportionately negative impacts on 3. Gains have been uneven, with large women, girls, sexual and gender minorities, and regional variations and some reversals. other marginalized groups. The impacts of climate Two-thirds of the world’s maternal deaths occur change are profound, accentuated by gender in Western and Central Africa (AFW) and Eastern inequalities.2 The global economy is sluggish, and and Southern Africa (AFE). Girls lag boys in poverty has risen. Governments face hard choices completing secondary education in AFE and AFW, under tightening fiscal constraints, sometimes while boys are falling behind girls elsewhere.5 In cutting back expenditures on core services many countries, the Covid-19 pandemic eroded such as health and education. Gender equality human capital gains.6 as a development outcome with deep intrinsic value risks being overshadowed by crises and 4. Women’s economic prospects remain undermined by traditional power relations and constrained. According to the Women, Business backlash. At the current rate of progress, it would and the Law 2024, women around the world take more than 100 years for women to reach have only two-thirds of the legal rights of men. parity with men.3 Yet gender equality is essential In 77 countries, women are legally not allowed for development. It contributes to sustainability to work in the same jobs and industries as men, and resilience as well as to economic growth, exacerbating sectorial segregation and the productivity, and poverty reduction. gender wage gap.7 More than 1 billion women do not have access to finance, and women are Progress toward gender equality 21 percent less likely than men to use the internet.8 has been slow, uneven, and sometimes reversed 5. More-equal education has not translated into more-equal jobs. Labor force participation for the working age population has been stagnant 2. The last few decades saw some hard-won for three decades at around 53 percent for gains in gender equality. Girls’ human capital women and 80 percent for men. The largest gaps is now equivalent to or higher than boys’ in are in lower middle-income countries (Figure 90 percent of countries with sex-disaggregated 1.2) and, regionally, in the Middle East and North Human Capital Index data (Figure 1.1).4 Maternal Africa (MENA, 20 percent against 75 percent) and mortality rates have fallen, though the rate of South Asia (SAR, 30 percent against 79 percent).9 reduction has been negligible since 2016. Legal 1 Gender refers to the roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society at a given time considers appropriate for men and women, as well as encompasses the concepts of gender diversity and gender identity. (UN Women Gender Equality Glossary). 2 Fruttero et al. 2023; Deininger et al 2023. 3 The World Economic Forum 2023 Global Gender Gap Report estimates that it will take 131 years, while UN Women estimates that may take another 286 years to remove discriminatory laws and close gaps in legal protections for women and girls. 4 Human capital consists of the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate throughout their lives, enabling them to realize their potential as productive members of society. The World Bank Human Capital Index is a metric that benchmarks key components of human capital across economies: Probability of survival to age 5, Expected years of school, Harmonized test scores, Fraction of children under 5 not stunted, and Adult survival rate. 5 Data retrieved from the World Bank Gender Data Portal: Maternal Mortality and Completion of Secondary Education 6 Schady et al. 2023. 7 World Bank 2024. 8 Iglesias 2020. 9 Pimkina and de La Flor 2020 and International Labour Organization retrieved from World Bank Gender Data Portal: Labor force participation. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 03 FIGURE 1.1  Girls-to-Boys Ratio for Human Capital Index and Its Components, 2020 Human Capital Index Probability of survival to age 5 Expected years of school Harmonized test scores Fraction of children under 5 not stunted Adult survival rate 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Girls-to-boys ratio, circa 2020 Source: World Bank calculations based on the 2020 update of the Human Capital Index (HCI). Note: The red vertical line indicates gender parity for each component. Simple averages are computed without population weights. FIGURE 1.2  Labor Force Participation (% of Population Ages 15–64) 1991–2022 Low income Lower middle income Upper middle income 90 80 Male Male Male 70 60 Female Female 50 40 Female 30 20 10 0 00 00 00 05 05 05 20 20 20 90 90 90 10 10 10 95 95 95 15 15 15 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 19 19 19 19 19 19 High income World 90 80 70 Male Male 60 Female 50 Female 40 30 20 10 0 00 00 05 05 20 20 90 90 10 10 95 95 15 15 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 19 19 19 19 Source: International Labour Organization (ILO). Data retrieved from World Bank Gender Data Portal. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 04 THE URGENCY AND FUNDAMENTALITY OF GENDER EQUALITY 6. Youth unemployment is higher among 15–35 percent less output per unit of land than women than among men (Figure 1.3), men farmers. especially in MENA.10 Women in the labor force are half as likely as men to have full-time 7. Women’s and girls’ time poverty limits wage jobs, their jobs tend to be more informal their choices. Women’s disproportionate and vulnerable, and they earn 77 cents for every burden of care and household work has wide- dollar that men earn.11 Better paying occupations ranging consequences.14 In the aftermath of tend to be dominated by men.12 Women farmers the Covid-19 pandemic, partly due to women’s account for 36 percent of the agricultural labor disproportionate care15 responsibilities, rates of force in developing countries but fewer than employment loss were higher for women than 15 percent of agricultural landholders.13 With less men in all regions, with the largest gaps in MENA access to information, credit, inputs, cash crop and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). production, and farmers groups, they produce Gender gaps in income loss were highest in AFE, AFW, and East Asia and the Pacific (EAP).16 FIGURE 1.3  Youth Unemployment, By Gender and Country Income Group, 1991–2022 Low income Lower middle income Upper middle income 24 22 20 Female 18 Female 16 Male Male 14 12 Female 10 Male 8 6 4 2 0 00 00 00 05 05 05 20 20 20 90 90 90 10 10 10 95 95 95 15 15 15 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 19 19 19 19 19 19 High income World 24 22 20 18 Female 16 14 Male Female 12 10 Male 8 6 4 2 0 00 00 05 05 20 20 90 90 10 10 95 95 15 15 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 19 19 19 19 Source: International Labour Organization (ILO). Data retrieved from World Bank Gender Data Portal. 10 Data retrieved from the World Bank Gender Data Portal: Youth Unemployment. 11 Lo Bue et al. 2022. 12 World Bank 2022. 13 FAO 2023. 14 The UN High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment identified seven constraints, UN 2018. 15 Care refers to childcare, eldercare, and care for persons with disabilities. 16 Flor et al. 2022. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 05 8. The gender gap is stark in business human development and economic outcomes ownership and leadership. The global share for survivors and their children. Surveys report of formal firms with majority woman ownership sexual harassment in transport, public spaces, or a woman as top manager is barely 25 percent, and the workplace as a deterrent to women’s and the share of women-led businesses declines economic participation.22 In the workplace, GBV is steeply with firm size. Women continue to be associated with reduced productivity, increased underrepresented in leadership positions; for presenteeism23 and absenteeism, and higher instance, in the private sector women make employee turnover. up only 20 percent of corporate board seats, 7 percent of board chairs, 5 percent of chief 10. Crises, fragility, and global trends such executive officers, and 16 percent of chief as climate change and natural resource financial officers.17 Gender gaps reduce firm scarcity exacerbate gender inequalities. productivity, performance, and profits and Water scarcity deepens women’s and girls’ time can be attributed to a range of constraints— poverty. Disadvantages in access to jobs, assets including skills, networks, and access to finance, and information reduce women’s adaptive capacity, technology, and markets—that affect women’s and their participation in mitigation solutions and decision to become entrepreneurs, their sectoral disaster preparedness.24 Fragility, conflict, and choices, and their business investments.18 violence (FCV) settings often entrench and amplify During the Covid-19 pandemic, women-owned harmful gender norms and practices due to poorly businesses faced larger revenue declines and functioning institutions, weak rule of law, and higher closure rates than men-owned firms.19 market failures, accompanied by a fraying social fabric. FCV settings are correlated with high gender 9. Gender-based violence (GBV) is the inequality and GBV. Forced displacement amplifies most egregious manifestation of gender GBV as well as gender barriers to economic inequality and an alarming challenge to opportunities, sexual and reproductive health global public health, human rights, and and rights (SRHR), social protection, health, and development. The World Health Organization education.25 estimates that one woman in three worldwide experiences physical or sexual violence by an 11. In some contexts, men and boys are intimate partner or sexual violence by a non- worse off. Rapid economic transformations partner.20 Online abuse is even more prevalent, have translated into job losses in sectors such affecting 85 percent of women and girls globally. as manufacturing and mining that traditionally Child and forced marriage, sexual exploitation employ predominantly men, affecting their and harassment, intimate partner violence, and incomes and identity. “Deaths of despair” have female genital mutilation remain widespread. been pronounced among men in response to The Covid-19 pandemic drove-up rates of social dislocations wrought by rapid economic GBV.21 GBV has wide repercussions, including change; in addition, societal expectations of deteriorating physical and mental health, reduced masculinity often discourage boys from seeking access to education and jobs, and worse support, which can contribute to higher rates of 17 Deloitte 2022. 18 Ubfal 2023, Halim et al. 2023a. 19 Goldstein et al. 2022. 20 WHO 2021. 21 UN Women 2021. 22 UN Women 2021; EBRD, CDC, and IFC 2020. 23 Workers who are physically at work but are not fully functioning and may not be able to fully perform their duties. 24 Deininger et al 2023. 25 World Bank 2020a. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 06 THE URGENCY AND FUNDAMENTALITY OF GENDER EQUALITY mental health issues, such as depression and Gender Social Norms Index underscores that suicide.26 Men and boys also have a higher risk 91 percent of men and 86 percent of women of conflict-related death and injury, and face exhibit at least one bias against gender equality.29 difficulties with social and economic reintegration The Gallup World Poll, covering 60 countries after conflict. representing 80 percent of the world population, shows that gender stereotyping is prevalent, and 12. Sexual and gender minorities are often that people underestimate support for gender disadvantaged. They tend to face stigma, equal policies in high inequality countries due to violence, and discriminatory laws, policies, and misperceptions of gender norms. A sizable share practices. In many countries, sexual and gender of respondents in the Pew Research Center 2019 minorities are marginalized and constrained and Global Attitudes Survey argued for preferential struggle to access essential services including treatment of men when jobs are scarce.30 education, healthcare, social protection, and Furthermore, a global study by Equimundo housing—with negative consequences for reveals that young men hold increasingly more society.27 They are also often held to repressive restrictive views.31 Some countries have reversed prevailing gender norms and face punishment, laws and policies supporting the rights of violence, and other forms of exclusion when they women,32 including SRHR. do not conform. Gender equality is central to 13. Gender inequality tends to be aggravated by other characteristics. ending poverty on a livable planet The intersection of gender with characteristics such as poverty, disability, and sometimes 15. Gender equality is integral to poverty ethnicity and religion, can heighten vulnerability. reduction and development. Women’s Indigenous people, refugees and internally empowerment enhances equality and addresses displaced individuals are also often vulnerable. many dimensions of poverty, including income For example, only one-quarter of economies and nutrition security. Within households, gender worldwide explicitly recognize the rights of equality improves choices, leading to better child women with disabilities,28 and almost three- development outcomes, which in turn reduces quarters of girls out of school belong to an ethnic the intergenerational transmission of poverty.33 minority. Gender equality, by definition, entails Ignoring the connections between poverty and ensuring that all people, no matter their gender gender constraints can undermine poverty identity and characteristics, have equal rights and reduction efforts. Gender equality and women’s opportunities. participation in decision-making contribute to more inclusive institutions and pro-poor policy 14. Unequal social norms as well as choices.34 Gender equality is a moral imperative, stereotypes and biases about gender roles a well-established principle of international law persist, reinforcing structural inequalities. recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human The United Nations Development Programme’s Rights, and essential for positive development 26 Case and Deaton 2020; King et al 2022. 27 Badgett 2020. 28 Braunmiller and Dry 2022. 29 UNDP 2020. 30 Horowitz and Fetterolf 2020. 31 Equimundo 2022. 32 World Bank 2023c and World Bank 2024. 33 Duflo 2003; Tommasi 2019. 34 Beaman et al. 2012; Pande 2020. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 07 outcomes. Gender equality and women’s on equity than those without.40 Increasingly, empowerment are enshrined as Sustainable companies realize that they can expand market Development Goal 5 and in the Convention on coverage, enhance productivity, and boost the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination profits by engaging women as business leaders, Against Women. employees, entrepreneurs, customers, and community stakeholders. Bank loan portfolios for 16. Gender equality advances inclusive women-owned small and medium enterprises economic growth and productivity. The (WSMEs) have consistently lower shares of International Monetary Fund acknowledges the nonperforming loans.41 growth-driving power of enhancing women’s labor force participation, talent allocation, wages, 18. Women are essential to forging a representation, and leadership.35 Long-run income more sustainable and resilient future. This per capita would be almost 20 percent higher if includes creating and adopting climate change women were employed at the same rate as men.36 solutions on farms, in businesses, and at home, Productivity increases with rising equality in and preserving natural assets.42 Women’s access to assets (such as land, finance, housing, participation in decision-making strengthens and technology), productive jobs, and high community services and resilience to natural value-added product markets.37 Conversely, GBV disasters. Engaging women in the preparation reduces economic activity: a 1 percentage point of contingency and emergency plans not only increase in the share of women experiencing saves lives but can also transform community violence can reduce economic activity by up to gender dynamics.43 Gender diversity in private 8 percent.38 Indirectly, growth and productivity sector positions is linked to sustainability. For also gain from the provision of enabling example, banks with more gender-diverse boards services, such as safe transport and affordable provide more credit to greener companies and quality care, and from gender equitable norms, lend less to firms with high pollution intensity.44 A such as unbiased academic and economic 1 percent increase in women managers in 2000 listed companies across 24 countries led to a choices and the division of care and household 0.5 percent decrease in carbon emissions.45 responsibilities. 17. The business case for gender equality is Lessons learned reveal the need strong. Enhancing gender equality and women’s to engage differently to advance economic contribution can boost companies’ competitiveness, fortify supply chains, improve gender equality human capital, and help build an enabling business environment.39 Companies with gender- 19. Lessons from global experience call for balanced teams have generated higher returns engaging differently. Four lessons stand out.46 35 IMF 2022. 36 Pennings 2022. 37 Lee 2021. 38 IMF 2022. 39 IFC 2017. 40 IFC 2019. 41 IFC 2023a. 42 ILO 2015, United Nations 2022. 43 Erman et al. 2021. 44 Gambacorta et al. 2022. 45 Altunbas et al. 2021. 46 See World Bank 2023c and IFC 2023b. