An Operational Approach to Enhancing Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in World bank projects © 2023 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 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 World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the data included in this work and does not assume responsibility for any errors, omissions, or discrepancies in the information, or liability with respect to the use of or failure to use the information, methods, processes, or conclusions set forth. 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Design: Jihane El Khoury Roederer ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper was written by Wendy Cunningham and Sarika Gupta (Social Protection & Jobs Practice, Africa Region, World Bank), with valuable feedback and input from Ioana Botea and guidance from the Africa Social Protection & Jobs WGE SWAT team (Emily Weedon, Sara Troiano, Benedicte de la Briere, Christabel Dadzie, and Kehinde Ajayi), the Gender Innovation Lab, the Africa Human Capital Plus Team, participants at the decision meeting, and peer reviewers (Maria Beatriz Orlando, Alessandra Heinemann, Kathleen Beegle, Aline Coudouel, Sara Troiano, Tanya D’Lima, and Nono Ayivi-Guedehoussou), Social Protection & Jobs Practice Managers (Iffath Sharif, Dhushyanth Raju, Camilla Holmemo, Paolo Belli, Robert Chase, and Christian Bodewig), and HD Regional Directors Dena Ringold and Amit Dar. The paper is built on the analysis contained in “Empowerment Approach: An Application to Women and Girls.” Social Protection & Jobs Practice, Africa Region, World Bank, mimeo authored by Audrey Stienon (consultant, World Bank) with inputs from Lindsay Mossman (consultant). Please cite as: Wendy Cunningham and Sarika Gupta (2023) “An Operational Approach to Enhancing Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in World Bank Operations,” Social Protection & Jobs Practice, Africa Region, World Bank, mimeo   |  III Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS III 1 INTRODUCTION 2 2 TOWARD AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT (WGE) 5 3 APPLYING THE OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO WGE THROUGH THE 3-DS: DEFINE, DIAGNOSE, DESIGN 13 4 A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE OF APPLYING THE APPROACH TO A WORLD BANK OPERATION 16 5 CONCLUSION 19 REFERENCES 20 ANNEX 1: APPLICATION OF THE 3-DS TO INCORPORATE WGE IN A WORLD BANK PROJECT 22 ANNEX 1. ENDNOTES 32 IV | 1 Introduction Gender equality has long been central to the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. The World Bank’s Gender Strategy 2016- 2023 advocates for closing gender gaps in four domains: (i) human endowments; (ii) jobs; (iii) asset ownership and control; and (iv) voice and agency.1 The “Gender Tag” was introduced in 2017 to identify those projects that include a clear analysis of how to close gender gaps as well as specific monitoring actions to achieve this. The share of “gender tagged” operations has been steadily increasing, from 50 percent in FY17 to 81 percent in FY21, which has exceeded the Bank’s IDA and capital increase targets.2 More recently, women’s and girls’ empowerment (WGE) has become a priority in the Africa region in the context of the region’s demographic transition. The 2019 Africa Human Capital Plan (HCP) identified the need to “accelerat[e] the demographic transition by empowering women and girls” as one of seven gamechangers for advancing human capital development in the region.3 The HCP “commits to supporting countries in accelerating the fertility transition by empowering, educating, employing, and enhancing access to sexual and reproductive healthcare” for women and girls—or the 4Es framework. The plan also sets an objective for the World Bank to have put in place cross-sectoral projects to support women’s empowerment and the demographic transition in 20 African countries with high fertility rates by 2023.4 There has been a proliferation of World Bank projects with development objectives that include “empowerment”, yet there remains a lack of consensus around its definition and operationalization. The World Bank has committed over US$6 billion in new operations in the Africa region that “champion women and girls” since 2019.5 This includes sectoral projects that target girls and women along the 4Es framework. Yet an internal review of the Africa Social Protection and Jobs (SPJ) portfolio in October 2020, for example, found that one-third of social safety net projects reference women’s empowerment as a goal but often fail to define what is meant by “empowerment” or how the project contributes to achieving it.6 The Bank’s Strategy for Human Capital Development in Africa recognizes women’s and girls’ empowerment as a policy goal in its own right,7 though at times it equates it with the demographic transition. Thus, there is still no consensus on what “empowerment” consists of in the context of a development operation, how projects can be designed to achieve it, or how to measure success.8 1 World Bank (2015). 2 World Bank (2022). 3 World Bank (2021). 4 More than four children per woman. 5 World Bank (2021). 6 World Bank (2021). 7 World Bank (2021). 8 The proliferation in the use of the “empowerment” concept may have diluted its meaning, to such an extent that “women’s empowerment” is often taken  as being synonymous with “gender equality” and “women’s status” (Calvès, 2009). This has led to criticism of development agencies’ empowerment programs for being top-down rather than bottom-up (Calvès, 2009 and O’Neil, 2014). 2  |  MEASUREMENT GUIDE: FOUR INDICATORS FOR ASSESSING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN OPERATIONS This note lays out a pragmatic Operational Approach to enhancing women’s and girls’ empowerment in World Bank projects.9 It is not intended to provide a new definition of empowerment or to present a new framework (see Box 1 for the key frameworks that guide the development community’s work on WGE). Instead, the objective of the note is to translate widely accepted empowerment concepts into an Operational Approach to WGE that Bank TTLs can use in their project and ASA work. The approach includes: (i) a systematic way to analyze constraints to achieving WGE in the context of lending or analytical products; (ii) a list of potential intervention areas within the three empowerment pillars that can be integrated into World Bank projects; and (iii) guidance on how to incorporate the operational approach to WGE into project design. BOX 1. The Development Community’s Frameworks for Women’s Empowerment There is a large amount of overlap in the key empowerment concepts that various organizations have identified as being central to increasing women’s opportunities and improving their wellbeing. The World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report on gender equality (World Bank, 2012) proposed a framework related to women’s endowments (health, education, and assets), agency, and access to economic opportunities. The framework was incorporated into the Bank’s 2014 Voice and Agency Report (World Bank 2014) as well as its 2016- 2023 Gender Strategy (World Bank, 2015). More recently, the 2019 Africa Human Capital Plan (World Bank, 2021) put forward a “4Es” framework identifying empowerment, education, employment, and enhanced access to health services as key elements for enhancing women’s and girls’ agency. The UNDP includes empowerment as a component of its Gender Inequality Index, using education and representation in decision-making bodies as indicators of “empowerment” and identifying reproductive health and labor force participation as other indicators of gender equality. The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) defines economic empowerment as being comprised of two inter-related components: (i) economic advancement and (ii) power and agency, with the building blocks of this being individual and community resources (including human, financial, social, and physical capital) and norms and institutions (Golla et al, 2018). International non-governmental organizations such as CARE International have focused their women’s empowerment frameworks on the pillars of agency, power relations, and structures, including social norms and laws, policies, and institutions (CARE International, 2016). The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Empowerment Model offers the following three elements of empowerment: (i) the agency of women and girls; (ii) formal and informal institutional structures and norms; and (iii) access to resources, including health, financial and productive assets, knowledge and skills, and time and social capital (van Eerdewijk et al, 2017).  lthough not detailed in this note, this same approach can also be used to structure Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) work related to gender, 9 A especially gender gap assessments and diagnostics. See Cunningham et al. (2023b) for an example of how this has been done in Liberia. Introduction | 3 The intended audience for this note is World Bank task team leaders. The Operational Approach to WGE is designed to make it easier for task team leaders (TTLs) to identify and categorize the constraints that women and girls face when trying to achieve a desired outcome and include interventions into project design that can effectively alleviate those constraints so that women are empowered to make new decisions over their lives. The intention behind working towards women’s and girls’ empowerment in a systematic way is to ensure that gender gaps are closed sustainably, by tackling the root of the problem, rather than temporarily, by mechanically shifting outcomes in short-term projects. The ideas in the approach are appliable to all regions and Global Practices. Methodologically, the Operational Approach to WGE draws from two main documents that have been heavily vetted as well as from World Bank experience. First, it takes principles proposed in Kabeer (1999) as the conceptual basis for the definition of empowerment and its component parts. Kabeer (1999) is widely recognized as a foundational text in the gender and development field. Second, we draw operational guidance from a conceptual model that was meticulously developed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) through a thorough literature review and intensive dialogue with development practitioners and feminist thinkers intersected with the BMGF’s operational experience.10 Drawing from these two sources, we emphasize the conceptual ideas that are most relevant to the World Bank’s operational and analytical work. The note is organized in four main sections. Following this introduction, Section 1 provides an overview of the concept of “empowerment,” while Section 2 describes the factors that, collectively, result in women’s empowerment. Section 3 then provides brief guidelines for how to use the Operational Approach to WGE in World Bank operations in any thematic sector using the 3-Ds (define, diagnose, and design). Section 4 provides a brief example of how to apply the Operational Approach in the context of a World Bank project, with details in Annex 1. Section 5 summarizes the main messages and concludes.  