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 08 THE URGENCY AND FUNDAMENTALITY OF GENDER EQUALITY 20. First, gender equality is unachievable constraints simultaneously, and a concerted without a sustained and broad-based effort to expand innovations that work. commitment. Experience shows that achieving Narrow interventions and pilots cannot deliver gender equality is uniquely challenging and transformational impact without client ownership, complex. It calls for changes spanning laws and financing, and implementation through national policies, behaviors and norms, public and private systems. Gender analysis helps prioritize entry sector activities, and personal lives. History reveals points, inform actions to address barriers, and guide that gender equality is socially fraught, politically institutional and policy reforms. Binding constraints contentious, and vulnerable to reversals even vary, and actions need to be coordinated across the where conditions seem most favorable. Scores public and private sectors, but also tailored to be on the Glass Ceiling Index measuring women’s effective in different settings. Working with a wide leadership in politics and business have declined range of partners and stakeholders helps to scale over the past six years in Organization for Economic innovation and implement reforms. Co-operation and Development countries. Formalizing gender equality has been an aspiration 23. Fourth, results improve when approaches in some countries for more than 200 years, yet this are comprehensive, including social and aspiration remains unrealized. behavioral change. Gender equality outcomes are influenced by prevailing norms and involve 21. Second, data and knowledge drive solu- changes in attitudes and behaviors. Research tions. The 2012 World Development Report on shows that reflecting behavioral insights in policy Gender Equality and Development spurred invest- implementation can yield better results. Involving ments to examine the root causes and implications men and boys and reframing their perceptions can of gender inequality and to find solutions. Recent foster their support and buy-in for gender equality. evidence reveals how weak legal rights, biased pol- Coalitions of champions and community-based icies, poor infrastructure and services, unpaid work, approaches can effectively promote behavioral and deeply held gender norms and mindsets con- changes and alignment toward new norms and tribute to gender inequality. Rigorous impact eval- practices that improve gender equality outcomes. uations and research yield innovations to address inequalities. Such innovations include programs that 24. The WBG 2024–2030 Gender Strategy provide women and girls with digital identification responds to the urgency, fundamentality cards, extend girls’ education, equip girls with socio- and complexity of achieving gender equality. emotional and life-skills, employ women as agricul- Consistent with the WBG’s new mission, it tural extension agents, improve women’s livelihoods expresses the ambition to accelerate gender by bundling cash transfers with information and equality to end poverty on a livable planet. services, and involve schools and communities in Drawing on recent evidence and lessons, as well ending harmful practices such as child marriage and as extensive consultations with a broad range adolescent pregnancy. In middle income countries, of stakeholders (Box 1.1), the strategy highlights examples include expanding women’s participa- innovation, financing, and collective action as tion in science, technology, engineering, and math drivers of change (Section 2). It prioritizes objectives (STEM) education and jobs; creating safe, respectful, to end gender-based violence and elevate human and inclusive workplaces; assisting women-led busi- capital, expand and enable economic opportunities, nesses to access finance and markets; and expand- and engage women as leaders (Section 3). The ing access to quality affordable care services. WBG will implement the strategy in line with its country-led engagement model and comparative 22. Third, accelerating gender equality advantage, working as one World Bank Group requires addressing multiple gender (Section 4). WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 09 Box 1.1  Incorporating feedback from consultations The World Bank Group (WBG) held face-to-face on-demand consultations in 28 countries and engaged with representatives of 600 entities and more than 110 countries, including civil society organizations (CSOs), government representatives, parliamentarians, philanthropies, academia, private sector, feminist organizations, indigenous groups, UN agencies, multilateral development banks, and other development partners. The WBG heard from thousands of people through in-person and virtual dialogues, an online survey, written inputs, and global forums. The valuable input is reflected in this strategy, and is summarized below: • The ambition: Endorsed the proposed strategic objectives, including the urgency to address gender-based violence, expand care services, promote women’s and girls’ leadership, and address persistent barriers to women’s productive economic participation. • Drivers of change: Welcomed the emphasis on collective action, particularly on engaging civil society and men and boys, alongside financing and innovation, and the focus on behavioral and norms interventions. Influencing social norms for lasting outcomes was recognized as important but challenging. • Climate change and technology: Highlighted climate change as a crosscutting concern, and the need to balance the perils of unregulated technology with its transformative potential. The strategy endorses the priority of a livable planet and promotes needed investments in human capital and inclusion (including digital), institutional reforms, and women’s leadership. • The essential role of government: Raised concerns about structural limitations to gender equality, and the impact of fiscal constraints (often linked to debt burdens) on public service delivery. The strategy promotes institutional and policy reforms to address the structural limitations driving gender inequalities. It supports public sector financing for core services. It bolsters the WBG’s support to clients to advance gender equality through fiscal policy, sector strategies and budget management. • Diverse contexts and populations: Voiced demands to adapt the strategy to contexts, notably fragility, conflict, and violence settings, and to populations, especially adolescents and vulnerable groups. Alongside broad support for expanding diversity, equity and inclusion, stakeholders noted the risk of backlash against private and public sector efforts to advance these principles. The strategy aims at gender equality for all, with a country-led approach, tailored to local contexts and population groups. • Working with partners to strengthen effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability: Called for widening collaboration, especially with civil society, knowledge sharing, and implementation with accountability. Several stakeholders offered partnerships for financing, data generation and use, and strengthening social protection. The strategy promotes wider global, regional, and local stakeholder engagement and partnerships to drive change. • Implementation, data, transparency, and results: Underscored WBG’s contributions to gender data, knowledge for impact, financing, and convening. Stakeholders asked how the strategy will be operationalized, how implementation will be monitored and how impact will be measured. The strategy includes actions to support implementation and a results framework, anchored in the WBG Scorecard. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 10 THE URGENCY AND FUNDAMENTALITY OF GENDER EQUALITY CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 11 25. The WBG 2024–30 Gender Strategy The policy arena shapes gender introduces a new conceptual framework reflecting evidence and lessons.47 The equality outcomes framework portrays gender equality outcomes as the product of drivers of change mediated 27. Gender equality outcomes are mediated through the policy arena and factors beyond through the policy arena. The policy arena it. The WBG’s engagement is one of many (Box 2.1) is the space where actors and interacting forces shaping gender equality. As stakeholders interact and negotiate agreements such, the policy arena and drivers of change are that can eventually lead to changes in (or best understood as means by which the WBG affirm prevailing) institutions, laws, policies, can assess the additionality of its activities and and practices. Its structures and actors shape effectively extend partnerships and stakeholder outcomes, even as power relations within and engagement to facilitate sustained broad change. beyond its boundaries subject it to contestation. Analyzing the policy arena can yield actionable 26. The framework tackles the complexity insights about complex issues such as how of advancing gender equality. Since gender formal and informal institutions mold gender equality involves intricate, interrelated, and discrimination, how more entrenched forms of sometimes contentious issues, evidence-based gender discrimination actively or passively resist approaches and financing are required for better efforts to change them, and how power relations outcomes. Evidence enhances the quality of reflect laws (or their absence) on the rights project implementation and promotes more of women, such as women’s representation effective incremental change toward gender in decision-making, or outlawing gender equality. That said, gender equality outcomes can discrimination in employment, access to credit, be accelerated with a better understanding of and inheritance of family property. three conditions: how social norms and mindsets, mediated through formal and informal institutions, 28. Advancing gender equality requires shape everyday expectations, priorities, and understanding and influencing the practices; how the nature and extent of power policy arena. This includes navigating power relationships can result variously in support asymmetries across institutions and actors and for, indifference to, or hostility toward gender understanding widely held beliefs by actors in equality; and how the array of actors and forces the policy arena about gender-based power that constitute the broader institutional and relations. Achieving gender equality requires market contexts in which the WBG operates working across political, economic, and social affects approaches and outcomes. institutions—formal, traditional, and informal. This may imply expanding participation in decision-making and shifting the incentives and mindsets of policymakers and other formal and informal actors. 47 The Framework reflects analyses and experience from the implementation of the 2016–2023 Gender Strategy. It builds on WDR 2012: Gender Equality and Development (World Bank 2012) and WDR 2017: Governance and the Law (World Bank 2017b), which first deployed the concept of a “policy arena” in the World Bank. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 12 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Box 2.1  The policy arena Numerous institutions, actors, and power relations make up the policy arena and are shaped by the decisions emerging from it. The tasks and challenges facing countries in the policy arena may change during the transition from low to middle to high income. They may also differ in contexts of fragility, conflict, and violence, where the policy arena might be illegitimate, underfunded, lack implementation capability, or barely exist. Creating and sustaining a credible policy arena is essential in realizing equitable development outcomes. Therefore, even in deeply challenging circumstances, gender equality must be protected and promoted. The policy arena for gender equality outcomes has three dimensions: Institutions: Formal bodies—such as parliaments, courts, public sector agencies, and private sector institutions—and the corresponding laws, rules, and social practices guiding their interaction and imbuing them with the legitimacy to make and enforce policy, are a key force. When institutions are weak, compromised, or corrupt, they undermine efforts to promote gender equality. Gender outcomes are also shaped by informal social institutions—prevailing norms and attitudes based on gender. Conflict may ensue when formal and informal institutions fail to align, as when a court’s decisions are at odds with public opinion. Actors: Political parties, companies, professional associations, civil society, social movements, online and traditional media, people in positions of influence, and other formal and informal actors exert their influence individually and collectively. The size, composition, relative influence, and shared interests of each person or group, their primary mode of engagement with others, and the rules enabling or constraining their behavior all shape how they interact with the insti- tutions and enhance or constrain gender equality outcomes. For example, business associations driven by profit, may call for government policies and institutional changes to boost women’s mobility, safety, and skills. Programs to engage women as leaders may alter the range of actors, their interests, and their policy priorities. Some actors may foment backlash against gender equality. National policy arenas may thus become a venue for heated contestation over women’s rights and the status of sexual and gender minorities. Power relations: How the social contract binds citizens and the state (such as respective rights and responsibilities, grievance and redress mechanisms, and strength of legitimacy accorded to dominant parties by non-dominant parties and vice versa) determines how public and private sectors interact and the role and influence of external groups and multilateral agencies. Progress toward gender equality may reallocate power among actors, and thus alter how policies are determined, implemented, and assessed. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 13 29. In the policy arena, policies and such institutional and policy changes may lead to practices deployed to reach gender equality resistance or active opposition. outcomes are shaped by institutions, including laws, regulations, norms, and 31. Development outcomes, including collective mindsets related to gender. These gender equality, are related to factors both influences include laws defining who can marry within and beyond the policy arena. These whom and at what age, and whether divorce is include a combination of exogenous forces and acceptable; who can assume leadership roles; domestic policies, market structures, political whether women can or should participate in the priorities, legal systems, social practices, and formal labor market; the sectors and occupations intrahousehold relations. Development outcomes in which women are expected to work; whether reflect not only which policies and practices are women have equal access to land, capital, and deployed but also how they are implemented, other assets; the basis of ritual purity; inheritance and whether they acquire local legitimacy and laws; societal (including religious) expectations become routinized into everyday life. Local regarding family size, public visibility, and legitimacy is vital for navigating issues entailing comportment; and whether GBV is accepted. changes in established behavior and for securing These influences interact to create systemic broad support for such changes. biases that impede access to opportunities for women and sexual and gender minorities. Drivers of change for gender 30. Gender equality outcomes feed back equality: Innovation, financing, into the policy arena. Women’s economic empowerment, for example, indirectly influences and collective action institutions, actors, and power relations. This may create a virtuous cycle. But the very exercise 32. Based on lessons and evidence, the of hard-won legal rights and social gains by conceptual framework of the 2024–2030 women and gender minorities may elicit push- Gender Strategy (Figure 2.1) extends and back from those who feel threatened by the consolidates earlier approaches by focusing changes. Perceptions of illegitimacy or loss (as on three drivers of change: innovation, in men’s income and identity) associated with financing, and collective action. Innovation FIGURE 2.1  Conceptual Framework of the 2024–2030 Gender Strategy Drivers of Ch n e Ambition Innovation Fin ncin Collective Action Gender Equ lit to End Pov rt on Liv bl Pl n t Institutions Actors Power Rel tions Polic Aren WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 14 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK refers to promoting solutions based on data, Innovative economic inclusion programs combine evidence, digital tools, and behavioral insights cash and complementary interventions, such as among others, as well as learning from and asset transfers; training; coaching; programs to refining solutions initiated by local leaders, support financial inclusion; care; livelihood, and businesses, and communities. Financing involves economic opportunity; and value chain solutions. securing and allocating resources in and through the public and private sectors while distinguishing 35. Effective innovations often include the different roles of public and private finance behavioral interventions that are context- for investments in people, shared prosperity, appropriate to mobilize action by key and a livable planet. Collective action represents actors. Framing how a choice is presented— concerted efforts of public and private sector for example, in terms of gains or losses, and actors, community groups, civil society, global how their distribution