ee van Eerdewijk et al. (2017) for the full analysis and a summary at: https://prevention-collaborative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/BMGF_2019_ 10 S Conceptual-Model-Women-and-Girls-Empowerment.pdf 4  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS 2 TWomen’s oward an Operational Approach to and Girls’ Empowerment (WGE) The Operational Approach to WGE proposed in this note is based on the definition of empowerment as expressed in Kabeer (1999) as a “process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic choices acquire such an ability.” This definition is heavily rooted in Amartya Sen’s Capabilities Approach,11 the goal of which is to grant individuals the capability to choose and pursue the type of life that they prefer, such as the level of education they wish to attain, their choice of a livelihood, whether or not to marry, or the number of children to have.12 Empowerment is thus a process of expanding an individual’s ability to choose and act on those choices so that women and girls can exert greater influence over their own lives and futures. Central to that process is for women and girls to define their personal goals and determine the pathways needed to achieve them. The ability to make a decision and to carry it out does not come solely from the decision-maker herself but also from social structures that often inequitably distribute the power to make decisions and take action. These structures may be institutions, markets, social norms, laws, allocation of resources, or a myriad of other forces. People with high status and means often have more power to make decisions that affect themselves than others with lower status and fewer means. In the context of gender, social and economic structures often create systemic constraints that limit women’s and girls’ decision-making power to pursue the type of life identified in Sen (1985). To equalize decision-making, the underlying systematic constraints that are the root of unequal outcomes need to be tackled. 11 Sen (1985). 12 The capabilities approach involves expanding choice not only in terms of making decisions but also in terms of envisioning alternatives. This can be particularly challenging when women and girls have internalized the taken-for-granted rules, norms, and customs within which their everyday life is conducted (Kabeer, 1999). Toward an Operational Approach to Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment (WGE)  |  5 BOX 2. What Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment is NOT To gain a clearer understanding of women’s and girls’ empowerment, it can be useful to define what it is not. Women’s and girls’ empowerment does not simply consist of targeting women and girls as beneficiaries. While it is important to ensure that women and girls are benefitting from social programs, providing them with resources is not equivalent to empowering them by enhancing their underlying capacity to make certain decisions over their life, as defined by Kabeer. For example, since the emergence of social welfare policies in Latin America in the late 1990s, projects have been providing household transfers directly to women, as research has shown this approach leads to better outcomes, particularly related to household food security and children’s human capital. This is frequently described as empowering women. However, increasing women’s access to resources, while desirable, does not necessarily change intra-household or social power dynamics that affect women’s financial decision-making, unless coupled with other inventions aimed at alleviating these constraints. Women’s and girls’ empowerment is not simply a matter of reducing gender gaps or improving girls’ and women’s sector-specific outcomes. Reducing gender gaps and empowering women and girls do not always coincide, as it is possible to close a gender gap without empowering women/girls in the process of doing so. For example, a program that provides a conditional cash transfer to families if they send their girls to school for an additional year may help close a gender gap between boys and girls in educational attainment. However, this gap was not closed by empowering girls to choose to stay in school longer, and the gap may reopen once the program funding ends. Alternatively, by working with girls and families not only to provide the resources they need to send girls to school but also to address mindsets around the value of girls education and ability of girls to set and articulate their educational aspirations, the program could remove barriers to girls’ decision-making around their own education so that they can proactively choose to stay in school longer, which may continue to be a choice they make beyond the lifetime of the program. This would be an example in which girls have been empowered to close a gender gap. Similarly, improved outcomes for women do not always translate in their broader empowerment in the absence of intentional interventions to do so. For example, when women have participated in multifaceted economic inclusion interventions around the world, this has led to well-documented increases in their households’ income, food security, and asset holding, but it has not increased their own decision-making power (Banerjee et al, 2015). Drawing from both Kabeer (1999) and BMGF (van Eerdewijk et al, 2017), the Operational Approach to WGE is based on the premise that empowering women and girls requires a strategy that emphasizes the three pillars—agency, resources, and context—that underpin a person’s decision-making capacity. “Agency” refers to an individual’s capacity to set and articulate goals and take actions to pursue those goals free of violence, retribution, or fear. “Resources” are the various means (such as capital, assets, tools, and information) that individuals have at their disposal to facilitate their decision-making and to enable them to take the actions towards the achievement of their goals. “Context” represents the institutions and social arrangements that shape and influence the ability of individuals to use their agency and assert control over resources (Figure 1). 6  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS FIGURE 1. An Operational Approach to Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment Achievements (Examples: Increased educational attainment, higher wages, reduced fertility rates, elimination of GBV, greater mobility, more leadership roles) Agency Resources Context 1. Setting goals 4. Financial & physical capital 8. Formal/informal institutions 2. Sense of agency 5. Human capital 9. Statutory/customary laws 3. Mobilization to act on goals 6. Social capital 10. Customs and norms 7. Information 11. Relationships Source: Author’s rendering. Note: The three levels are the achievements (top), pillars (agency, resources, and context), and intervention areas (within each pillar). Achievements are outcomes that are realized when the empowerment process has successfully occurred.13 Using the Operational Approach to WGE within any specific sector implies the need to first identify and then alleviate the constraints within each of the three empowerment pillars that limit women’s and girls’ ability to realize their defined goal or “achievement” in that sector. These desired achievements might be the closing a gender gap, an improvement in a particular outcome, or any other change that improves the well-being of the target population. From an operational point of view, an “achievement” is the outcome that a project team hopes to realize by increasing women’s and girls’ empowerment. Projects in the Bank’s different sectors14 will define achievements according to the challenges faced by women and girls in that particular sector. For example, an education project may define its desired achievement as an improvement in girls’ learning scores, while a transport project may define its desired achievement as an increase in women’s safety while commuting. Using the Operational Approach to WGE, projects are ideally designed to alleviate constraints women face under all three empowerment pillars so that the desired achievements are realized through a process by which women and/or girls have an enhanced ability to make choices and act on those choices. Women and girls who develop the ability to define and pursue goals, have the resources to work towards those goals, and can operate within an enabling environment to realize those goals are empowered to reach their goals. Interventions that achieve their sectoral goals without changing these underlying forces may temporarily benefit women or girls, but they are not likely to  abeer (1999) puts achievements on equal footing as agency and resources, noting that they influence each other. From an operational perspective, we 13 K conceive achievements as the results of transformations brought about by increasing WGE in terms of agency, resources, and (in our model) context. 14 The primary “sectors” in the World Bank are grouped into 16 Global Practices and 3 cross-cutting solutions groups. Toward an Operational Approach to Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment (WGE)  |  7 truly empower them by changing their underlying decision-making capacity. For example, a project may have the goal of increasing the age of mothers at the time of their first birth. If it simply were to provide basic reproductive health training and contraception, it would loosen a resource constraint by increasing access to contraception and thus might raise the age of mothers at the time of their first birth. But these interventions would not necessarily be empowering women by changing their underlying ability to make decisions around their fertility because they are not tackling agency constraints such as the ability of women to define and act on their childbearing goals or contextual constraints such as social norms related to family planning and household decision-making. Thus, when the resources (contraceptives) stop coming, the age of first birth might go back down for the target population. A project that reduces constraints under all three pillars, however, could give women the power to proactively decide on the timing of their first birth and to make that decision a reality, and this shift in underlying decision-making capacity would be more likely to last beyond the life of the project. From a development practitioners’ perspective, the objective is to clear the way for women and girls to make their own decisions (working from the bottom up) rather than being subject to the development community’s decisions (working from the top down). Under the Operational Approach to WGE, the three empowerment pillars have been categorized into 11 potential intervention areas that TTLs can use to guide their identification of constraints and design of their projects. The agency pillar has the following areas: (1) goal-setting; (2) a sense of agency; and (3) mobilizing women and girls to take action towards their goals. The resources pillar includes four elements that enhance the ability to exercise choice: (4) financial and physical capital; (5) human capital; (6) social capital; and (7) information. The context pillar encompasses: (8) formal/informal institutions; (9) statutory and customary laws; (10) customs and norms; and (11) personal relationships. Constraints in each of these areas can impede women and girls from reaching their desired achievement. Therefore, project teams can use the Operational Approach to WGE to identify and reduce those constraints and to design interventions that will enable women and girls gain the capacity to reach their defined achievements. The following discussion describes the potential intervention areas under each WGE pillar in more detail. It also demonstrates how interventions under the three empowerment pillars can be combined in ways that increase women’s capacity to make and act on their own choices. It clarifies how some concepts—such as human capital—can be part of one empowerment pillar within a project yet also be a desired achievement for another project. In addition, it shows how issues that are commonly incorporated into projects with WGE objectives—such as gender-based violence, childcare, and women’s economic empowerment—are reflected in the Operational Approach to WGE. Box 3 highlights how the Operational Approach to WGE differs from the approaches taken in Kabeer (1999) and BMGF (van Eerdewijk et al, 2017). 8  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS BOX 3. How Does the Operational Approach to WGE Differ from the Kabeer and BMGF Frameworks? The WGE operational framework presented in this paper differs from previous work in a few fundamental ways: 1. Kabeer (1999) emphasizes three dimensions of choice or empowerment—resources, agency, and achievements —which work simultaneously to affect each other and are indivisible. From an operational perspective, this circularity is difficult to manage. Instead, we define an “achievement” as the development outcome to which we expect the process of empowerment to lead. It is akin to a project “outcome.” 2. Kabeer (1999) assumes that structures, which we refer to as “context,” are external to the empowerment model, shaping resources, agency, and achievements. While we acknowledge that context may affect the other pillars, it also may directly affect achievements. From an operational perspective, World Bank tools to transform context tend to differ from those that affect resources and agency. For example, development policy operations (DPOs) may be more appropriate for shaping statutory laws on property ownership, while investment policy financing (IPF) might be the best tool for building financial resources. 3. BMGF (van Eerdewijk et al, 2017) identifies additional elements within each of the three pillars, which may be more aligned with the tools used by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation than those used in World Bank operations. This is particularly noticeable in the resources pillar, where the World Bank focuses more on building capital, while the BMGF considers a broader set of resources, including bodily integrity and critical consciousness. Agency – the ability to make choices The agency pillar reflects elements within the individual herself. If the manifestation of empowerment is choice, agency represents individuals’ capacity to take the tools at their disposal and actively make choices and take actions to achieve them. Thus, in order to increase the agency of women, it is first necessary to help them to enhance the skills, knowledge, and confidence that they need to take ownership of their choices and actions. Although “agency” is often included in empowerment frameworks as a single concept, it is a complex concept. Donale et al (2017) broke “agency” down into three critical dimensions, which correspond to the intervention areas under the agency pillar presented in Figure 1: 1. Goal-setting is the ability of a girl or woman to envision and articulate an achievement. This is a prerequisite for decision-making and, for very disempowered women and girls, a skill that needs to be built. This can be done by project interventions that employ career counselors who work with girls to help them to define their job aspirations. Alternatively, a project might include a financial literacy program that works with women to help them to envision what they will buy when they meet their savings goals. 2. A sense of agency is when individuals have the belief that they have the power to take the actions needed to achieve their goals. Simply having a goal and the resources to reach it does not necessarily lead to action if women and girls believe that their efforts will not achieve the goal. Thus, it is also necessary to change their mindset so that they believe that their own actions can lead to the results that they want. Projects aimed at building agency in women and girls might Toward an Operational Approach to Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment (WGE)  |  9 include interventions that use mindset exercises or group sessions to build their self-efficacy and self-esteem. These might be in the form of Agency-Based Empowerment (ABE) training,15 life skills and resilience training, or psycho-social training, for example. 3. Mobilizing women to take action to reach their goals is the third element. An individual’s ability to do this can be hindered if they have limited negotiation, leadership, or other skills that are required to make change, especially if compounded by context and resource constraints. Some examples of interventions that projects might use to help women and girls to take action might include providing them with female role models or mentors that exemplify the desired actions or behaviors and thus motivate them to follow suit. Other interventions might advocate for more women leaders in existing institutions, sponsor girls’ clubs to provide peer-to-peer help and encouragement, or support local women’s organizations in taking collective action to advocate for systemic changes that would benefit women. Creating self-help groups can also be a useful way to mobilize girls and women to take collective action and hold each other accountable. While the term “agency” is often used interchangeably with “empowerment,” the Operational Approach to WGE posits otherwise. It is important to recognize that empowerment requires not only agency but also an enabling environment (context) as well as the means to realize choices (resources). This is why the Operational Approach to WGE categorizes agency, context, and resources as equally necessary preconditions for empowerment. Resources – the means to realize your choices The approach defines resources as the material, human, and social assets that enhance an individual’s ability to exercise choice. Different types of capital can be useful for achieving an individual’s goals, including financial and physical capital, human capital, social capital, and information.16 4. Financial and physical capital consists of economic resources, such as income, savings, credit, technology, land, equipment, livestock, roads, schools, health clinics, and other personal or public assets. They hold value and thus infer decision-making power on those who own them, have control over them, and/or have a right to use them. Some examples of project interventions to reduce constraints to accessing financial and physical capital include providing cash transfers to households, providing capital to women entrepreneurs, ensuring equal rights to own and use land, and distributing mobile phones to women to enable them to access knowledge or financial services. Interventions involving public assets might include investments that increase access to vital infrastructure such as childcare centers, roads, or health clinics, which are all important resources that affect the life choices available to women and girls. 15 Approaches that enable individuals to understand how their beliefs, values, emotions, and thoughts impact their behaviors and can be modulated. The BMGF (van Eerdewijk et al, 2017) identifies additional categories under resources, including critical consciousness (which we put under agency), bodily 16  integrity (which we put under human resources), and safety and security (which we put under achievements). 10  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS 5. Human capital consists of the knowledge, skills, health, and other personal assets embodied within the individual. Increasing the human capital of girls and women can position them to be less dependent on others and to make better decisions in their daily lives. Some examples of project interventions in this category might include the provision of technical and life skills training, education services, health and reproductive services, and nutritional support, all of which have the potential to build the human capital of women and girls. 6. Social capital consists of social networks and connections that form a support system within which girls and women can collaborate and make choices. These connections are built on shared experience and can provide women with information and support towards reaching their goals. Some examples of project interventions for building women’s and girls’ social capital might include the creation of girls’ clubs, professional cooperatives, or community councils. 7. Information about options, processes, opportunities, and services is a crucial input into decision- making.17 How information is delivered and expressed affects the degree to which it is a viable input to women’s empowerment. Some examples of project interventions in this area might include holding information sessions at women’s health centers, posting flyers at places where women gather, or supporting women leaders in conducting home visits to pass on information of interest and use to other women. Context – an enabling environment for equitable decision-making Context interventions are those that create an environment that enables women and girls to make choices.18 The most pertinent intervention areas for creating such an environment are those that relate to formal and informal institutions, statutory and customary laws, customs and norms, and personal relationships. Transforming context requires an engagement with those who perpetuate constraints to achieving WGE rather than with women and girls themselves. 8. Formal and informal institutions are decision-making bodies that set the rules of the game. This may include formal institutions such as governmental bodies that determine the allocation of resources, the design of programs, budget priorities, and development strategies for the country. Informal institutions, such as village councils or households, also take decisions that can negatively affect the ability of women and girls to define their goals or take the steps to achieve them. Interventions in this area should be designed to change those organizational structures that limit women’s choices. This might mean addressing gender biases and discrimination by service providers and employers or working with traditional community leaders to include women in decision-making bodies at the local level. 9. Statutory and customary laws codify the rules of the game. They define who is allowed to make decisions or how decision-making authority is distributed in the country. Statutory laws are passed  uman capital (knowledge) and information are different concepts. Knowledge is awareness or understanding of a subject acquired from education or 17 H experience. Information is specific practical data about the who, what, where, and when of a topic (but not the why or how). Kabeer (1999) does not separate out context or institutions, instead lumping them in with “resources.” From an operational viewpoint, the distinction 18  between contextual and capital resources is significant so we separate the two, as is done by the BMGF (van Eerdewijk et al, 2017). Toward an Operational Approach to Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment (WGE)  |  11 and enforced by formal institutions, while customary laws often emerge from years of practices. In many contexts, statutory laws are not aligned with customary laws, but customary laws are more often followed in practice. For example, statutory laws may allow women to own property, but customary laws that dictate that men are the primary owners of marital property may be more widely followed. Project interventions may aim to explicitly modify laws or they may aim to transform the institutions that are responsible for upholding the statutory or customary laws. 10. Customs and norms are socially accepted ways of behaving that are not codified in law. Social norms can be defined as behavioral rules that: (i) are developed and shared by a group that differs from individually held beliefs or attitudes; (ii) are defined by an individual’s beliefs about what others do (empirical expectations) and about what others think the individual should do (normative expectations); (iii) are maintained by social influence, including positive or negative social sanctions; and (iv) vary between different groups.19 Interventions designed to change social norms might include working with influencers such as community or religious leaders to change expectations or campaigns to raise awareness about alternative norms. 