could alter the choice advocacy groups, and international agencies, made—helps shape a wider discourse and a among others, toward better gender equality mutual understanding of the impact of gender outcomes. inequalities. Framing can foster a shared vision of pathways to greater gender equality and 33. The public and private sectors can empowerment. It can reflect a rights-based, leverage their mandates and comparative economic, or business case approach, and advantage to varying degrees across the can reveal context-specific entry points that policy arena and drivers of change. Where the illustrate the positive impact of gender equality private sector can shift market incentives toward on challenges such as food security and greater inclusion and equality, the public sector climate change. Behavioral interventions can can transform the structural conditions that drive address mental models or work around them, inequality. Coordinated approaches across the preventing biases and stereotypes from muting public and private sectors can expand women’s policy impacts. Promoting joint land ownership agency to influence their normative reality. by married couples, for example, has included simple changes in forms (such as mandating the 34. Innovation can improve policies and names of both husband and wife in Ethiopia), practices related to gender equality. Innovation monetary incentives (such as lottery entry in involves the use of data, technology, global and Côte d’Ivoire) and outreach to both husbands local knowledge, and learning to develop policy and wives (such as a video in Uganda and technical solutions. Outcomes improve when expounding the benefits of adding the wife solutions are tested and flexibly adapted by front- to a land title as joint owner). line implementers. Advances in data, knowledge, and learning are a valuable global public good 36. Advancing gender equality requires that has helped fine-tune operational approaches mobilizing and allocating resources across countries. The availability of gender data effectively in the public and private sectors. helps document the nature and extent of gender Integrating gender analysis in fiscal policy, budget inequalities and respond more constructively. management, and procurement systems can Understanding and measuring not only formal enhance the allocation of public resources and barriers but also informal institutional barriers, address structural barriers to gender equality. such as harmful social norms and mental models, External resources can motivate clients to adopt enhances policies and interventions. Recent better policies and programs and to provide examples of innovative solutions include digital evidence of the impacts. The International mobile tools, digital identification cards, and other Development Association (IDA) supports closing technology-enabled solutions and platforms. gender gaps through reforming fiscal policies WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 15 and budgets, removing discriminatory tax Advancing Sustainability for technical assistance legislations, and enhancing the effectiveness of to close gender gaps and address GBV risks. public spending. The Global Financing Facility is improving health outcomes for women, children, 37. Collective action engages actors to and adolescents. The International Finance better align formal institutions, policies, Corporation (IFC) catalyzes funds for high- attitudes, norms, and practices. Coalitions impact private sector investments that benefit can include actors across the public and private women entrepreneurs through the Women sectors and civil society who represent the Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We Fi), and dynamics and interests within the policy arena other financingfacilities such as the Women related to specific gender equality outcomes. Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility (Box 2.2). Collective action can be spurred by government, Public and private investors are expanding as for family planning in Bangladesh (Box 2.3) gender-smart financing to include blended and the recent Waii (Awareness) in Egypt, finance and sustainability-linked finance.48 The coordinating actions by social workers and local Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) religious leaders to alter challenging gender has mobilized funds through the Trust Fund for norms, such as those related to GBV. Box 2.2  A gender bond supports women-owned businesses in Brazil The IFC subscribed $200 million in a gender bond to Itaú Unibanco to support the bank’s lending program to women-owned small and medium enterprises (WSMEs) in Brazil, with parts of the proceeds focused on businesses in underserved regions of the North and Northeast. This signing marked the 10-year anniversary of Itaú Mulher Empreendedora, a capacity building program created by IFC and Itaú, to inspire, connect, and enable women entrepreneurs in their professional journeys. Through this long-term investment-advisory partnership with the bank (two investments in 2013 and 2023 and four continuous advisory engagements), the program has reached more than 910,000 women entrepreneurs, leading to a 20–30 percent increase of female participation in the bank’s portfolio, 1,028 percent growth in loans to WSMEs, 4 percent higher credit scores, 31.5 percent higher profitability for female program participants, and an 18 percent increase in total credit limits for program participants to continue growing their businesses. 48 Sustainability-linked finance mobilizes capital to support the borrower’s improved environmental, social, and governance performance, including efforts to improve gender equality. Sustainability-linked loans, for example, include targets on gender-related outcomes, such as women in management or contracts to women-owned firms in the supply chain. Once targets are met, borrowers can qualify for a pre-determined reduction in interest rates. Blended finance can cover the cost of the reduction. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 16 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Box 2.3  How women’s empowerment drove Bangladesh’s human, social, and economic development From 1970 to 2022, Bangladesh reduced its total fertility rate from seven births per woman to two and cut under-five mortality by two-thirds. The female literacy rate quadrupled, female labor force participation doubled, and income per capita more than tripled. A recent case study attributes these successes to three main factors: • Innovations promoting women’s empowerment for poverty reduction and economic growth. These include ensuring women’s access to economic and social capital through microfinance and economic development programs targeting ultra-poor women and mobilizing women in groups and networks, thereby amplifying their voice and agency at the grassroots level with the support of development actors and civil society organizations. • Policies and programs, including the family planning programs of the 1970s, compulsory free female education programs of the 1980s and 1990s, and the creation of export-oriented garment sector jobs during 1985–2015. • Engagement of diverse stakeholders. Local political and community leaders and the religious establishment forged a broad effort influencing collective mindsets and norms in communities. The massive mobilization and deployment of married, salaried female frontline health workers and teachers—recruited from the communities in which they lived and enjoyed trust—gave them a professional identity and authority, and in doing so, made women’s mobility and work more socially acceptable. In a virtuous circle, women’s empowerment is confronting such remaining challenges as low- quality jobs, child marriage, and gender-based violence. But sustaining positive changes requires continuous effort. Source: World Bank (2020). 38. In Niger, human capital investments and Women’s Association (a trade union of poor policy actions that support legal reforms self-employed women workers in the informal to end child marriage are complemented by sector) in India, or through the private sector, as partnerships with community influencers in Fiji (see Box 2.4). Collective action can create to shift norms (Box 2.4). Collective action can an enabling environment for women to take also be bottom-up, initiated through collective advantage of opportunities. Involving men and bargaining, feminist movements, and women’s boys in collective action has multiple benefits, rights organizations, or others with national or including changing attitudes about gender international support, as in the Self-Employed equality and addressing harmful masculinity.49 49 Casey, et al. 2018. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 17 Box 2.4  Collective action to empower women in the Sahel, Niger, and Fiji The Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend project seeks to empower women and adolescent girls in Sub Saharan Africa. It has been testing, iterating, and replicating innovations such as creating safe spaces for adolescent girls, promoting their life skills and entrepreneurial mindsets, supporting their access to menstrual hygiene and reproductive health services, and engaging husbands and “future husbands” on issues such as SRHR. Framing narratives included publicizing the contributions of women’s and girls’ empowerment to the demographic dividend, to community well-being, and to human capital. The project engages a range of development partners and mobilizes local religious leaders, teachers, midwives, policymakers, and influencers to support a shift in mindsets and norms. In Niger, World Bank analysis revealed how gender norms, high rates of child marriage, low educational attainment for girls, and limited access to reproductive health services contribute to Niger’s high fertility rate and restricted economic opportunities for young women. These findings advanced the policy dialogue and partnerships, involving community influencers and local leaders who enforce existing norms. Reforms included the establishment of local and national structures and plans to discourage child marriage, enhance access for adolescent girls to SRHR services, and lift restrictions on the education of married or pregnant girls. The broad coalition built through these efforts helped spur an ambitious, 15-year multiphase agreement with the World Bank and the Global Financing Facility to scale reform implementation across Niger. In Fiji, the IFC worked with partners to promote a high-quality, accessible, and inclusive childcare market to empower women. IFC research found that businesses and the public sector were losing 12.7 working days a year per employee due to the responsibilities of working parents. In response, IFC created Rakorako, a peer learning platform to support 28 Fijian organizations in enhancing policies, attitudes, and practices for employer-supported childcare. In response to the study’s findings, the Government of Fiji established the Early Childhood Care and Education Taskforce, which drafted and subsequently approved Fiji’s first Early Childhood Care Services Policy Framework with IFC support. 39. The conceptual framework informs combinations of approaches and factors can WBG efforts to explore pathways to gender influence outcomes in local contexts, including equality in different contexts. It creates space FCV settings, offering insights from subnational for local initiatives in tailoring solutions, adopting variations in outcomes.50 The policy arena and market initiatives, implementing policy, and drivers of change serve as lenses through which learning lessons from monitoring and evaluation to assess contributions and to widen partnerships efforts. The WBG is generating global evidence and stakeholder engagements. to inform solutions and reveal how different 50 Brixi, et al. 2015, and World Bank 2023a. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES 3. STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 19 40. The 2024–2030 gender strategy and solutions proposed in this section build advances a bold ambition to accelerate on evidence and good practices summarized gender equality for all to end poverty on in the accompanying Thematic Policy Notes a livable planet. For the WBG to maximize its and Causal Evidence Briefs, and on lessons impact, the strategy prioritizes three strategic from implementing the 2016-2023 Gender objectives: end gender-based violence and Strategy.51 Applying lessons from global elevate human capital, expand and enable experience along with local knowledge, the economic opportunities, and engage women as WBG will help clients develop solutions, using leaders (Figure 3.1). Each strategic objective will the conceptual framework to find pathways and be measured by specific outcomes. foster partnerships toward better gender equality outcomes.52 41. The strategic objectives and outcomes reflect both the intrinsic value of gender 43. The WBG will promote coordinated equality and its contribution to development actions across the public and private outcomes. They prioritize foundational well- sectors as One WBG to propel a virtuous being, economic participation, and leadership. cycle towards gender equality. Such actions Compared with the four pillars of the 2016–2023 can, for example, address sexual harassment Gender Strategy (human endowments, jobs, asset in transport, public spaces, and workplaces, control and ownership, and voice and agency), thus enabling women and sexual and gender this strategy responds to global trends and crises minorities to access more and better jobs, by adding emphasis on ending GBV; expanding develop more profitable businesses, and care, digital, legal, and other enabling services; emerge as leaders in communities, companies, and engaging women as leaders for a sustainable, and beyond. These, in turn, can create new resilient, and inclusive future. aspirations for young women. Women’s participation in decision-making on transportation 42. To achieve the strategic objectives, policies and investments can, in turn, facilitate the WBG will leverage its comparative low-carbon transportation options and drive advantage as a learning, client-driven reforms as well as societal and normative change institution that mobilizes a concerted to end sexual harassment, which will further effort for change. The strategic objectives sustain advances towards gender equality. FIGURE 3.1  Strategic Objectives and Outcomes of the 2024–2030 Gender Strategy STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES  OUTCOMES END GENDER BASED VIOLENCE 1: Progress in ending all forms of gender-based violence AND ELEVATE HUMAN CAPITAL 2: Stronger and more resilient human capital 3: More and better jobs, including jobs of the future EXPAND AND ENABLE 4: Greater ownership and use of economic assets ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES 5: Wider access to and use of enabling services ENGAGE WOMEN AS LEADERS 6: Advances in women’s participation in decision-making 51 See World Bank Gender Equality in Development: A Ten-Year Retrospective and A Retrospective of IFC’s Implementation of the World Bank Group Gender Strategy. 52 The weight attached to each of the strategic objectives will depend on country priorities and local contexts. World Bank 2023c discusses approaches to closing gender gaps across regions over the past ten years. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 20 STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES 44. The WBG’s sectoral engagement will Foundational well-being: End also further contribute to gender equality. Investments in energy, water, sanitation, gender-based violence and transport, finance, digital, manufacturing, elevate human capital agribusiness, and other sectors, improve outcomes for women and girls. For example, 45. The first strategic objective underscores the WBG’s commitment to provide 250 million foundational well-being for all. It presents people in Africa with electricity before the end an aspiration to end all forms of GBV and build of the decade will improve women’s safety and protect human capital. The pathway to from gender-based violence, health, learning end GBV includes actions to challenge harmful and economic opportunities for women gender norms, prioritize survivor-centric services, and girls while reducing their time poverty. empower women and adolescents, and dismantle Improved water and sanitation facilities have patriarchal systems that perpetuate GBV. The similar benefits while also addressing women’s first strategic objective also emphasizes gender- and girls’ vulnerability around menstruation differentiated approaches to protecting human and reproductive health. WBG’s support across capital outcomes during crises, advancing gender the energy, social protection, and health equality through social protection systems, sectors promotes integrated clean cooking fuel improving health and education outcomes, and and technology solutions for healthier, more facilitating smooth school-to-work transitions. productive lives of women and children. The Efforts to reach this objective include challenging WBG’s support in delivering quality, affordable gender-unequal attitudes, combatting sexual health services to 1.5 billion people by 2030 harassment in all sectors, ensuring universal enhances adolescent, sexual, reproductive, health coverage and inclusive education, maternal and child health at scale as part of a breaking gender barriers in skills development. basic standard of care. Financial sector reforms To motivate clients, the WBG will use evidence of and digital transformation include tailored the macroeconomic, social, and business impact approaches to increase women’s financial (including a demographic dividend in high- literacy and digital skills, expand their use of fertility contexts) of building human capital and financial and digitally enabled services as well addressing GBV. as improve their access to capital, networks, markets and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Outcome 1: Progress in ending all Economy-wide reforms such as improved labor codes, national development plans, and forms of gender-based violence fiscal reforms that are informed by gender analysis and data change women’s economic 46. Building on emerging evidence, and job prospects. The contribution of WBG promising approaches to address engagement across sectors to gender equality GBV combine actions at the national, outcomes is illustrated below. community and business levels.53 These include developing national policy plans with adequate financing, enacting legal and regulatory reforms based on international conventions, and 53 Maruo et al. 2023. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 21 enacting anti-corruption measures to address 47. Comprehensive prevention programs extortion for sex (sextortion). In the last decade, address GBV as a structural and systemic the World Bank has dramatically increased issue. They focus on transforming patriarchal the number of operations across sectors that norms and social systems that endorse power incorporate GBV prevention and/or response dynamics detrimental to women and girls. activities drawing on global knowledge as well Education and community-based programs can as insights from wide-ranging consultations combat the root causes of GBV. Partnerships with women’s groups. Promising approaches to convey GBV prevention messages through include strengthening GBV response services, schools, youth organizations, social media, and implementing community-based prevention technology can reach children and adolescents. interventions and anti-harassment codes to These interventions are more effective when overcome harmful gender norms, and addressing combined with programs empowering women GBV in and through schools by fostering and adolescents and allowing GBV survivors to mutual respect and positive gender attitudes. gain economic independence.54 For example, In FCV settings, where GBV is acute and state education operations build safer schools while institutions and national systems are often weak, promoting gender-sensitive behaviors for long-term solutions that avoid dependence on teachers, students, and, in some cases, parents humanitarian aid can be developed through and guardians to address gender stereotypes. partnerships with nongovernmental actors and Infrastructure and urban improvement programs the private sector. In Haiti, for example, a project create safe public spaces for women and girls. promoting community-based survivor-centric Across sectors, policies and protocols address GBV services for women and girls combines sexual harassment and other forms of GBV.55 GBV risk mitigation and response services, Areas of attention also include the nexus of early socio-economic empowerment, and women’s childhood development, violence against children, and girls’ safe spaces, operated by women-led and GBV; GBV and climate change; technology- local organizations. Other examples, with support facilitated GBV; and GBV against sexual and from civil society, include the WBG’s operational gender minorities and people with disabilities. work in FCV settings such as GBV operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. IFC supports Outcome 2: Stronger and more businesses across sectors to address GBV in the workplace. Private sector approaches create resilient human capital safe, respectful workplaces by preventing and addressing workplace bullying, customer and 48. Building and protecting human capital client aggression, sexual exploitation, abuse, requires considering gender dimensions and harassment, and by holding suppliers and along the lifecycle. Achieving universal service providers accountable for their actions. coverage and building resilient service delivery Employers can also support employees facing systems in health, education, and social intimate partner or sexual violence by facilitating protection call for gender-responsive approaches. access to survivor services (as in Papua New These include engaging teachers, community Guinea), assisting with safety planning, and workers, and influencers to challenge gender- raising awareness. unequal attitudes; adopting gender-differentiated approaches for adolescents; facilitating women’s participation in STEM education and 54 Halim et al. 2023b. 55 Maruo et al. 2023. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 22 STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES occupations; targeting cash-plus and economic provide girls who never attended school with inclusion interventions to women; expanding life skills and job readiness skills. Teachers and pension coverage; and ensuring equal access community influencers can help promote positive while addressing the diverse needs of sexual norms such as persuading parents to keep girls in and gender minorities and groups marginalized school and invest in all children, preventing child by gender. Broadband internet can promote marriage, and rejecting female genital mutilation. inclusive ed-tech and health-tech solutions.56 Schools can foster the aspirations of adolescent girls through career counseling, mentorships, 49. For health outcomes, universal health socioemotional and life-skills training, safe coverage includes access to SRHR services; spaces, clubs, and role models. Schools can also psychosocial support; and GBV response engage boys on healthy relationships, positive services.57 Health systems can promote masculinity, and SRHR (as in WB education inclusive leadership and employment along with projects in Angola, Mozambique, Nigeria, and community participation to strengthen gender- Tanzania). responsive approaches in healthcare (as for noncommunicable diseases, mental health, 51. A range of programs can help develop and aging) and in pandemic preparedness and skills for better jobs. For girls and women, response. Community outreach and school-based these include digital and financial literacy, STEM interventions help achieve better health outcomes education, and skills training in traditionally male- for adolescent girls, including enhancing SRHR dominated sectors—including renewable energy, and preventing female genital mutilation. green logistics, and electric mobility.60 Work– study programs and training on socioemotional 50. For education and skills outcomes, skills alongside job-relevant skills have proven gender-responsive approaches apply from effective. Early identification of talent, higher early childhood to school entry and secondary education scholarships, mentorship and career school completion, providing individualized support can aid academic career advancement approaches that facilitate the transition from and thought leadership. Complementary school to work and support life-long learning.58 programs combine informational, aspirational, Effective measures include cash-plus support and normative elements; technical and vocational with a focus on psycho-social components, training quotas for women, particularly refugee scholarships (including for adolescent girls, women and women with disabilities; and for students belonging to sexual and gender initiatives to counter biases among employers minorities59 and other marginalized groups), safe and educators. transport, and safe and universally accessible schools with adequate toilets and menstrual 52. Social protection programs help build products. Targeted interventions, such as and protect human capital. Unemployment tutoring or remedial education, help address insurance programs and labor standards can boys’ educational underachievement as well as protect workers in the formal sector, while social support young mothers and out-of-school youth. safety nets can cover those in the informal sector, Targeted programs help bring out-of-school including old age security for women without girls back into the formal education system and a formal employment history. Cash-plus and 56 IFC 2022. 57 Al Tuwaijiri et al. 2023. 58 Murad Khan et al. 2023. 59 Cortez et al. 2023. 60 Sahay 2023. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 23 productive economic inclusion programs that Outcome 3: More and better jobs, offer psychosocial support and access to assets including jobs of the future and services can empower women, improve their livelihoods, and promote their agency and bargaining power in the household.61 Social 54. Equal access to quality employment, protection programs need to address specific entrepreneurship, and opportunities across vulnerabilities and offer adaptive support to formal and informal sectors requires cope with crises and shocks. Programs can actions on multiple fronts. Enhancing promote awareness, behavioral change, and early women’s economic participation and livelihoods response with respect to violence and SRHR demands changing restrictive laws and among others. regulations; government and employer policies, practices and services; and norms.62 Employers can oppose stereotypes and biases that restrict Economic participation: women’s access to productive jobs and that Expand and enable economic reinforce gender barriers and inequalities in the opportunities workplace; implement strategies and programs to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion; and strengthen policies and practices to recruit, retain, 53. The second strategic objective promotes and promote women employees and leaders. economic participation for all. It addresses IFC projects increasingly make the business the nexus of access to more and better jobs, case for investing in women’s employment and economic assets and “enabling services” that they leverage sustainability-linked finance tied expand economic choice in the context of climate to women in the workforce (as in Brazil, Solomon change and other challenging global trends Islands, and Türkiye). Appropriate legal, policy, and crises. In poor rural areas, for example, the and community actions protect women, sexual pathway would combine programs that support and gender minorities, people with disabilities, women’s productive economic participation and indigenous people, and other marginalized entrepreneurship and those that expand women’s groups working in precarious jobs and support ownership and control of land and smartphones, job creation in formal and informal sectors and in with access to safe transport and care services. fragile and forced displacement settings.63 These would be complemented by interventions to end GBV, enhance skills and SRHR, and 55. The transition to a low-carbon engage women in community decision-making, economy creates new opportunities. advancing synergy across the three strategic Intentional interventions and gender-inclusive objectives. Evidence on the potential productivity policies can ensure that women benefit from gains of enabling services such as safe transport, job opportunities in sectors where they are mobile internet, agriculture extension services, underrepresented such as renewable energy and childcare, can motivate private sector actors and environmental services. The development of to address gender barriers. new technologies and other innovations can be designed to overcome biases and ensure that women and sexual and gender minorities have equal access to jobs and opportunities to grow as innovators and thought leaders. 61 Halim et al. 2023c, Bastagli et al. 2016, Heinemann, Mossman et al 2024, World Bank 2024. 62 Halim et al. 2023. 63 See ILO international labor standards and other labor institutions and rights as well as the World Bank Group’s Environmental and Social Standards. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 24 STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES 56. Tailored programs in agriculture and male-dominated sectors through schools and agri-food systems enhance women’s community programs. employment, productivity, product diversification, and other livelihoods.64 Such Outcome 4: Greater ownership programs expand women farmers’ access to agricultural inputs and technology, livestock, and use of economic assets and agribusiness value chains and markets. Targeted investment, business funding, and 58. Gender equality in asset ownership support programs can generate business benefits and control requires continuing effort, throughout agricultural value chains and agro- especially for property rights, finance, processing. Leveraging digital technologies and markets, and technology. Promising incentivizing the production of higher value- approaches involve testing and seeding added crops and products can enable women innovations, mobilizing public and private sector farmers to access information and new markets. investment, and leveraging technology-enabled Technical and socioemotional skills training with opportunities. For women living in extreme good participation of female extension agents, poverty, effective interventions combine asset finance, and networking interventions can foster transfers with a bundle of interventions that diversification and facilitate market access. Social integrate financial inclusion, life skills training, and economic inclusion programs reinforced by social empowerment, and psychosocial support coaching help poor women and marginalized through coaching. groups develop productive and sustainable livelihoods in agriculture or other sectors and 59. Gender equality benefits from land improve their agency and earnings. formalization programs that provide incentives and framing for titling plots 57. Policies, programs, and investments in women’s name or joint titling.67 Legal, help women-led businesses overcome regulatory, and policy reforms need to improve gender barriers, enabling them to grow in women’s access to and productive use of number and size and improve productivity.65 land, including equal rights to marital property. Examples of interventions addressing the Women’s participation in land governance and differential constraints faced by women-led conservation—including adjudication committees, businesses include providing personal initiative dispute resolution mechanisms, land allocation training, facilitating networking, offering grants committees, and land use management to growth-oriented businesses through business structures—advances broader reforms. Policies plan competitions, improving financial, capital and programs that facilitate housing finance for and market access, providing enabling services, women can increase household income and and using sex-disaggregated data and training to security, access to land for forcibly displaced reduce gender biases in credit evaluations and women and returnees, and access to housing for early-stage equity investment decisions.66 Other women and sexual and gender minorities. interventions target girls and young women, developing their technical and socioemotional skills, and fostering their participation in 64 Halim et al. 2023d. 65 Ubfal 2023. 66 IFC 2020. 67 Stanley and Lisher 2023; Halim et al. 2023e. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 25 60. Closing the gender digital divide and 62. Several approaches can expand access managing the promise and potential perils to markets for women entrepreneurs, of new technologies facilitate greater farmers, and producers. These include giving and more equal economic participation. women greater access to corporate supply Supporting women and girls in acquiring digital chains through public and private procurement skills and in understanding artificial intelligence contracts, fostering women’s trade readiness, and technologies can facilitate women’s entry and encouraging women’s use of digital platforms leadership in the technology sector. Digital to enable them to profit from opportunities platforms can support more equal access to in e-commerce and business-to-business goods, services, learning, finance, employment, distribution platforms (such as IFC projects in leadership, and entrepreneurship.68 Colombia, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and Philippines). 61. Financial inclusion can be accelerated in Outcome 5: Wider access to and many ways. Approaches include implementing gender-smart national financial inclusion use of enabling services strategies; focusing on gender lens investing; facilitating access to convenient credit, savings, 63. Legal, care, infrastructure, and other and insurance products tailored to women’s enabling services yield multiple gains. needs; using credit scoring psychometrics or Justice and legal services can fortify women’s cashflow-based lending to replace collateral rights. Public and private sector investments in requirements; expanding access across financial care services, safe and universally accessible subsectors, including housing, trade, and transportation, water, energy, and digital climate finance; enabling technology-based infrastructure are essential for women’s power solutions; and leveraging private sector financing and economic participation. Complementary instruments such as blended finance guarantees interventions can address misperceptions and debt capital markets (such as gender bonds and normative barriers to care services and in IFC projects in Tanzania, Thailand, and Türkiye). encourage employers to adopt family-friendly The expansion of safety nets during the Covid-19 policies and practices.69 pandemic facilitated and expanded digital cash payments and bank or mobile money accounts, 64. Affordable and accessible quality allowing women to receive social assistance care services enable greater economic benefits, wages, and remittances electronically. participation for caregivers, especially Removing barriers to access involves regulatory women, and create jobs.70 Care services, changes, including a nondiscriminatory legal including childcare, eldercare, and care for people framework, equal access to identification cards with special needs, are generally unremunerated, and mobile phone ownership, digital traceability, unquantified, and unacknowledged. Valuing shorter distances to banks, and enhancement of unpaid care work is essential for rectifying existing financial capabilities. gender inequalities and improving labor market outcomes. Quality care services also improve child development outcomes, family welfare, and business productivity. Increasing public finance 68 Aranda Jan and Qasim 2023. 