11. Relationships implicitly set the rules of the game between individuals, which might not be aligned with other social or legal norms. For example, the decision-making structure in a household may be influenced by social norms but also by factors specific to the household members. Also, the composition of the community might affect its reaction to the idea of WGE, including resistance from male heads of households and/or religious or community leaders. Some examples of interventions aimed at reducing constraints to WGE within households or communities, particularly those involving decision-making authority, might include working with family members to address their concerns that may underpin their decision to limit women’s and girl’s decision making or supporting husband’s clubs for men to discuss how they can play a role in alleviating constraints faced by women and girls. Changing relationships in favor of empowering women and girls is linked to transforming social norms as both are crucial to enabling women and girls to make and act on their own choices. 19 CARE International (2016). 12  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS 3 AThrough pplying the Operational Approach to WGE the 3-Ds: Define, Diagnose, Design The Operational Approach to WGE consists of an analytical and operational structure through which the World Bank can achieve the goals set out in its global and regional WGE strategies. These strategies often define the “achievements” that the World Bank hopes to realize, and the Operational Approach to WGE can be used to structure the interventions needed to achieve those goals. For example, the World Bank’s Gender Strategy focuses on women’s economic empowerment (among other topics), including the need to close the gender employment gap. Projects can facilitate this by requiring that a predetermined share of beneficiaries to benefit from an employment program are women.20 Alternatively, using the Operational Approach to WGE, the project could introduce interventions that reduce underlying constraints across the three pillars so that more women are empowered to take the actions necessary to acquire jobs. While both approaches can close gender gaps, reducing constraints and thus enhancing decision-making capacity is more likely to lead to sustainable change. There are three key steps in applying the Operational Approach to WGE in World Bank operations. We refer to these as the 3-Ds: 1. Define the desired achievement. The project team should start by working with local stakeholders and the women and girls affected by the project to define the achievement they hope the project will empower them to realize by enhancing their decision-making capacity. This ‘define’ step should also be informed by available research and evidence on the challenges facing women and girls in the sector. The final achievement identified might be a gender gap that needs to be closed or an outcome for women or girls that needs to be improved. Instead of the project taking a top-down approach and imposing a goal, involving women in this step can increase their ownership of the agenda and help ensure the achievement is sustained beyond the life of the project. 2. Diagnose the constraints to realizing the achievement under each empowerment pillar. In this step, the project team should compile an exhaustive list of the constraints faced by women and girls under all three empowerment pillars in realizing the defined achievement. This step will likely require desk and field research, and a key to compiling an accurate and comprehensive list will be involving women and other stakeholders in the diagnostic process. 20 A project that successfully closes a gender gap does not necessarily empower women. There are examples of such projects from around the world, such as state-mandated birth rate targets. Thus, the indicators for monitoring WGE must go beyond simply measuring gender gaps. Applying the Operational Approach to WGE Through the 3-Ds: Define, Diagnose, Design  |  13 3. Design project interventions under each empowerment pillar to alleviate the identified constraints. To inform the design of specific interventions under each pillar, the team can start by finding examples of interventions that have been successful in other settings to alleviate the kinds of agency, resource, and context constraints they have identified in step 2. The team can work with clients and other local stakeholders to adapt the interventions to the project setting as needed. When the final determination of which interventions to include in the project has to be made, the team will have to consider budget constraints, client preferences, implementation complexities, and a host of other challenges. Therefore, while tackling all constraints identified in step 2 might be ideal, the project team needs to decide which constraints are the most binding for women’s decision- making in relation to the desired achievement and to devise interventions aimed at alleviating those constraints, keeping in mind interventions that need to co-exist to have an impact. For example, projects aiming to economically empower women need to recognize the importance of engaging with and persuading male spouses (under the context pillar) of the need for women to maintain control over their own earnings/transfers (under the resources pillar). The eleven intervention areas outlined above can be used during the diagnose and design steps to categorize the constraints under each pillar as well as to devise interventions to tackle them. There is a growing number of detailed examples for project teams to draw on during the design step.21 The Operational Approach to WGE treats empowerment as an end in itself as well as a means to reach a sector-specific end. The approach recognizes the intrinsic value of empowering girls and women. It also envisions that empowerment, if focused on sectoral outcomes, is a means to sector- specific ends. Both goals are achieved when using the empowerment approach to define, diagnose, and design project interventions. This approach can be used to incorporate empowerment into projects in any sector. The starting point of the approach within any World Bank project is to define a sectoral goal that girls or women in the given country wish to achieve. This achievement might have been defined in a country strategy, a World Bank strategy, or by a government or it could be set after direct consultations with the women or girls who will be affected by a project. The desired achievement may be to reduce gender-based violence or to increase women’s access to household inputs (such as water or electricity). In the case of girls, the goal might be to increase safety for girls when traveling to schools. Whatever the defined achievement, a systematic analysis using the Operational Approach can then be undertaken to identify the agency, resource, and context constraints that prevent women or girls from having the capacity to make the choices and take the actions necessary to reach the chosen sectoral goals and to design appropriate interventions to address those constraints. The specific interventions under the agency, resources and context pillars will differ between projects depending on the achievements that they choose. Teams working in various sectors (such as health, education, water, agriculture, social development, transport, entrepreneurship, and social protection) will manage projects that affect different domains of a women’s life. It follows that the types of constraints that limit choice and action and the interventions required to overcome those constraints will also differ between projects supported by different Bank sector teams. For example, they will be 21 See Cunningham et al. (2023a) and sources cited in Chang et al. (2020), J-PAL (2020), Buvinic and O’Donnell (2016). 14  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS quite different in a project aiming to reduce the incidence of child marriage than in a project aiming to enhance female representation on elected bodies. The same concepts may play different roles depending on the defined achievement of a given project. For example, an education project might make increasing girls’ secondary school attendance its desired achievement, and one of its intervention areas might be reducing gender-based violence (GBV) —which fits under the customs and norms intervention area in the context pillar—in schools. However, a different project might choose reducing GBV as its desired achievement and identify increasing female school attendance as a key (human capital) intervention under the resource pillar. Thus, girls’ education would be an achievement that results from empowerment process under one project but a human capital resource investment in another. And reduced GBV would be a desired achievement in one project but a context intervention to help empower girls to attain higher education in another.22 While interventions to alleviate the constraints faced by women under any single pillar might advance women’s wellbeing, addressing constraints across all three pillars is more likely to empower women and girls to make new choices that can enable them to realize a given achievement. Constraints under different pillars are often interconnected. By not implementing interventions under all three pillars, a project may find it difficult to realize its chosen achievement. However, the reality of project design and implementation logistics may make it difficult to adopt a comprehensive approach. At a minimum, the constraints analysis that precedes the project design phase should explore constraints under all three pillars of the Operational Approach so that the project team can intentionally prioritize the constraints and related interventions that are most important. In doing so, the team will also be fully aware of other factors that are constraining women’s or girls’ empowerment and, thus, could potentially limit the full realization of the beneficiaries’ goals and the project’s outcomes. Given the multi-dimensionality of women’s and girls’ lives, it is not feasible for a stand-alone project in any given country’s portfolio to be a catch-all “women’s empowerment” project. No single project can empower women in all domains of their lives. A woman may be empowered to make new choices in one area of her life (such as being enabled to pursue higher education by means of an education project) but still not be fully empowered in another domain for her life (such as financial decision-making). Therefore, it is more prudent for project teams to consider empowerment as the approach to be used to reach a particular sectoral outcome, and to recognize that “empowerment” has happened in that sector, than to make the general claim that the project is empowering women. The question, indeed, must always be asked—empowering women to what end? 22 We identify GBV as a context intervention area rather than an agency area since a substantial literature attributes GBV to social norms and (power) relationships. Applying the Operational Approach to WGE Through the 3-Ds: Define, Diagnose, Design  |  15 4 AApproach Practical Example of Applying the to a World Bank Operation To illustrate the approach, we share an example of how it was applied it in the context of a World Bank operation. The Recovery of Economic Activity for Liberian Informal Sector Employment (REALISE) project’s objective is, among others, to increase access to income-earning opportunities for vulnerable workers in the informal sector.23 Under one of the project’s components, this is to be achieved by supporting vulnerable households to revive or start small businesses through the provision of business grants and business management training. In addition, the task team followed the 3-D’s of the operational approach to explicitly design elements under phase 2 of project implementation24 that would contribute to empowering women to be more successful entrepreneurs. First, the team defined the WGE Outcome to be achieved under the project: to increase the number of women from the informal sector opening businesses in male-dominated, high-profit business sectors. This outcome was determined based on lessons learned from the Youth Opportunities Project (YOP) which preceded REALISE, analytical work on constraints to women’s small business development and ownership in Liberia, including piloting of gender-focused interventions and focus group discussions with female beneficiaries under YOP, and more general documents that explored Liberia’s labor market context and gender-specific issues. The team also engaged with practitioners who had worked with women entrepreneurs in Liberia for over a decade. These documents and the consultative process that the team went through during preparation of the second phase of the REALISE project brought women’s voices to the exercise. The team reviewed the project activities – which had already been agreed with the client – and identified one that could host, and benefit from, WGE design elements: the initiative to support women to open new small businesses. The team defined the desired WGE Achievement to be “to empower women to open new businesses in male-dominated, high-profit business sectors, with the aim of changing the status quo of women being concentrated in lower productivity and lower income employment sectors of the economy.”  he additional project objectives are to expand consumption smoothing support to poor and food insecure households and strengthen social protection 23 T systems in Liberia. These will not be considered in this example, though they could easily be analyzed using the Operational Approach to WGE.  hile it would have been ideal to use the 3-D’s to design the project’s components from the onset, this was not possible since the project preparation 24 W preceded the development of the Operational Approach to WGE. Instead, the team used the Operational Approach ex post to integrate WGE into the design features of at least one project component during its second phase of rollout. 16  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS Second, the diagnosis phase required a deep dive to determine the constraints Liberian women face in achieving the identified WGE Outcome. Drawing from three key sources: a country-specific gender analysis, qualitative research on gender and occupational choice, and documents from similar projects targeted to Liberian women and girls,25 the team identified the constraints Liberian women face in achieving the defined outcome (i.e. crossing over into male-dominated sectors). Organizing the analysis along the three WGE pillars, the team produced a list of agency, resource, and context constraints that seemed the most relevant for preventing women to reach the WGE Outcome. Eight key constraints were identified (details and the referenced sources are provided in Annex 1): • Goal setting. Liberian women entrepreneurs seem less likely to “think big, long term, and take risks.” (agency) • Sense of Agency. Some Liberian women lack confidence in their abilities as entrepreneurs or in their potential to enter male-dominated industries. (agency) • Perceptions of what is possible. Liberian women have limited access to female role models in male- dominated employment sectors. (agency) • Asset ownership and access. Liberian women own fewer assets and have more difficulty than men in accessing credit and formal financial services (resources) • Human capital. Gender disparities in education and skills, particularly among working age adults, is reflected in gender-differentiated labor market outcomes in Liberia. (resources) • Customs and norms toward work. Cultural expectations, more so in some groups or areas of Liberia than other, lead to the crowding of women into specific sectors and jobs, particularly those with low returns. Perceived social norms around what businesses are appropriate for women seem to deter women from entering certain industries. (context) • Cultural norms toward sexual behavior. Sexual harassment and abuse are intertwined with work in various spheres in Liberia. This includes pressure to perform sexual acts in exchange for employment or access to means to be an entrepreneur, which is exacerbated in male-dominant occupations. The norms and weak institutions to discourage such norms discourage women from pursuing certain types of employment and constrain women’s occupational choice. (context) • Cultural expectations. The general perception in Liberia is that women should be a household’s primary caregiver and homemaker which limits their options in the labor market, including their occupational choice. (context) Third, the design phase required an exploration of program evidence and experience to recommend interventions for addressing the identified constraints. Drawing from global knowledge and the Liberian context, seven interventions to address the eight constraints were defined. • Information (agency). To address constraints that prohibit women from “thinking big, long term, and taking risks,” the project could provide information to project beneficiaries at the outset on earnings opportunities in male-dominated sectors. • Role models (agency). A second intervention to support women to think big, long term and take risks would be to pair project beneficiaries with mentors who are successful female entrepreneurs in male-dominated sectors.  his includes the Youth Opportunities Project (https://projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/project-detail/P146827 ) and the Girls Ebola Recovery 25 T Livelihoods Support Operation (GERLS) (https://projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/project-detail/P159493). A Practical Example of Applying the Approach to a World Bank Operation   |  17 • Agency-based empowerment training (agency). To address women’s limited confidence in themselves and their abilities as entrepreneurs, the project could incorporate agency-based empowerment training into the business skills training through individual and interactive exercises. • Small business grants (resources). To address women’s limited assets and their challenges in accessing loans, the project could provide small grants to existing or potential entrepreneurs. (This was already included in the original project design.) • Business skills (resources). To address gender disparities in education/skills and help women enhance their businesses, the project could provide training in a range of business-related skills. (This was already included in the original project design.) • Engage local influencers (context). To address the community norms and cultures that pressure women to limit their occupational options, the project could engage local influencers to promote social acceptance of women’s entrance into male-dominated sectors and help build alliances against the norms that contribute towards public and work-place sexual harassment. • Family coaching (context). To address household relationships that contribute towards crowding women into specific sectors and jobs and limit their decision-making power about their occupational choice, the project could offer gender-sensitive family coaching with male members of female beneficiaries’ households. The intervention could be designed to raise awareness of the issues and opportunities women face when selecting a male-dominated sector, alleviate fears, and address normative gender beliefs related to women’s role in the household and in family decision-making. This list, though long, is curated to align with the activities in the REALISE project, affect the WGE Outcome to Achieve that was identified in the “define” phase, and be feasible in the Liberia context. All recommendations are drawn from programs that have effectively addressed the defined constraints in environments similar to Liberia. The proposed interventions areas do not map one-to-one to the constraints identified in the “diagnose” phase. Instead, some interventions can address multiple constraints. See Table 2 in Annex 1 for more detail on the proposed interventions. To complete the design phase, the task team provided a systematic description of the design elements and practical consideration for each of the seven interventions. The information was drawn from the gender program evaluation literature (see Annex Table 2 for details). The assessment includes a discussion of: • Why? The rationale for the proposed intervention • What? A brief description of the intervention design • How? A discussion of how to implement the intervention • When? The timing and phasing of intervention design, implementation, and results • Next? Immediate next steps if the intervention is selected for the project • Potential Partners? Other organizations that are operating similar interventions in the client country The task team used project-specific filters to prioritize the seven interventions to then present to the client’s implementation unit. For each intervention, the team considered the political feasibility of introducing the intervention to the project, the extent to which it was compatible with the overall program design, and the ease of implementation in the given institutional context. This priority list is being used to guide the program design discussion with the clients. 