69 Muñoz et al 2023. See also Jayachandran (2021) and Narayan (2022) on the role of social norms in fostering women economic empowerment; and Bursztyn et al. (2023) on misperceptions. 70 Ahmed et al. 2023. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 26 STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES for care while also encouraging diverse solutions Outcome 6: Advances in women’s through the non-state sector, including employer- participation in decision-making supported care, is needed to recognize, reduce, and redistribute the costs and benefits of unpaid care work and boost caregivers’—especially 66. Proactive approaches in community women’s—economic and social participation. The platforms and service delivery governance enactment of childcare laws facilitates women’s structures can expand women’s productive economic participation.71 Investment in participation in decision-making. Approaches infrastructure, including access to water, sanitation, include a combination of rules, training, energy, transport, and healthcare, can reduce the mentoring, and behavioral designs to increase time spent on care responsibilities. Psychosocial active participation. Modes of delivery include and rehabilitation services can promote engaging local leaders and promoting local economic inclusion of people with disabilities groups focused on women’s social and economic and support caregivers. Protecting the labor inclusion such as savings and loan associations, rights of care workers through robust regulation self-help groups, and cooperatives. The WBG and enforcement, encouraging reasonable supports such approaches across sectors, remuneration and benefits, and facilitating including water user and waste management representation of paid and unpaid care workers associations, business associations, trade unions, are also critical.72 schools (support for women teachers to become school heads), and health clinics. Tailored interventions can enhance women’s decision- Leadership: Engage women as making power within the household. Efforts to leaders enhance girls’ and women’s leadership must involve boys and men and facilitate changes in 65. The third strategic objective emphasizes norms and mindsets about women’s roles. the contribution of women’s leadership to sustainable, resilient, and inclusive 67. At national and subnational levels, all outcomes. The WBG will expand and leverage sectors can bring women into decision- evidence and data showing the impact of making. It is easier in sectors with high shares women’s leadership on climate, environment, of women’s employment, such as education and social, and market outcomes. The pathway health, but is key in male-dominated sectors to gender equality in leadership involves such as energy, information and communication partnerships to enhance governance structures, technology, public administration, and political incentives, and capacity for women’s leadership representation. The WBG is expanding in both the public and private sectors at the local, partnerships (such as WePower, Powered by national, and global levels. Women, and EqualAqua) for women’s leadership. 68. The private sector deploys partnerships, networks, and standards to improve gender diversity and inclusion in company management structures.73 Complementary programs can build leadership skills and foster talent pipelines, mentoring, and sponsorship, and 71 S. Anukriti et al. 2023. 72 See ILO 2018 and the 5R framework for a useful guide to decent care work with gender equality. 73 Salazar and Moline 2023. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 27 raise awareness (for example, by communicating and biodiversity; climate governance, including the value of diversity at stock exchanges and multilateral climate dialogue; and local, national, listed companies). Collecting, sharing, and and private sector disaster risk management analyzing gender data and engaging regulators, dialogues.74 Women’s leadership can enhance investors, and other market players can promote the design and enhance implementation of practices that benefit women, men, sexual and climate actions, from biogas stoves and precision gender minorities, and marginalized groups irrigation to national net-zero transitions. Women’s equally. Incubators, start-up capital, acceleration participation helps reduce pollution and affects programs, and addressing gender-based violence how programs address the differential impacts of can promote women’s leadership as innovators climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, in research and development, and as founders in including disaster response and resilience technology. initiatives. Women’s leadership and voice can also advance less carbon-intensive mobility options 69. Enhancing women’s role in climate that are safe, reliable, affordable, and accessible. action can advance climate goals. Women’s Climate investments viewed through a gender voices and leadership benefit green and just lens can contribute to investor revenues as well as transition; management of natural resources gender equality. 74 Deininger et al. 2023. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 IMPLEMENTING THE 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY 4. IMPLEMENTING THE 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 29 70. Learning from implementing the regional Gender Innovation Labs (GILs) financed 2016–2023 Gender Strategy, the WBG by the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality will engage with greater ambition and (UFGE). GILs generate evidence by testing differently to achieve results. Supported innovations; conducting impact evaluations; by efforts to improve operational effectiveness, and supplying lessons for project design, the WBG will gear up for the new ambition, implementation, and policy dialogue. deploy the drivers of change, and strengthen accountability for gender equality outcomes 73. The gender tag and flag strengthened in alignment with the new WBG mission. It will the emphasis on closing gender gaps in approach the implementation of the 2024–2030 project design. The tag and flag are results- Gender Strategy in line with its country-led oriented, relying on analysis to inform actions and engagement model and comparative advantage, results indicators.77 As noted in the Independent working as One WBG. Evaluation Group’s Mid-Term Review, the tag and flag have motivated the creation, flow, and Learning from implementing the use of evidence on how to close gender gaps in projects and investments. The tag and flag have 2016–2023 Gender Strategy boosted incentives for task teams to identify entry points for action in operations and investments 71. The delivery of the 2016–2023 Gender across the WBG portfolio. They have also spurred Strategy benefited from strong corporate innovations and synergies, and sparked sector- commitments. IDA policy commitments to wide initiatives in energy, water, and transport. gender equality evolved from internal processes to outcomes. IDA20, for example, introduced 74. A growing network of WBG staff with commitments to expand childcare, productive gender expertise facilitated the uptake economic and digital inclusion, medium- and of the gender tag and flag. The share of high-skilled employment opportunities for IBRD and IDA gender-tagged operations rose women, GBV prevention and response, and from 50 percent in fiscal year 2017 to more to close gender gaps through fiscal policy and than 90 percent in fiscal year 2023, a trend budget systems.75 The International Bank for that is consistent across sectors and regions.78 Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and IFC IFC quadrupled its share of gender-flagged capital increases also reflect commitments to investments and doubled its gender-flagged gender equality. advisory services during the period of the first WBG Gender Strategy (2016–2023), and 72. The WBG has increasingly leveraged successfully met and exceeded its four gender- knowledge, data, and evidence to improve related corporate capital increase commitments.79 results in operations and enhance outcomes MIGA adopted the gender flag approach through in country programs.76 To support evidence- its 2021 Gender Strategy Implementation Plan based approaches and complement the WBG’s (GSIP). The growing number of gender-tagged longstanding research units, the WBG established or flagged operations is the result of a horizontal 75 Donors typically meet every three years to replenish IDA resources and review its policy framework. The most recent replenishment, IDA20, was advanced by one year in response to increased demand from Covid-19 and will continue until fiscal year 2025. 76 See World Bank 2023c and IFC 2023b for a detailed discussion of the lessons of the 2016–2023 Gender Strategy. 77 To be tagged/flagged, an operation must use diagnostics to identify a gender gap, propose specific actions to narrow the gap, and track progress on the proposed action. The World Bank uses the term ‘tag’; IFC and MIGA use ‘flag.’ 78 FY 2017 was the baseline for the Scorecard and IDA Results Measurement System reporting. 79 For IFC in fiscal year 2023, 62 percent of women directors were nominated on IFC board seats, and $5.1 billion was committed to financial institutions targeting women, with $1.47 billion in financing dedicated to women and WSMEs. Of gender-flagged projects, long-term finance investments made up 32 percent while client-facing advisory services made up 55 percent. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 30 IMPLEMENTING THE 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY gender network which includes regional, country, in the finance sector show that second-tier and and Global Practice/Industry focal points that public sector banks can advance gender equality provide upstream advice and support to task outcomes across national markets. teams. 76. Lessons learned during implementation 75. The 2016–2023 Gender strategy reveal challenges in prioritization, facilitated gender-focused private sector coordination, and implementation. While the approaches. IFC has invested in data and gender tag and flag have spurred innovations evaluation to inform investments and advice to to address gender gaps in all sectors and private sector clients. IFC has also developed, contexts, many such innovations remain narrow tested, expanded, and adapted gender-specific or fragmented and are yet to be expanded or investment and advisory solutions with clients. replicated at scale. Often WBG interventions It has established the business case for gender have not been aligned to address the most equality, working on end-to-end solutions relevant gender constraints or coordinated across tailored to different contexts, using a variety of the WBG country program to address multiple financing instruments to broaden private sector constraints simultaneously. risk appetite and innovation, strengthening its internal capacity and gender architecture, and building strong partnerships. In response to The World Bank Group will rising inequalities, IFC has increased its focus engage with greater ambition— on business models that reach poor and socially disadvantaged groups, including people with and engage differently disabilities and sexual and gender minorities. MIGA has mobilized capital commitments toward 77. The 2024–2030 Gender Strategy WSMEs, through a capital optimization product introduces three directions for in the Finance and Capital Market sector and implementation (Figure 4.1). To gear up for the through the gender flag process. MIGA projects new ambition, the WBG will invest in global FIGURE 4.1  Engaging With Greater Ambition and Engaging Differently 2016–2023 2024–2030 Ambition Close gender gaps between women and men to reduce Accelerate gender equality for all to end poverty on a livable planet poverty and boost prosperity 3 strategic objectives to: End GBV and elevate human capital; Expand and enable economic opportunities; and Engage women 4 pillars: human capital, jobs, assets, voice and agency as leaders Drivers of Change Innovation: institutional and policy reforms and programs at scale Financing: government and private investment Data, evidence and financing Collective action: concerted action through data, knowledge, and advocacy with partners Internal Accountability Gender tag/flag with accountability for gender equality Gender tag/flag with accountability for actions to outcomes in operations and in country engagement as close gender gaps in project design One World Bank Group WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 31 knowledge, technical capacity, and partnerships 79. The WBG will invest in expertise and to accelerate gender equality for all to end strengthen technical capacity in key areas. poverty on a livable planet. The WBG will also The WBG will use the Environmental and Social engage differently. This includes deploying the Framework and IFC and MIGA Sustainability drivers of change: innovation, financing, and Frameworks to foster capacity to address GBV, collective action. It also includes concrete steps gender constraints, and the diverse needs of to strengthen accountability for gender outcomes marginalized population groups in alignment in operations and as part of strategic country with principles of nondiscrimination, inclusion, engagement as One WBG. and equal opportunity. The WBG will further strengthen its technical capacity in emerging Direction #1 Gear up for the new areas, including how to advance gender equality in addressing global challenges such as climate ambition: Knowledge, capacity, change and fragility. It will expand learning and partnerships programs to align gender expertise with technical expertise in each Global Practice and Industry department. 78. Continued investments in gender data and evidence of what works will inform 80. Partnerships will drive action. Building future pathways toward better gender on the Gender Strategy consultations the WBG equality outcomes. There is a dearth of will expand partnerships with civil society, the evidence on fundamental issues including on private sector and academia. It will partner with how to expand quality care services to empower UN agencies and other development partners women, how to involve men and boys for gender to enhance coordination, collect and share data, equality, and how to realize the positive impact develop innovative solutions, build client capacity of women’s leadership in addressing fragility and through the WBG Academy, mobilize co-financing climate change. The WBG will continue driving and concessional finance, and ultimately enhance the production and use of such evidence and impact. Promising partnerships include the support clients to collect and use gender data Financial Alliance for Women, Global Financing to inform policymaking.80 The Women, Business Facility, We-Fi, Invest in Childcare Initiative, and and the Law, WE Finance Code and Gender collaboration with UN Women.81 The partnership Data Portal together with geospatial, mobile with the UFGE is essential to activities in the phone, administrative, and on-line data with novel innovation, curation, and knowledge-sharing technologies are informing action and enhancing spaces. Partnerships with CSOs will be especially data transparency. valuable in reaching the most marginalized groups and sexual and gender minorities, and in addressing gender inequalities in FCV settings. These partnerships can also enhance transparency, reduce corruption, promote accountability for gender equality outcomes, and facilitate coordination between humanitarian and development interventions.82 80 Bonfert et al. 2023. Cortez et al. 2023 discusses integrating SOGI inclusion in WBG and partners’ work on gender data generation, evaluation and learning, policy and institutional reforms, and capacity building. 81 Other promising partnership initiatives include Women, Business, and the Law, and Equality of Opportunity for Sexual and Gender Minorities (EQOSOGI). 82 World Bank 2020b. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 32 IMPLEMENTING THE 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY Direction #2 Deploy the drivers 83. The WBG will address barriers to gender equality by applying behavioral and of change norms perspectives to project activities. Understanding and addressing behavioral 81. The WBG will engage along the three barriers to gender equality can improve project drivers of change. Building on the investments outcomes sustainably. Building the capacity of in global knowledge, capacity, and partnerships WBG and client teams to apply a behavioral to meet the new ambition, the WBG will support science and social norms lens will improve the innovation, financing, and collective action to effectiveness of institutional and policy reforms accelerate progress. This will require a detailed and programs to address gender inequalities understanding of the policy arena as well as wider more holistically and sustainably. The World Bank collaboration with key actors and stakeholders. applies behavioral science across its lending and analytical portfolio, addressing features in 82. In innovations, the WBG will assist bureaucracies, technologies, and service delivery countries in institutional policy reforms and that are often overlooked in standard policy delivering outcomes at scale. The WBG will design. It has used this approach to identify, more systematically support reforms addressing understand, and address gender inequalities, gender constraints. Using its knowledge, the WBG including those stemming from unequal will help clients replicate and scale programs social and gender norms.83 Expanding these that work, starting with WBG Global Challenge approaches will require more and better evidence Programs such as Digitalization, and Multiphase and skills to apply behavioral insights to gender Programmatic Approaches such as East Africa inequalities. Girls’ Empowerment and Resilience Regional Program. It will further expand operations 84. The WBG will assist clients to secure, empowering women and adolescent girls through allocate, and use public resources and adopt education, skills, SRHR, financial and digital innovations in national systems. The WBG inclusion, childcare, and jobs, including in male- will support governments to integrate gender dominated occupations, and by fostering inclusive analysis in fiscal policy and budget management, supply chains. In newer areas of work, such as enhance public finance prioritization toward engaging women as leaders in FCV settings and to gender equality, and ensure that spending in address the climate crisis, involving men and boys support of gender equality is protected during to end GBV, addressing social norms and gender times of fiscal constraint. Integrating gender biases, and drawing on behavioral science and data and gender analysis in policies, systems, digital technologies, the WBG will continue testing and practices will facilitate dismantling structural and evaluating approaches for future impact. barriers to gender equality and enhance Greater ambition coupled with accountability for performance in both public and private sectors. gender equality outcomes (see Direction #3) will It will also help governments consider gender encourage prioritization and replication to advance dimensions in tax and expenditure policies gender equality outcomes at scale, including and systems (under way in Western Balkans, through partnerships to coordinate investments Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Türkiye) and in and support institutional and policy reforms. procurement systems (under way in Indonesia). 83 World Bank projects have used behavioral science and norms-aware approaches across sectors to increase women’s access to economic opportunities, improve use of maternal health services, access land titles, use of parental leave, and access to finance, among others. More recently, projects have strengthened their focus on social and gender norms, including better measurement to identify social norms limiting female labor force participation, and interventions to address them such as engaging men in efforts to reduce GBV, and reducing harassment in public transport. These approaches can also be leveraged to address the biases of policymakers and service providers, and adapted to work with new technologies and growing digital penetration, including job platforms, social media, and edutainment. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 33 85. For the private sector, the WBG will support for sectoral interventions. For example, in employ a range of financing instruments the financial sector, IBRD and IDA support often to support innovation, achieve outcomes, includes legal and policy reforms to improve and broaden the investor base. IFC will further the enabling environment. IFC can then bring leverage instruments including blended finance investments and advisory services to financial (catalytic concessional finance combined with institutions, and MIGA can provide guarantees that commercial capital) and sustainability-linked support private investments in public and private finance (gender bonds, social and sustainability sector financial institutions to narrow country-level bonds, and performance-based sustainability- gender gaps through commitments to increase linked loans and bonds), which can reduce access to finance for women. Development gender gaps in access to capital and markets and Policy Operations (DPOs) and Multiphase boost high-impact private sector investments in Programmatic Approaches can connect private emerging and developing economies. Blended efforts with needed policy changes through finance mechanisms have contributed to gender- national programs and systems across the public specific investment facilities, catalyzing and and private sectors.85 The Bank, IFC and MIGA enabling women entrepreneurs’ access to capital will work together to build on successful models. for pioneering projects with high perceived risks For example IFC’s country-led multisector gender and uncertain returns.84 All IFC gender-specific program in Sri Lanka reinforces the World Bank’s blended finance investment facilities have DPO policy actions, and IFC sector approaches supported access to capital markets and capacity (financial institutions, funds, agribusiness, and have helped pilot new types of investments manufacturing, and infrastructure) complement the with funds and the real sector (as in Cameroon, World Bank’s and MIGA’s engagement. The WBG Tunisia, and West Bank and Gaza). MIGA will use Global Challenge Programs will also integrate its guarantees and credit enhancement products gender solutions to address country development to narrow the financial inclusion gender gap needs and global challenges and facilitate and promote gender equality. As part of MIGA’s coordinated multi-sector efforts. gender action plan in gender-flagged projects, MIGA’s clients may agree to lending targets 87. To foster collective action toward for WSMEs, thereby enabling banks to provide gender equality, the WBG will expand its greater access to finance. MIGA will also support partnerships. Widening the interaction with its clients to integrate gender actions in the real stakeholders—including community leaders, sector, enabling greater gender inclusion across national and local women’s organizations, and all of its activities. global advocacy groups—will help form coalitions of champions to advocate for reforms. Where 86. The WBG will enhance coordination and customs and social norms are impediments to engagement across the public and private reform, the WBG can support various collective sectors to support reforms and programs at action platforms (such as digital platforms for scale. Successful efforts to harmonize IBRD, IDA, social marketing campaigns in support of gender- IFC, and MIGA instruments include coordinated responsive legislation) and programs (such as 84 Blended finance is leveraged by IFC and other development finance institutions to develop a new market, address Sustainable Development Goals, and mobilize private sector financing when it would not be available otherwise. This approach can mitigate specific investment risks and help rebalance risk-reward profiles of pioneering investments that are unable to proceed on strictly commercial terms. By de-risking, blended finance can mobilize more capital for women and women-run businesses. These instruments can promote job creation, increase productivity, and improve other economic and societal conditions. 85 In Mexico, for example, a DPO supported a reform to the Credit Institutions Law to address women’s financial needs, prioritizing programs related to savings, credit, and consumer protection. By the end of 2021, in less than 2 years, the number of women accessing financial products provided by state development banks had increased by a third to over 2.3 million. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 34 IMPLEMENTING THE 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY school-based programs to incentivize girls’ STEM Direction #3 Strengthen education and careers, and community programs to involve men and boys). Collective action with accountability for gender the private sector can create momentum for equality outcomes legal reforms, such as nondiscrimination and anti-harassment laws, that facilitate equal access 89. To enhance country gender equality to economic opportunities and protections outcomes, the WBG will approach gender for women and sexual and gender minorities. equality more coherently and strategically Mobilizing insights, experience, and support in its country engagement. The Independent from global advocacy organizations can amplify Evaluation Group’s Gender Strategy Mid-Term the voices and effectiveness of national gender Review found gender equality outcomes could equity campaigns. The WBG can enhance the be improved by strengthening WBG country- effectiveness of collective action by building led approaches and by coordinating support stakeholder capacity to participate in formal for the public and private sectors across the policy deliberations, and by providing safe spaces WBG.87 The evaluation found that including for open deliberations about gender equality explicit gender priorities in country engagement practices. The WBG will promote such efforts at improved support for gender equality in these the local, national, regional, and global levels. countries.88 Strategic country engagement will use gender analysis to inform policy dialogue 88. Greater attention to the policy arena and the overall country program, prioritizing will help the WBG tailor solutions to local entry points where the WBG has a comparative contexts. Better understanding of the formal advantage, including as one WBG, to enhance and informal institutions, local actors, and power outcomes. Country programs are increasingly relations will support innovations and financing using all WBG instruments, including DPOs that resonate with local perspectives. A tailored and operations focused on gender equality approach can uncover more effective ways to objectives, to improve outcomes. WBG involve men and boys as well as opportunities to country teams—sometimes benefiting from apply behavioral insights and support collective gender programs and platforms—will support action. It can also foster new partnerships or implementation of the WBG Gender Strategy work through tested community mechanisms and at the country level. During consultations, 11 expand successful approaches. For example, the countries across all regions expressed interest unique challenges of FCV settings elevate the in fast-tracking implementation of the strategy, importance of partnerships with locally led and including as one WBG. women’s organizations and with humanitarian actors to deliver services, strengthen 90. Country Partnership Frameworks accountability and address discriminatory (CPFs) will identify and address country gender hierarchies and norms.86 The WBG will gender priorities through a strategic and incorporate policy arena analysis in its country coordinated approach. The adoption of products, such as Gender Assessments. specific outcomes that the CPF supports can translate evidence-based gender priorities into cohesive, measurable, and outcome- oriented results chains. It can also enhance 86 IRC 2023. 87 World Bank 2021b. 88 IBID. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 35 accountability as contribution is tracked through Benin, Papua New Guinea and Pakistan, as well mid-term Performance and Learning Reviews as analyses of the economic impacts of gender and end-of-cycle Completion and Learning inequality in Chad, Guinea, and Niger. Reviews.89 For example, the Mozambique CPF includes a focus on improving human capital 92. Tracking gender equality outcomes and women’s empowerment with targets over time will improve the results focus of aligned with the country’s priorities of ensuring projects and investments. The gender tag equal access to primary education, health and flag will motivate accountability for evidence- and reproductive services, and economic based actions to address key constraints to opportunities including combating GBV and child gender equality, but with greater accountability marriage. Reforms to the country engagement for outcomes throughout the project cycle. model are expected to facilitate emphasis on Gender equality results indicators that measure gender equality outcomes, widen consultations number of beneficiaries will be tracked during and partnerships, and promote coherent and project implementation.91 Expected gender results coordinated approaches to gender equality will also be reported at completion. across the WBG country program. Supporting implementation and 91. Gender analysis will inform core analytics and country priorities. Integrating monitoring results gender analysis in country analytics will inform action and assist policymakers and other 93. WBG gender equality targets and stakeholders to assess the potential gains corporate commitments will drive results from addressing specific gender barriers.90 For and outcomes. The WBG will measure and example, analysis of the potential demographic report on progress toward targets. It will dividend helped mobilize reform actions as monitor corporate commitments in the IFC part of DPOs in Benin, and analysis of the labor Key Performance Indicators, Capital Increase market constraints that women face in Viet Nam commitments, and IDA’s policy commitments. helped in transforming the national labor code, The new WBG Scorecard will track progress. Most replacing a law protecting women with a law Scorecard indicators will be sex-disaggregated promoting a gender equal labor market. In and a dedicated indicator will measure the Argentina, research findings that sexual and number of people benefitting from actions to gender minorities had higher dropout rates and advance gender equality in WBG operations. lower educational attainment than their peers The WBG will also continue to promote gender prompted their inclusion in education support equality through its internal processes (Box 4.1), programs. In Egypt, Women, Business and the including corporate procurement policies and Law gender gap analysis led to the enactment practices that support women-owned businesses of laws prohibiting gender-based discrimination across the WBG supply chain and integrate in access to financial services and removing job gender responsive procurement principles in restrictions for women. Other examples include purchase decisions. Country Economic Memorandums for 89 Of 26 CPFs in fiscal year 2023, more than half featured objectives and indicators to advance gender equality. 90 Core analytics include, for example, Public Finance Reviews, Poverty and Equity Assessments, Country Climate and Development Reports, Risk and Resilience Assessments, Country Private Sector Diagnostics, and Country Economic Memoranda. 91 This includes Implementation Status Reports, Mid-Term Reviews, Implementation Completion and Results Reports, Independent Evaluation Group’s Implementation Completion and Results Report Reviews, IFC’s Expanded Project Supervision Reports, and MIGA’s results measurement system. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 36 IMPLEMENTING THE 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY Box 4.1  Walking the talk: The WBG has strong, evolving internal processes on gender equality World Bank Group (WBG) corporate procurement policies support gender equality. The WBG is the only multilateral development bank with a goal to increase sourcing from women- owned businesses through its supplier diversity and inclusion program. This program has opened opportunities for women-owned firms to tender for WBG contracts through outreach, capacity building, and other process improvements supported by the program. In May 2024, WEConnect International named the WBG a Platinum Top Global Champion for a third year in a row, demonstrating the highest commitment to global inclusive sourcing and supplier diversity. In alignment with the WBG Gender Strategy, the WBG is committed to increasing the share of its global corporate procurement with women-owned businesses to 12 percent by 2030, up from 7.4 percent in fiscal year 2023, along with increasing the current number of women-owned business from 9 percent of WBG’s total vendor base to 15 percent by 2030. New metrics to measure economic impact such as job creation for women and tax contribution by women’s business enterprises will be added in the future. These efforts will also be expanded through partnerships and technical assistance to client countries and international organization peers. The WBG has safeguard policies against sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment (SEA/SH). The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) Sustainability Frameworks, including the Performance Standards, are explicit about preventing and addressing SEA/SH. Both are integrated into the WBG’s Environmental and Social Framework and the updated Procurement Framework to ensure government and contractor accountability. In 2021, the WBG became the first multilateral development bank to disqualify contractors for failing to comply with obligations related to GBV. Human development operations as well as investment projects with major civil works screen for SEA/SH risks and adopt risk-mitigation measures. Since 2019, IFC has used its Sustainability Framework with Environment and Social Performance Standards to assess all investments for gender equality with the aim of nondiscrimination, equal opportunity, inclusion, and community well-being, including addressing GBV and SEA/SH as risks. MIGA has applied a similar approach with its guarantees and credit enhancement projects since 2021. IFC and MIGA’s environment and social sustainability solutions promote global standards and enhance social performance in firms. The WBG has enhanced gender equality in human resource practices. At the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), the share of men and women who believe that they are given fair opportunities to be promoted increased, and the gender balance at senior grades has improved. However, gender gaps increase from middle technical grades into management grades and the share of women in senior management positions has declined since the 2013 reorganization.92 At IFC, retention of women in senior positions has improved and is proportional to that in junior grades, 92 Kandpal et al 2023. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 37 and policies and practices in recruitment and promotion and flexible working have improved. MIGA has achieved gender parity for senior technical roles and increased the share of women in management and of men at junior levels. MIGA has created a platform for staff to engage on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition, the WBG progressed from EDGE Assess to EDGE Move certification in 2022 (the second of three levels) based on the organization’s continuing efforts to improve gender balance within all levels of responsibility. 94. The success of the WBG Gender 95. Internal accountability will be enhanced Strategy hinges on strong implementation through ongoing initiatives to boost across the institution. To meet the strategy’s operational efficiency and effectiveness. ambition will require not only commitment from Examples of proposed actions to support Senior Management, but a strong network implementation include updating and creating of staff with the skills and capacity to deliver. new guidance notes, templates, training, and This will imply further strengthening of gender resource materials—some of which will be expertise within the Global Practices and across tracked in the Results Framework (Annex 2) and IFC Industry departments, sustained work of the supported through the existing processes for regional GILs and investments in staff learning. strategic planning, budgeting, and performance Country Gender Platforms and programs may review. Within the WBG, Regions, and Global facilitate coordination and implementation as Practices/Industries may take additional one WBG. The WBG global gender teams will measures, such as Regional Gender Action continue to inspire and support teams toward Plans,93 GSIPs94 (MIGA and IFC), Global Practice/ greater ambition—curating global knowledge, industry notes and indicators to track specific building staff capacity, and providing just- results. A Results Framework will track the in-time support to regional and country-led outcomes and outputs of WBG operations and approaches as well as showcasing and learning investments. CPFs will track country outcomes from operational successes. Building on the and measure the overall effectiveness of country relationships and feedback from the consultation engagement. Results and outcomes will be process, the WBG global gender teams will reported annually to the Board. continue to work with stakeholders to support implementation. 93 Regional Gender Action Plans include, for example, annual reporting on CPFs to deepen the country-driven approach, learning from evidence and operational experience, and diving into challenging topics. 94 IFC’s third GSIP (FY25–27) will serve as an operational roadmap to implement the World Bank Gender Strategy. IFC plans to deepen and expand its efforts on gender and inclusion across the Gender Strategy’s objectives and outcomes with emphasis on accelerating financial inclusion; making supply chains inclusive; and removing barriers to employment and leadership in the private sector. IFC will be expanding use of gender- smart financial instruments such as blended finance and sustainability linked finance to narrow gender gaps; integrate gender considerations in investments; and consider outcomes throughout the project cycle (such as active portfolio management, increased of sex-disaggregated impact data, and ex-post evaluations). MIGA is preparing its second GSIP for 2024–2026. The plan focuses on deepening gender integration and capacity at MIGA with the aim of scaling up gender opportunities in MIGA-supported projects. MIGA will integrate lessons learned and best practices from IFC, IBRD, and IDA to develop its gender architecture and implementation. The second GSIP will reflect the strategic pathways and frameworks set out in the 2024–2030 World Bank Gender Strategy while ensuring that its ambition is commensurate with its capacity. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 38 IMPLEMENTING THE 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY Conclusion 96. The WBG will engage with greater to end gender-based violence and elevate ambition and differently to accelerate human capital, expand and enable economic gender equality. The 2024–2030 Gender opportunities, and engage women as leaders. Strategy recognizes the urgency and The WBG will support concerted action, financing, fundamentality of gender equality for achieving and programs at scale to accelerate progress the WBG’s mission to end poverty on a livable toward these objectives. Embracing a One WBG planet. The strategy builds on extensive approach, this strategy promotes a coordinated stakeholder feedback and lessons learned country-led engagement with accountability for from experience. In response, the WBG will gender equality outcomes. prioritize key gender equality objectives, namely, WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 39 ANNEX 1: IMPLEMENTING THE WORLD BANK GROUP 2024–2030 GENDER STRATEGY Ambition ACCELERATE EQUALITY FOR ALL TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET Accelerate Equality for All to End Poverty on A Livable Planet Ambition End gender-based violence and Expand and enable economic Engage women as leaders elevate human capital opportunities Gear up for the new ambition Invest in data and knowledge Strengthen staff capacity Partner to meet global ambition Drivers of Change Deploy the drivers of change Innovation Financing Collective Action Test, adapt, tailor, and expand Support clients to integrate Expand partnerships and evidence-based solutions gender analysis in fiscal policy stakeholder engagement to and budget management mobilize action Apply behavioral and norms Leverage World Bank Group Engage women’s organizations interventions financing instruments for impact and other civil society at scale organizations INNOVATION FINANCING COLLECTIVE ACTION Integrate gender analysis in Engage public and private sector Involve actors, including men and development solutions, including to mobilize and allocate resources boys, reflecting the policy arena Global Challenge Programs Internal Accountability Strengthen accountability for gender equality outcomes Results in Operations Enhancing Country Outcomes Support and monitor implementation progress Integrate gender analysis in country analytics including core diagnostics Evaluate results at project completion Include gender strategic objectives and/or high-level outcomes in Country Partnership Framework and expand consultations for action RESULTS IN OPERATIONS Measure and report results (World Bank Group ENHANCING COUNTRY OUTCOMES Develop and support coherent country programs as Scorecard) One World Bank Group WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 40 ANNEX 2: RESULTS FRAMEWORK ANNEX 2: RESULTS FRAMEWORK The WBG Gender Strategy 2024–2030 will actions across the WBG portfolio. It will be be monitored through a dedicated Results possible to map indicators 2.1 and 2.2 to the Framework complemented by current and future outcome areas of the Strategy. corporate commitments, including the new WBG Scorecard, which features an expanded use of • WBG Support is aligned with reforms under sex-based data disaggregation (two thirds of the evolution process. These activity and WBG results indicators are sex-disaggregated). output indicators measure the extent to which The Results Framework situates WBG results the WBG has integrated gender equality into in the client context while also enhancing its development programs at the country and accountability for progress towards gender operational level. Indicator 3.3 introduces equality outcomes, with a focus on the scale of accountability for results of gender- tagged WBG results. The Framework adds a tier on WBG operations. support to track progress in implementation. Many of the indicators in the Results Framework • Client Context monitors high-level global are new, and do not yet have detailed outcomes across the three strategic objectives methodologies or baseline data. These of the Gender Strategy, framing the challenges methodologies will be developed and tested clients face and the context in which the WBG during strategy implementation, with progress operates. These gender equality outcome discussed during Annual Board Updates. indicators include all context indicators from the WBG Scorecard that will be sex-disaggre- gated and are relevant for gender equality. The client context indicators are designed to cascade into the results frameworks of Country Partnership Frameworks (CPF) to enhance outcome orientation. This approach is also expected to support learning and innovation on outcomes. • WBG Results tracks the results of WBG- supported actions that contribute to the six outcome areas of the WBG Gender Strategy. Indicator 2.1 measures the scale of WBG results in its support for gender equality and reflects an update in the Gender Tag approach to emphasize outcomes. Results will be mea- sured as part of the WBG Scorecard gender equality indicator which will aggregate the beneficiaries of actions designed to advance gender equality across WBG gender-tagged operations. Indicator 2.2 aggregates the num- ber of female beneficiaries of WBG supported WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 41 Figure 1  WBG Gender Strategy 2024-2030 Results Framework 1. Client Context. Circumstances in client countries. WBG Indicator Source Scorecard 1.1 Percentage of children under five stunted UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Joint Child Yes (by sex) Malnutrition Estimates 1.2 Percentage of children who cannot read by Learning Poverty Report, joint publication Yes end-of-primary-school age (by sex) of the World Bank, UNICEF, FCDO, USAID, BMGF, and in partnership with UNESCO 1.3 Waged employment share of working age WDI, ILOSTAT Yes population (by sex) 1.4 Percentage of youth not in education, WDI, ILOSTAT Yes employment, or training (by sex) 1.5 Number of people that use a financial World Bank Global Findex database, Yes account (by sex) Gallup World Poll 1.6 Percentage of population not using the ITU Yes internet (by sex) 1.7 Number of countries that have introduced Women, Business, and the Law report, No legal changes to advance gender equality EQOSOGI report (country-led approach) Notes: The Gender Data Portal features additional gender data and trends, including on the Strategy’s objectives, including gender-based violence, human capital, economic opportunities, and women’s leadership. Country Gender Landscape Briefs provide a country-specific view. The most recent available data point will be reported for indicators 1.1 to 1.6. Indicator 1.7 will be reported annually. 2. World Bank Group Results. Intermediate outcomes of WBG support. Indicator Monitoring Frequency Source 2.1 Millions of people benefitting from greater gender Reports results Annual WBG Scorecard equality, of which: achieved and (a) from actions to make progress in ending all results expected forms of GBV (b) from actions to improve sexual and reproductive health (c) from actions that expand and enable economic opportunities (d) from actions to advance women’s participation in decision making 2.2 WBG Scorecard indicators - sex-disaggregated Reports results Annual WBG Scorecard achieved and results expected Notes: Indicators from the WBG Scorecard will report on the stock of results achieved (results that have occurred among the portfolio of operations that were active during a given fiscal year)—and expected results (aggregation of anticipated results over each projects’ results horizon). Indicator 2.1 reflects a change in how the Gender Tag/Flag is measured to capture numbers of beneficiaries. Indicator 2.2 includes sex-disaggregated WBG Scorecard indicators. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 42 ANNEX 2: RESULTS FRAMEWORK 3. World Bank Group Support. Key outputs and internal actions to catalyze WBG impact. Indicator Monitoring Frequency Source 3.1 Share of CPFs that include a CPF objective that tracks Monitored Annual WBG gender equality results 3.2 Share of WBG operations that demonstrate a results Monitored Annual WBG chain by addressing gender constraints with specific actions tracked in results framework (Tag/Flag) disaggregated by outcome (a) Share of World Bank operations that focus on Annual WB gender equality (b) Share of World Bank operations that support Annual WB institutional and policy reforms to advance gender equality 3.3 Share of World Bank gender-tagged operations that Monitored Annual, ICRRs meet gender equality outcomes at project completion as 3-year rolling documented in completion reports 3.4 Number of IFC projects using blended finance to advance Monitored Annual IFC CBF gender equality Notes: Indicator 3.2 tracks the share of WBG operations that receive the Gender Tag (at the World Bank) or Gender Flag (at IFC and MIGA) in the current fiscal year. This is defined as the percentage of operations that use gender analysis to propose specific actions to advance gender equality and include indicators in the results framework to track progress. Indicator 3.2 will disaggregate results by the six outcomes of the Strategy. Indicator 3.2a includes those operations that include a specific objective to advance gender equality in the project development objective or program development objective (PDO). UNICEF=United Nations Childrens Fund; WHO=World Health Organization; FCDO=UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office; USAID=United States Agency for International Development; BMGF=The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; UNESCO=United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization; WDI=World Development Indicators; ILOSTAT=International Labour Organization Department of Statistics; ITU=International Telecommunication Union; EQOSOGI=Equality of Opportunity for Sexual and Gender Minorities; CPF=Country Partnership Framework; ICR=Implementation Completion and Results Report; CBF=IFC’s blended finance department. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 43 REFERENCES Ahmed, Tanima, Amanda Devercelli, Elena Glinskaya, Rudaba Nasir, and Laura Rawlings. 2023. “Addressing Care to Accelerate Equality.” World Bank Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40184. Altunbas, Yener, Leonardo Gambacorta, Alessio Reghezza, and Giulio Velliscig. 2021. “Does Gender Diversity in the Workplace Mitigate Climate Change?” BIS Working Papers 977, Bank for International Settlements, Basel, Switzerland. Al Tuwaijri, Sameera, Amparo Elena Gordillo-Tobar, Charlotte Pram Nielsen, Priyadarshini Rakh, and Seemeen Saadat. 2024. “Prioritizing Gender in Universal Health Coverage at the World Bank.” World Bank Thematic Notes Series, World Bank, Washington, DC. Anukriti, S.; Dinarte Diaz, Lelys Ileana; Elefante, Marina; Montoya Aguirre, Maria; Sakhonchik, Alena. Filling the Gaps: Childcare Laws for Women’s Economic Empowerment (English). Policy Research working paper; no. WPS 10492. Washington, D.C: World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated​ /en/099018006212310610/IDU0c29425380315704ea90bf020573349106bf8. Aranda Jan, Clara, and Qursum Qasim. 2023. “Increasing Access to Technology for Inclusion.” Issues and Practice Note Series, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39495. Badgett, L. 2020. The Economic Case for LGBT Equality: Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Bastagli, Francesca, Jessica Hagen-Zanker, Luke Harman, Valentina Barca, Georgina Sturge, and Tanja Schmidt. 2016. Cash Transfers: What Does the Evidence Say? A Rigorous Review of Programme Impact and of the Role of Design and Implementation Features. London: Overseas Development Institute. https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/11316.pdf. Beaman, Lori, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande, and Petia Topalova. 2012. “Female Leadership Raises Aspirations and Educational Attainment for Girls: A Policy Experiment in India.” Science (6068): 582–586. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1212382. BNEF. 2020. Gender Diversity and Climate Innovation. Bloomberg NEF and Sasakawa Peace Foundation. https://assets.bbhub.io/professional/sites/24/BNEF-Sasakawa-Peace-Foundation-Gender-Diversity-and​ -Climate-Innovation_12012020_FINAL.pdf. Bonfert, Anna Tabitha; Bunker, Sarah; Tojeiro, Carol Marina; Hovhannisyan, Shoghik. 2023. Leveraging Gender Data to Accelerate Gender Equality. World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org​/handle/10986/39991. Braunmiller, Julia Constanze; Dry, Marie. 