18  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS 5 Conclusion The Operational Approach to WGE aims to facilitate the realization of the World Bank’s global and regional gender strategies by providing a simple methodology to identify potential interventions for empowering girls and women to achieve well-defined goals. One way to realize the goals of these strategies would be to take a top-down approach in which the client and the TTL would determine what women and girls need and provide it to them through projects, often via interventions under the resources pillar. However, the results may be more sustainable if the projects aimed to achieve their goals by facilitating the process of women’s and girls’ empowerment. This would mean defining the goals of the project in consultation with women and girls and designing interventions to alleviate the context-, resource-, and agency-specific constraints that are preventing women and girls from making decisions and acting on them to realize a specific achievement aligned with the project’s objectives. By breaking down the empowerment concept into three pillars and applying the 3-Ds, Bank teams can be more systematic in how they enhance women’s and girls’ empowerment through their projects. The approach’s starting point is to define a desired achievement or “outcome,” as presented in sectoral, regional, institutional, or client priorities that reflect the goals of women and girls themselves. The diagnosis phase of the approach uses an organizational structure—context, agency, and resources—that facilitates the development practitioner’s effort to identify the underlying factors that are hindering women and girls from reaching the defined goal. This systematic approach maps out the many constraints that need to be considered in project design, which will ideally include interventions under all three empowerment pillars to enhance women’s decision-making capacity. This process can be used by World Bank TTLs working in any sector. If used successfully, the Operational Approach to WGE has the potential to empower women and girls in two ways. First, the approach emphasizes the role played by a range of factors—encompassed by the three pillars—in enabling women and girls to make and realize choices. Some of these factors are directly related to the project beneficiary while others have indirect, yet significant, influences. Second, by being achievement-oriented, the Operational Approach to WGE enhances the chance that projects will enable women and girls to achieve their goals. In other words, by defining a sectoral goal, and designing a project to enable the agency, resources, and context elements that are collectively needed to achieve it, beneficiaries are more likely to become empowered to reach the defined goal. As noted by the BMGF (van Eerdewijk et al, 2017), “[The role of development partners thus is] facilitating a process of women and girls’ empowerment, and the interactions between the core elements, with the aim of tackling systemic differences in the ability of women and girls to exercise choice and voice.” World Bank TTLs can achieve this by ensuring that the three WGE pillars are reflected in the design of their projects. Conclusion | 19 References Batliwala, Srilatha, 2013. Engaging with Empowerment: An intellectual and experiential journey. New Delhi; India: Women Unlimited. Botea, Ioana, Wendy Cunningham, and Lindsay Mossman, 2022a. “Highlights from Africa SPJ – Empowering Women and Girls Through Social Protection.” World Bank, Washington, D.C. Mimeo Botea, Ioana, Wendy Cunningham, and Lindsay Mossman, 2022b. “Dashboard of Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment Interventions from Africa SPJ.” World Bank, Washington, D.C. Mimeo BMGF, 2019. “A Conceptual Model of Women and Girls’ Empowerment.” Available at: https://prevention-collaborative. org/knowledge_hub/a-conceptual-model-of-women-and-girls-empowerment/. Buvinic, Mayra and O’Donnell, Megan, 2016. “Revisiting What Works: Women, Economic Empowerment and Smart Design.” Centre for Global Development. Calvès, Anne-Emmanuèle, 2009. “Empowerment: The History of a Key Concept in Contemporary Development Discourse.” Revue Tiers Monde 4(200): 735-749. CARE International, 2016. Gender Equality and Women’s Voice: Guidance Note. Available at: https://insights. careinternational.org.uk/media/k2/attachments/Gender_equality_womens_voice_Guidance_Note_2018.pdf. CARE USA, 2017. “Applying Theory to Practice: CARE’s Journey Piloting Social Norms Measures for Gender Programming.” Available at: https://prevention-collaborative.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/applying_ social_norms_theory_to_practice_cares_journey.pdf. Chang, Wei, Lucía Díaz-Martin, Akshara Gopalan, Eleonora Guarnieri, Seema Jayachandran, and Claire Walsh, 2020. “What works to enhance women’s agency: Cross-cutting lessons from experimental and quasi-experimental studies.” J-PAL. Mimeo. Available at: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/research-paper/ gender_womens-agency-review_2020-march-05.pdf. Cunningham, Wendy, Sarika Gupta, and Conrad Koczorowski, 2023a. “Global Evidence on Context and Agency Interventions to Empower Women and Girls.” World Bank, Washington, D.C. Cunningham, Wendy, Sarika Gupta, and Sara Johansson De Silva, 2023b. “An Assessment of Gender Gaps in Liberia Through a Women’s Empowerment Lens.” World Bank, Washington, D.C. Donale, Aletheia, Gayatri Koolwal, Jeannie Annan, Kathryn Falb, and Markus Goldstein, 2017. “Measuring Women’s Agency.” Policy Research Working Paper 8148. World Bank. Washington, D.C. Freire, Paolo, 1968. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin (English translation 1970). Gausman, Jewel, 2021. “Gender and Occupational Choice in Liberia: Evidence from Focus Group Discussions”. Washington, D.C. mimeo. Golla, Anne Marie, Anju Malhotra, Priya Nanda, and Rekha Mehra, 2018. Understanding & Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment: Definition, Framework & Indicators. International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), Washington, D.C. HIES (Household Income and Expenditure Survey), 2016. Monrovia. dataset. Ideas42, 2020. “Behavioral Insights for Women’s Sector Choice in Liberia’s Youth Opportunities Project.” Washington, D.C. mimeo. 20  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS REFERENCES | 20 IFC (International Finance Corporation), 2014. Striving for Business Success: Voices of Liberian Entrepreneurs. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. J-PAL, 2020. “Enhancing women’s agency: Cross-cutting lessons from experimental and quasi-experimental studies in low- and middle-income countries.” Cambridge, MA: Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Available at: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/publication/evidence-review_womens-agency.pdf. Kabeer, Naila, 1999. “Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women’s Empowerment.” Development and Change 30(1999): 435-464. LISGIS (Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services) and Ministry of Labour Monrovia, 2011. “Report on the Liberian Labour Force Survey.” Monrovia, Liberia: LISGIS. Novo Foundation, BRAC, and FHi360, 2019. “Job Demand and Employment Market Analysis: Liberia”. mimeo. ODI, 2015a. How do gender norms change? Overseas Development Institute, London. ODI, 2015b. Communications to Change Discriminatory Gender Norms Affecting Adolescent Girls. Overseas Development Institute, London. O’Neil, Tam, Pilar Domingo, and Craig Valters, 2014. “Progress on Women’s Empowerment: From Technical Fixes to Political Action.” ODI Development Progress Working Paper No. 06, Overseas Development Institute, London. Ruis, Abril and Maria Elena. 2008. “Girls’ Vulnerability Assessment.” Background study for the Economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls in Liberia project, Washington, DC: Government of Liberia, Nike Foundation, and World Bank. Sen, Amartya, 1985. Commodities and Capabilities. Amsterdam: North-Holland. van Eerdewijk, Anouka, Franz Wong, Chloe Vaast, Julie Newton, Marcelo Tyszler, and Amy Pennington, 2017. “White Paper: A Conceptual Model of Women and Girls’ Empowerment.” Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam. World Bank. 2012. World Development Report 2012 : Gender Equality and Development. World Bank. Available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/4391. World Bank Group, 2014. “Voice, Agency, and Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity.” Washington, D.C. Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/Gender/Voice_and_agency_ LOWRES.pdf. World Bank, 2015. World Bank Group Gender Strategy (FY16-23): Gender Equality, Poverty Reduction and Inclusive Growth. Washington, D.C. World Bank, 2021. “Investing in People for a Resilient and Inclusive Recovery: Africa Human Capital Plan, Year Two Progress Report.” Washington, D.C. mimeo. World Bank, 2022. “Implementation Update, 2016-2023 WGE Gender Strategy” Washington, D.C. mimeo. Conclusion | 21 Annex 1: Application of the 3-Ds to incorporate WGE in a World Bank project The Recovery of Economic Activity for Liberian Informal Sector Employment (REALISE) project utilized the 3-D’s of the Operational Approach to Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment to design the second phase of implementation under project component 1. The project’s objective is to increase access to income-earning opportunities for the vulnerable in the informal sector, expand consumption smoothing support to poor and food insecure households, and strengthen social protection systems in Liberia. The first component intends to support vulnerable households to revive or start small businesses through26 the provision of business grants of up to US$900 per household, business management training, and mentorship. The second phase of component 1 under REALISE intends to incorporate additional interventions to empower women to cross-over into male-dominated sectors when opening their small businesses. Liberia is a challenging context for entrepreneurs, especially women. Employment in Liberia is largely informal. Data from 2016 find that some 87 percent of all employment in Liberia is informal with 94 percent of female workers compared to 79 percent of males participating in work that is not registered, regulated, or protected by regulatory frameworks.27 Most informal work takes the form of self-employment in agriculture or unregistered non-farm enterprises (NFE). The Government’s response to COVID-19 was swift but its social protection measures were primarily focused on food distribution. Since women are over-represented in low-profit, low-productivity sectors (such as wholesale and retail trade), they are more vulnerable to shocks, and have been heavily affected by COVID-19. Liberia ranks 175th out of 189 countries on the UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index (UNDP, 2020). Step I: Define the Achievement The WGE Outcome to Achieve via the project is: Increase the number of women from the informal sector opening new businesses in male dominated, high-profit business sectors. The team converged on the outcome after considering the various project objectives, the Liberian context, experience of the task teams (who have been working with women entrepreneurs for more than a decade), and the lessons from the more general literature that a key barrier to profitability for women entrepreneurs has to do with the choice of sector. The other two components aim to provide Temporary employment support and employability development for vulnerable workers, and to build capacity of 26  the project implementation and coordination units. 27 Liberia Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2016. 22  |  AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS Step II: Diagnose the Constraints The eight fundamental constraints women face in opening businesses in male-dominated fields are summarized under the three pillars of Empowerment in Table 1. The analysis is based on three sources: a gender analysis, qualitative research on gender and occupational choice, and an analysis of a pilot of behavioral and gender-focused interventions under Liberia’s Youth Opportunities Project. Step III: Design the Project Components Seven intervention recommendations that could be adopted under REALISE to address these constraints are summarized in Table 2. Table 3 provides a more detailed description of and explanation for why the interventions in Table 2 are proposed. Table 4 lays out the steps to follow to develop each intervention and timeline. Annex 1: Application of the 3-Ds to incorporate WGE in a World Bank project  |  23 ANNEX TABLE 1. Constraints to Addressed for REALISE to Achieve its WGE Outcome, by Empowerment Pillar CONTEXT CONSTRAINTS RESOURCES CONSTRAINTS AGENCY CONSTRAINTS f Cultural expectations lead to the crowding of f Women tend to own fewer assets and have more f When setting goals, Liberian women women into specific sectors and jobs, particularly difficulty accessing credit/formal financial entrepreneurs are less likely to “think big, long those with low returns (NoVo Foundation et al, services, adversely affecting their entrepreneurial term, and take risks,” which is reflected in the 2019). Perceived social norms around what prospects. small and informal nature of their businesses (IFC, businesses are appropriate for women can • A higher share of women than men responded 2014). deter women from entering certain industries, “because I knew I couldn’t get a loan” as the f Some Liberian women lack confidence in their particularly those that are typically male- main reason for not applying for loans in 2007 abilities as entrepreneurs or to enter male- dominated and may require additional training and 2012 surveys (IFC, 2014). dominated industries (Ideas42, 2020; Gausman, (Ideas42, 2020). • Women seek sources of finance that they 2021). f Cultural norms around sexual behavior, perceive to be easier and safer (Ideas42, 2020). • “Mental models” exacerbate this as women including pressure to perform sexual acts, • Women’s occupational choice is constrained stick to industries they feel they have the skills and norms that control women’s sexuality by a lack of resources to pursue education for, avoiding those which are male-dominated discourage women from pursuing certain types of and make financial investments in their small and may require additional training (Ideas 42, employment and constrain women’s occupational business (Gausman, 2021). 2020). choice (Gausman, 2021). Awareness of sexual • Women are discouraged when considering f Gender disparities in education/skills reflected in expectations in the workforce combined with men’s male-dominated industries to due self- labor market outcomes. desire to control women’s sexual behavior cause perceptions of “limitations in physical strength” men to exert influence over the types of work • Only 45 percent of female youth compared to 65 percent of male youth were literate in 2016 and “lack of skills in these sectors” (Gausman, women engage with (ibid). 2021). (HIES, 2016). 24  |  MEASUREMENT GUIDE: FOUR INDICATORS FOR ASSESSING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN OPERATIONS f Cultural expectations that women should be a f Liberian women have limited access to female household’s primary caregiver and homemaker • 28 percent of Liberian women v. 16 percent of men in 2010 reported being unemployed due to role models in male-dominated employment limits their options in the labor market (ibid). 41 sectors, making it difficult for them to make percent of young women (ages 15 to 24) versus 11 lack of skills and experience (LISGIS, 2011). decisions outside the box, while also expressing percent of young men reported not engaging in the • Women rely on family members for financial admiration for women who do challenge existing labor force due to childcare responsibilities (Ruiz resources to pursue training goals, which limits roles (Ideas42, 2020; Gausman, 2021). and Elena, 2008). the skills they can access (Gausman, 2021). A majority of women in the informal sector are not opening businesses in male dominated, high-profit business sectors. ANNEX TABLE 2. Recommendations for REALISE Interventions for Reducing Constraints to WGE under the Three Pillars of Empowerment INTERVENTIONS FOR REDUCING CONTEXT INTERVENTIONS FOR REDUCING RESOURCE INTERVENTIONS FO REDUCING AGENCY CONSTRAINTS CONSTRAINTS CONSTRAINTS f To address the norms and culture (community) f As endorsed by international evidence, the design f To address Agency (goal setting, mobilization) that contribute towards expectations and crowding of REALISE Component 1 follows an Operational constraints that prohibit women to “think big, long of women into specific sectors and jobs and Approach to WGE, where Resource interventions term, and take risks” it is recommended that the the perpetuation of sexual harassment, it is are paired with Agency interventions: REALISE team: recommended that REALISE: • Provide business skills training to address • Provide information at outset to program • Engage local influencers1 to promote social gender disparities in education/skills and help participants on earnings opportunities in male- acceptance of women’s entrance into male- women enhance their businesses dominated sectors and guaranteed resources dominated sectors and help build alliances • Provide small business grants to address they will receive (grants/training) from the against the norms that contribute towards women’s limited assets and their challenges in program.3 public and work-place sexual harassment (refer accessing loans. • Pair women with role-model mentors4 who to endnotes for resources). can respond to questions about the risks and f To address the relationships (household) that rewards of different sectors.5 contribute towards (i) cultural expectations of f To address Agency (sense of agency) constraints women crowding into specific sectors and jobs; that limit women’s confidence in themselves and and (ii) limit women’s ability to make decisions their abilities as entrepreneurs, it is recommended about their occupational choice it is recommended that REALISE: that REALISE: • Incorporate agency-based empowerment • Conduct gender-sensitive family coaching2 training into the business skills training with male members of female beneficiaries’ through individual and interactive exercises households to raise awareness of the context- (refer to endnotes for resources).6 specific issues and opportunities women face when selecting a male-dominated sector, alleviate fears, and address normative gender beliefs related to family violence and women’s role in family decision making. Increase in the number of women from the informal sector opening new businesses in male dominated high-profit business sectors. Annex 1: Application of the 3-Ds to incorporate WGE in a World Bank project  |  25 ANNEX TABLE 3. Context and Agency Intervention Details INTERVENTION WHY? WHAT? HOW? WHEN? PROPOSED CURRENTLY (DURATION) IMMEDIATE NEXT WORKING ON STEPS THIS? Engage Local Working with One approach has REALISE could Initial engagement Conduct a rapid Episcopal Relief Influencers religious and been to support identify influencers should occur prior stakeholder & Development in traditional leaders influencers to relevant to the to the launch of analysis of key partnership with (“influencers”) is carry out regular communities the Resources influencers in target Islamic Relief USA critical to changing and sustained that prospective interventions neighborhoods/ (Liberia) social norms. Both campaigns around beneficiaries work (grants, training). market areas (i.e., groups embody local common messaging and live in. The The scheduling FGDs with potential Tearfund (Liberia) moral values, have (eg: supporting identified influencers of messaging beneficiaries, key United Methodist legitimacy and the women engaging would (i) be brought should ultimately informant interviews Church – Family respect that NGOs in male dominated together to review be determined by with local NGO Planning, Women’s and Government trades, addressing project objectives stakeholders, but a staff or political Rights (Liberia) may not; they also sexual harassment and brainstorm potential schedule representatives). have extensive in public places) common messages may look like: regular Identify a budget communication via their regular and complementary engagement parallel for: (i) training/ channels to the communications approaches; to programming brainstorming communities where channels (i.e., (ii) develop a work- throughout (i.e., activity and at least women live and work. sermons, Friday plan for campaign mainstreamed one review session, prayers, routine delivery; and (iii) messages every (ii) stipends for Depending on the community meet during project second Friday or stakeholder travel, 26  |  MEASUREMENT GUIDE: FOUR INDICATORS FOR ASSESSING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN OPERATIONS pre-existing level of engagement) and milestones (i.e., after Sunday) with mixed and (iii) budget lines engagement, it can be mixed media (i.e., the first cohort) to media campaigns for mixed media quite low cost. radio, social media review the messages occurring on a campaigns that can channels). and exchange best monthly or quarterly be programmed by practices and lessons basis. stakeholders. (Refer to endnotes for learned. additional suggestions and resources). Continued INTERVENTION WHY? WHAT? HOW? WHEN? PROPOSED CURRENTLY (DURATION) IMMEDIATE NEXT WORKING ON STEPS THIS? Conduct Gender- Addressing One low-cost Sessions would Sessions should Identify/recruit Concern Worldwide Sensitive Family household/family recommendation address the key be brief (two to a local NGOs in partnership with Coaching relations is critical is family coaching, norms-based issues three sessions, or women’s Sonke Gender Justice for transforming the which can be identified (i.e., one to two hours organizations already (Liberia) Relations social norms that may conducted in a one- supporting women maximum), spaced in engaged in behaviour impact a woman’s on-one basis (within engaging in male a logical way across change activities Tearfund (Liberia) Option A ability to make the household) or in dominated trades) implementation at the household Promundo and choices about her small groupings of and address/answer activities (i.e., prior level to develop a Worldfish with livelihood. Engaging families and covers questions that may to grant, mid-way participatory family Concern Worldwide family members can common messaging impact a woman’s through training, and coaching toolkit to (Liberia) shift household’s around norms, while role in family- prior to first meeting pilot, and roll-out. reinforcement of also providing non- decision-making (i.e., with role-models). International Rescue gender or social financial incentives wife’s/daughter’s Identify a budget for: Committee with norms, increase for support, and contribution to Messaging should (i) recruitment of consultation from women’s ability to an opportunity to household economy; be aligned with training partner to Men’s Resources control future income, respond to questions how the family can campaigns developed design and conduct International (Liberia) and address hesitancy and concerns. support her future by local influencers. sessions; and (ii) or concerns about Role-playing and/ career/business). materials or other Brighter Initiatives women’s participation or participatory costs that may for Revitalization in intervention activities are accompany training. & Development as activities. encouraged. part of the MenCare Campaign coordinated by Promundo and Sonke Gender Justice (Liberia) Annex 1: Application of the 3-Ds to incorporate WGE in a World Bank project  |  27 Continued INTERVENTION WHY? WHAT? HOW? WHEN? PROPOSED CURRENTLY (DURATION) IMMEDIATE NEXT WORKING ON STEPS THIS? Gender Prolonged, guided Interventions target A gender Effective gender Identify/recruit a Transformative behavior-focused small groups of transformative transformative local NGOs or gender Male Engagement dialogues aimed men and take them male engagement male engagement equality organization (Promundo to change men’s through a process curriculum, such as strategies require already engaged Curriculum) knowledge, attitudes, of discussing Promundo’s Program 12 to 15- monthly in