2022. The Importance of Designing Gender and Disability Inclusive Laws: A Survey of Legislation in 190 Economies. Global Indicators Briefs; No. 11. World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38089. Brixi, Hana, Ellen Lust, and Michael Woolcock. 2015. Trust, Voice, and Incentives: Learning from Local Success Stories in Service Delivery in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington, DC: World Bank. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 44 REFERENCES Bursztyn, Leonardo, Alexander Cappelen, Bertil Tungodden, Alessandra Voena, and David Yanagizawa-Drott. 2023. “How Are Gender Norms Perceived?” Working Paper. https://www.leonardobursztyn.com​/HowAreGenderNormsPerceived.pdf. Casey, Erin, Juliana Carlson, Sierra Two Bulls, and Aurora Yager. 2018. “Gender Transformative Approaches to Engaging Men in Gender-based Violence Prevention: A Review and Conceptual Model.” Trauma, Violence, and Abuse 19 (2): 231–246. Case, Anne, and Angus Deaton. 2020. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvpr7rb2. Cortez, Clifton, Trishna Rana, Rusaba Nasir, and John Ioannis Arzinos. 2023. “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Inclusion and Gender Equality.” Gender Thematic Policy Notes, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40384. Deininger, Franziska, Andrea Woodhouse, Anne Kuriakose, Ana Gren, and Sundas Liaqat. 2023. “Placing Gender Equality at the Center of Climate Action.” World Bank Gender Thematic Policy Note, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39436. Duflo, Esther. 2003. “Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old-Age Pensions and Intrahousehold Allocation in South Africa. The World Bank Economic Review 17 (1): 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/ lhg013. Deloitte Singapore. 2023. Women in the Boardroom: A Global Perspective. Deloitte. EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), CDC, and IFC (International Finance Corporation). 2020. Addressing Gender-Based Violence and Harassment: Emerging Good Practice for the Private Sector. EBRD, CDC, and IFC. https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/f1645167-7eff-439b-922b- 7656c75320ab/GPN_AddressingGBVH_July2020.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=orHDkxv. Elefante, Marina; Hasan, Tazeen; Hyland, Marie; Mazoni Silva Martins, Natalia; Trumbic, Tea. 2023. World Bank Gender Thematic Policy Note, World Bank, Washington, DC. Accelerating Gender Equality Through Reforming Legal Frameworks. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/39875. Equimundo. 2022. The International Men and Gender Equality Survey: A Status Report on Men, Women, and Gender Equality in 15 Headlines. Equimundo. https://www.menandgendersurvey.org/global-headlines-report/. Erman, Alvina, Sophie Anne De Vries Robbé, Stephan Fabian Thies, Kayenat Kabir, and Mirai Maruo. 2021. Gender Dimensions of Disaster Risk and Resilience. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://wrd.unwomen.org/ sites/default/files/2021-11/Gender-Dimensions-of-Disaster-Risk-and-Resilience-Existing-Evidence.pdf. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). 2023. The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems – Overview. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc5060en. Flor, L. S., J. Friedman, C. N. Spencer, J. Cagney, A. Arrieta, M. E. Herbert, C. Stein, E. C. Mullany, J. Hon, V. Patwardhan, R. M. Barber, J. K. Collins, S. I. Hay, S. S. Lim, R. Lozano, A. H. Mokdad, C. J. L. Murray, R. C. Reiner, R. J. D. Sorensen, A. Haakenstad, D. M. Pigott, and E. Gakidou. 2022. “Quantifying the Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Gender Equality on Health, Social, and Economic Indicators: A Comprehensive Review of Data from March 2020, to September 2021.” The Lancet 399 (10344): 2381– 2397. https://doi​.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00008-3. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 45 Fruttero, Anna; Halim, Daniel; Broccolini, Chiara; Coelho, Bernardo; Gninafon, Horace; Muller, Noel. Gendered Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Weather Shocks (English). Policy Research Working Paper no. 10442 Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-10442. Gambacorta, L., L. Pancotto, A. Reghezza, and M. Spaggiari. 2022. “Gender Diversity in Bank Boardrooms and Green Lending: Evidence from Euro Area Credit Register Data.” ECB Working Paper 2022/2741, European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4244413. Gender Data Portal. n.d. “Labor Force Participation Rate (Percent of Population).” World Bank Gender Data Portal. Accessed January 10, 2023. https://genderdata.worldbank.org/indicators/sl-tlf-acti-zs/. Goldstein, M., P. Gonzalez, S. Papineni, and J. Wimpey. 2022. “Childcare, Covid-19 and Female Firm Exit: Impact of Covid-19 School Closure Policies on Global Gender Gaps in Business Outcomes.” Policy Research Working Paper 10012, World Bank, Washington, DC. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/ /core/bitstreams/1b92ddd8-d8fe-5b8a-821c-432972bfa5a2/content. server/api​ Halim, Daniel, Michael O’Sullivan, and Abhilasha Sahay. 2023. “Increasing Female Labor Force Participation.” World Bank Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series, Evidence and Practice Note, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39435. Halim, Daniel, Diego Ubfal, and Rigzom Wangchuk. 2023a. “Policy Lessons on Supporting Women Entrepreneurs.” Gender Innovation Lab Federation Evidence Series 3, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39427. Halim, Daniel, Diego Ubfal, and Rigzom Wangchuk. 2023b. “Policy Lessons on Reducing Gender- Based Violence.” Gender Innovation Lab Federation Evidence Series 1, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl​.handle.net/10986/39425. Halim, Daniel, Diego Ubfal, and Rigzom Wangchuk. 2023c. “Policy Lessons on Social Protection.” Gender Innovation Lab Federation Evidence Series 8, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle​.net/10986/39433. Halim, Daniel, Diego Ubfal, and Rigzom Wangchuk. 2023d. “Policy Lessons on Agriculture.” Gender Innovation Lab Federation Evidence Series 5, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle​.net/10986/39430. Halim, Daniel, Diego Ubfal, and Rigzom Wangchuk. 2023e. “Policy Lessons on Women’s Land Titling.” Gender Innovation Lab Federation Evidence Series 6, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle​.net/10986/39431. Heinemann, Alessandra, Lindsay Mossman, Afrah Al-Ahmadi and Laura Rawlings. 2024. “Accelerating Gender Equality through Social Protection”. World Bank, Washington, DC. Horowitz, J. M., and J. Fetterolf. 2020. “Worldwide Optimism About Future of Gender Equality, Even as Many See Advantages for Men.” Pew Research Center, April 30. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/04/30/worldwide-optimism-about-future-of-gender- equality-even-as-many-see​-advantages-for-men/. IFC (International Finance Corporation). 2017. Investing in Women: New Evidence for the Business Case. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/ac8fca18-6586-48cc-bfba​ -832b41d6af68/IFC+Invest+in+Women+October+2017.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=lYLVAcA. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 46 REFERENCES IFC (International Finance Corporation). 2019. Moving Toward Gender Balance in Private Equity and Venture Capital. Washington, DC: IFC. https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/topics_ext_content/ifc​_external_ corporate_site/gender+at+ifc/resources/gender-balance-in-emerging-markets. IFC (International Finance Corporation). 2020. Venture Capital and the Gender Financing Gap: The Role of Accelerators. Washington, DC: IFC. https://www.ifc.org/en/insights-reports/2020/vc-gender-financing. IFC (International Finance Corporation). 2022. Women and Online Learning in Emerging Markets. Washington, DC: IFC. https://www.ifc.org/en/insights-reports/2022/women-and-online-learning-in​-emerging-markets. IFC (International Finance Corporation). 2023a. IFC Banking on Women, Business Case Update #5: Lower NPLs for Women-Owned SMEs. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://www.ifc.org/wps​/ wcm/connect/8233ad37-7de8-4168-90d9-e993eb954770/NPL_Business_Case_Update_5_Final​ .pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=opYv1DD. IFC (International Finance Corporation). 2023b. A Retrospective of IFC’s Implementation of the World Bank Group Gender Strategy. World Bank Group, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40342 License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO Iglesias, C. 2020. “The Gender Gap in Internet Access: Using a Women-centred Method.” World Wide Web Foundation, March 10. https://webfoundation.org/2020/03/the-gender-gap-in-internet-access-using-a​ -women-centred-method/. ILO (International Labour Organization). 2015. “Gender Equality and Green Jobs.” Policy Brief, ILO, Geneva. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_ent/documents/publication​ /wcms_360572.pdf. ILO (International Labour Organization). 2018. “Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work”. International Labour Office – Geneva: ILO, 2018. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public​ /---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_633135.pdf IMF (International Monetary Fund). 2022. “IMF Strategy Toward Mainstreaming Gender.” Policy Paper 2022/037, IMF, Washington, DC. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Policy-Papers/ Issues/2022/07/28​ /IMF-Strategy-Toward-Mainstreaming-Gender-521344. IRC (International Rescue Committee). 2023. The New Geography of Extreme Poverty: How the World Bank Can Deliver for Communities Impacted by Conflict. https://www.rescue.org/report/new-geography​ -extreme-poverty-how-world-bank-can-deliver-communities-impacted-conflict. Jayachandran, S. 2021. “Social Norms as a Barrier to Women’s Employment in Developing Countries.” IMF Economic Review 69 (3): 576–595. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41308-021-00140-w. Kandpal, Eeshani, Brian Webster, and Charles Kenny. 2023. Missing Figures: Women’s Underrepresentation in IFI Leadership. CGD Working Paper 669. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development. https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/Hidden-Figures-Women-in-IFIs.pdf. King, Lawrence, Gábor Scheiring, and Elias Nosrati. 2022. “Deaths of Despair in Comparative Perspective.” Annual Review of Sociology 48 (1): 299–317. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev- soc-030320-031757. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 47 Klapper, Leora, Dorothe Singer, and Saniya Ansar. 2022. “Women and Financial Inclusion.” In The Global Findex Database 2021. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en​ /doc/0254f85d1cceceb6e72362a71eb600e4-0430062023/original/ Findex2021-GenderBrief-030823​.pdf. Lee, J. E. 2021. “Marriage and Misallocation: Evidence from 70 Years of U.S. History.” Department of Economics, London School of Economics. https://jayeuijunglee.github.io/website/jay_paper.pdf. Lo Bue, M. C., T. T. N. Le, M. Santos Silva, and K. Sen. 2022. “Gender and Vulnerable Employment in the Developing World: Evidence from Global Microdata.” World Development 159: 106010. https://doi​.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106010. Maruo, Mirai, Diana Arango, Ariana Grossi, and Manuel Contreras Urbina. 2023. “Addressing Gender- Based Violence to Accelerate Gender Equality.” Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series: Issues and Practice Note, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40469. Muñoz Boudet, Ana María, Tasmia Rahman, Nour Nasr, and Abigail Dalton. 2023. “Addressing Social and Gender Norms to Promote Gender Equality.” World Bank Group Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series: Evidence and Practice Note, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39992. Murad Khan, Myra, Raja Bentaouet Kattan, and Shobhana Sosale. 2023. “Examining Trends and Policies in Girls’ Education and Beyond.” World Bank Gender Thematic Notes Series, World Bank, Washington, DC. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/40595. Narayan, D. 2023. Gender Equality and Collective Well-being: The Power of Changing Mindsets. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/40017. Pande, R. 2020. “Can Democracy Work for the Poor?” Science 369 (6508): 1188–1192. Pennings, S. M. 2022. “A Gender Employment Gap Index (GEGI): A Simple Measure of the Economic Gains from Closing Gender Employment Gaps, with an Application to the Pacific Islands.” Policy Research Working Paper 9942, World Bank, Washington, DC. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org​/handle/10986/37062. Pimkina, S., and L. de La Flor. 2020. “Promoting Female Labor Force Participation.” Jobs Working Paper 56, World Bank, Washington, DC. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34953. Sahay, Abhilasha. 2023. “Closing Gender Gaps in Earnings.” World Bank Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39596. Salazar, Loty, and Ann Moline. 2023. “Increasing Women’s Representation in Business Leadership.” World Bank Group Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series: Evidence and Practice Note, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39870. Schady, Norbert, Alaka Holla, Shwetlena Sabarwal, Joana Silva, and Andres Yi Chang. 2023. Collapse and Recovery: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Eroded Human Capital and What to Do about It. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://doi.10.1596/978-1-4648-1901-8. Stanley, Victoria, and Jennifer Lisher. 2023. “Why Land and Property Rights Matter for Gender Equality.” World Bank Group Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series: Evidence and Practice Note, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39990. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 48 REFERENCES The Economist. 2023. “The Economist’s Glass-ceiling Index.” The Economist, March 6. https://www​.economist.com/graphic-detail/glass-ceiling-index. Tommasi, D. 2019. “Control of Resources, Bargaining Power and the Demand of Food: Evidence from PROGRESA.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 161: 265–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j​.jebo.2019.04.008. Ubfal, Diego. 2023. What Works in Supporting Women-led Businesses? Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38564. UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2020. 2020 Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI). New York: UNDP. https://hdr.undp.org/content/2020-gender-social-norms-index-gsni. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). 2022. Leave No Child Behind: Global Report on Boys’ Disengagement from Education. Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381105. United Nations. 2018. UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment. New York: UN Women. UN Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women). 2021. Measuring the Shadow Pandemic: Violence against Women during Covid-19. New York: UN Women. https://data.unwomen.org/publications/vaw-rga. WHO (World Health Organization). 2021. “Devastatingly Pervasive: 1 in 3 Women Globally Experience Violence.” Press release, March 9. https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-pervasive​ -1-in-3-women-globally-experience-violence. World Bank. 2012. World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4391. World Bank. 2017a. Gender Strategy FY16-23: Gender Equality, Poverty Reduction and Inclusive Growth. Washington, DC: World Bank. Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/ en/820851467992505410/World-Bank-Group-gender-strategy-FY16-23-gender-equality-poverty​ -reduction-and-inclusive-growth. World Bank. 2017b. World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2017. World Bank. 2020a. World Bank Group Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence 2020–2025. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/844591582815510521​ /World-Bank-Group-Strategy-for-Fragility-Conflict-and-Violence-2020-2025. World Bank. 2020b. Demographic Transition: Lessons from Bangladesh’s Success Story. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/33672. World Bank. 2021a. 2021 Development Policy Financing (DPF) Retrospective: Facing Crisis, Fostering Recovery. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099623509132210285/ pdf/IDU0249804670b2fc0466f083850d1aad1818915.pdf. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030 ACCELERATE GENDER EQUALITY TO END POVERTY ON A LIVABLE PLANET 49 World Bank. 2021b. World Bank Group Gender Strategy Mid-Term Review: An Assessment by the Independent Evaluation Group. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org​/evaluations/gender-strategy-mid-term-review. World Bank. 2022b. Breaking Barriers: Female Entrepreneurs Who Cross Over to Male-Dominated Sectors. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/36940. World Bank. 2023a. Addressing Gender Inequalities in Countries Affected by Fragility, Conflict, and Violence: An Evaluation of the World Bank Group’s Support. Independent Evaluation Group. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/sites/default/files/Data/Evaluation/files/gender-in-FCV.pdf. World Bank. 2023b. World Development Report 2023: Migrants, Refugees, and Societies. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2023. World Bank. 2023c. Gender Equality in Development: A Ten-Year Retrospective. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/39939. World Bank. 2024. Women, Business and the Law 2024. Washington, DC: World Bank. WORLD BANK GROUP GENDER STRATEGY 2024–2030