behavior change or behaviors can be attitudes toward H or SILC-GTA, facilitated group activities or male 7 an effective approach gender equality can be adapted dialogues of 1 to engagement at the Relations for gaining men’s and understanding for the Liberia 3 hours in length, household level to Option B support for women’s of gender equality context. Because with subsequent adapt a gender- empowerment, as a “win-win” for of the challenging homework transformative increased agency, all (women, men, nature of facilitating assignments (i.e., toolkit. Ideally, the and reducing boys, and girls) group dynamics on “What are one or two organization or violence against by deconstructing these topics in a things you can do training partner is women. Gender- harmful gender way that promotes differently to share familiar with using a transformative norms. They can personal reflection, responsibilities Promundo curriculum male engagement create a safe space/ respectful dialogue, more equitably in in the Liberian strategies can be an set number of and attitudinal and the home? Do it this context. effective intervention sessions where behavioral change, month and report for shifting Norms women and men come facilitators should be back to the group next Identify a budget for: and Culture and together as a group rigorously trained and meeting.”) (i) recruitment of training partner to 28  |  MEASUREMENT GUIDE: FOUR INDICATORS FOR ASSESSING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN OPERATIONS Relationships and can and discuss their day- supervised. be used for to target to-day challenges and REALISE should adapt, design, pilot, men at community, or opportunities from For maximum impact identify how to and conduct sessions; household level. their own gender’s on the WGE outcome, host sessions in and (ii) any materials perspective. The REALISE should parallel to other or refreshments guiding principle is target male partners interventions, such as that may accompany that to achieve gender or siblings of target mentorship sessions. 12 to 15-facilitated equality, men must be beneficiaries. For example, The group trainings for a part of the solution, SILC-GTA, arranges the target number of and that men are meetings in parallel engagement men. often harmed by the with savings’ group masculine norms they meetings. carry. Continued INTERVENTION WHY? WHAT? HOW? WHEN? PROPOSED CURRENTLY (DURATION) IMMEDIATE NEXT WORKING ON STEPS THIS? Provide Information Allows women to To contribute For example, prior This should be done Develop content and N/A align their future towards goal setting to committing to prior to women identify role-models goals and ambitions and agency, it is a sector, grant, or committing to any which can cover key with outcomes that recommended that training series, sector, or training. questions women are feasible in the beneficiaries are participants could be may have for specific market. Also allows provided with as invited to a day-long sectors, such as (i) women to understand much information as “fair,” or “showcase” training required resources that possible in advance. where information is (& how it will be are available and provided on different provided); (ii) start-up processes to acquire sectors, and women costs (& what will resources they may can meet role-models be provided); (iii) need. and mentors for a earning potential; or Q&A. (iv) drawbacks. Pair with Role- Interventions that One recommended For example, future Introductions would Identify role-model/ International Rescue Models/Mentors foster support for approach for helping mentors could assist ideally occur both mentors who can Committee as part women to network, women overcome with providing prior and after aid a small group of the Girl Empower organize collectively, “mental models” of information for training to answer of beneficiaries project (Liberia) or engage with the sectors they can/ future trainings. questions and help throughout and after strong relevant role should work in and Ideally, they would them navigate their training. models contributes “think big, take big be able to develop obstacles, especially towards “collective risks” is to pair them a relationship with within the first few Agency,” which with role-model/ beneficiaries during months of navigating enables the building mentors from their and immediately a new sector. of knowledge, skills, potential/actual after the training and aspirations, and future sectors. be provided with a (Refer to endnotes for confidence among a schedule for either resources on effective group of women or visiting women at mentorship programs). girls. their new business or for small-group mentorship sessions. Annex 1: Application of the 3-Ds to incorporate WGE in a World Bank project  |  29 Continued INTERVENTION WHY? WHAT? HOW? WHEN? PROPOSED CURRENTLY (DURATION) IMMEDIATE NEXT WORKING ON STEPS THIS? Deliver Agency- Vocational/business Agency-based REALISE could One example of Adapt the toolkit from Medica mondiale Based Empowerment programs that empowerment identify gender- agency-based Kenya to the Liberian in partnership with Training include a stand- trainings coach responsive trainers empowerment context to meet the ActionAid (Liberia) alone psychological, participants to familiar with agency- training builds upon needs of REALISE or agency-related examine aspects based trainings to a four-day workshop project beneficiaries Visoneria network modules have of their emotions, contextualize and developed by the and identify potential – contributor to consistent impacts on relationships, health/ deliver the training Empowerment female facilitators the Empowered women’s self-efficacy body, confidence with to the women Institute and can who can deliver the Entrepreneur Trainer money and income, beneficiaries. be customized for training. Handbook (Global) and work to “unlock different schedules. (Refer to endnotes for a Training should Organization the power within” toolkit for agency-based take place early in for Women’s through a guided set trainings for clean cook the cohort cycle Empowerment (local of group activities. stove entrepreneurs) CSO) as a part of Girls with at least one Not Brides (Liberia) or two small group check-ins, perhaps with mentors, to discuss progress against individual and business goals 30  |  MEASUREMENT GUIDE: FOUR INDICATORS FOR ASSESSING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN OPERATIONS developed as “assignments” during the training. ANNEX TABLE 4. Context and Agency Intervention Scheduling and Budgeting Example INTERVENTION STEP COST DRIVERS TO CONSIDER MONTH WHEN ACTION SHOULD TAKE PLACE Engage Local Rapid Stakeholder Analysis Consultant (15-20 days), enumerators (3-4; for 5-8 days, including training), travel 1-2 Influencers expenses/refreshments for enumerators, and beneficiaries (assume 8-10 per focus group). Orientation and Brainstorming Trainer fee to facilitate if in-house/partner facilitator unavailable. Honoraria, travel, and 3 Session with Influencers refreshments for 4-6 influencers for a three-day workshop; venue rental and stationary costs. Ongoing messaging via Monthly honoraria/stipend in exchange for delivering of messages (depending on local 4-18 traditional communication policies). channels Mixed media campaigns Micro-grants per influencer groups to host 1-2 simultaneous campaigns bi-monthly or Starting week 5, every other quarterly. Budget will determine scale and type. week through week 17 Stakeholder group review Honoraria, travel, and refreshments for 4-6 influencers for a three-day workshop; venue Week 15 rental and stationary costs. Pair with Role Identify Role Models / N/A (HR time to identify, interview, and sign terms of reference) 3-4 Models/ Mentors Mentors Role Models / Mentors visit Honoraria, travel, and refreshments to attend information sessions, at least one training 5, every other week during beneficiaries session, and do bi-monthly check-ins with 3-6 beneficiaries. 6-16 Provide Information sessions with Venue rental (2-3 days if multiple in-takes of potential beneficiaries), honoraria, travel, 5 Information beneficiaries and mentors and refreshments for role-models. Print materials with key information (development, printing). Provide business Included for milestone purposes. 6 skills Provide small Included for milestone purposes. 7-18 business grants Gender-Sensitive Training Partner Identification Training partner sub-contract to cover development, piloting, and training throughout 1-5 Family Coaching and Tool Development intervention (level of effort, travel, materials). Family Coaching Roll-Out with Refreshments and materials for household sessions (assume 2-3, spaced out). 6, 10, 16 Beneficiary Families Agency-Based Training Partner Identification Training partner sub-contract to cover development, piloting, and training throughout 1-5 Empowerment and Tool Development intervention (level of effort, travel, materials). Training Training held with Refreshments and materials for training sessions (assume 5 days); venue rental, if 6 beneficiaries different from business skills training venue. Annex 1: Application of the 3-Ds to incorporate WGE in a World Bank project  |  31 Annex 1. Endnotes 1 Guidance Notes: DFID’s “Shifting Norms to Tackle Violence Against Women and Girls” and CARE International’s Engaging Religious Leaders in Gender Transformative Work: Faith and Masculinities. Case Studies of application: Plan International & Promundo’s “Engaging Religious Leaders in Reducing Maternal and Child Mortality, and Gender Equality” and Impact Evaluation of Community Led Alternative Rite of Passage (CLARP) model to eradicate female genital mutilation/cutting in Kajiado County, Kenya. 2 Examples of effective application: An Integrated Approach to Increasing Women’s Empowerment Status and Reducing Domestic Violence: Results of a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in a West African Country and Understanding the Impact of a Microfinance-Based Intervention on Women’s Empowerment and the Reduction of Intimate Partner Violence in South Africa. 3 This exposure to new choices – alongside with the promise of necessary resources—will contribute towards generalized self-efficacy (GSE), an important part of the process in women unlocking their own agency. Study: http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_571.pdf 4 While focused on role-models for adolescent girls, this toolkit from population council provides useful strategies and tips for sustainability of mentorship models: Making the Most of Mentors: Recruitment, Training, and Support of Mentors for Adolescent Girl Programming 5 While focused on role-models for adolescent girls, this toolkit from Population Council provides useful strategies and tips for sustainability of mentorship models: Making the Most of Mentors: Recruitment, Training, and Support of Mentors for Adolescent Girl Programming 6 Example of effective application: Agency-Based Empowerment Training Enhances Sales Capacity of Female Energy Entrepreneurs in Kenya and a sample Toolkit: Empowered Entrepreneur Training Handbook 7 The Savings and Internal Lending Communities Plus Gender-Transformative Approach (Promundo) See also: Program P – A Manual for Engaging Men in Father-hood, Caregiving, Maternal and Child Health, Role of Facilitation in Gender-Transformative Programs that Engage Men and Boys (Promundo, Plan), and Recruitment and Retention of Male Participants in Gender-Transformative Pro-grams (Promundo, Plan). 32  |  MEASUREMENT GUIDE: FOUR INDICATORS FOR ASSESSING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ EMPOWERMENT IN OPERATIONS