Africa Gender Innovation Lab

93 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/25446

The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) conducts impact evaluations of development interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking to generate evidence on how to close the gender gap in earnings, productivity, assets and agency. The GIL team is currently working on over 50 impact evaluations in 21 countries with the aim of building an evidence base with lessons for the region.

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Admired in Theory, Pushed Out in Practice: Challenges Faced by Women Pursuing Work in Male-dominated Sectors in Guinea, Conakry
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-03) Pierotti, Rachael Susan; Cucagna, Maria Emilia; Pike, Isabel Grace Glasier; Mbaye, Mame Soukeye
In Conakry, Republic of Guinea, women business owners in male-dominated sectors earn significantly more than their counterparts in sectors with a higher concentration of female entrepreneurs. This trend aligns with findings from the Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), highlighting the potential economic benefits when women break traditional gender barriers in business. GIL’s recent qualitative research reveals positive social perceptions of women in these fields, with both men and women viewing them as courageous, challenging the idea that social disapproval is a significant barrier. However, beyond personal preferences and domestic duties often cited for women’s under-representation in male-dominated sectors, deeper constraints persist. Chief among these are the high startup capital requirements and the issues of paternalism and harassment that women frequently face. Policies aiming to boost women’s participation in these higher-earning sectors must address both entry barriers, like access to capital, and workplace retention issues, such as hostile work environments, to effectively reduce occupational gender segregation and close the wage gap.
GIL Top Policy Lessons on Social Protection
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-29) World Bank
Women are often overrepresented among the poorest and the most vulnerable. Due to various factors limiting their opportunities, including care responsibilities and gender norms, many either remain outside the workforce or engage in informal employment within precarious sectors lacking crucial safeguards. The Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) has been generating rigorous evidence to understand what works, and what does not, in supporting women with social protection interventions. This brief provides an overview of these key research findings from Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting insights and design considerations from social protection programs that have demonstrated positive outcomes for women while also deriving conclusions from programs that don’t work.
GIL Top Policy Lessons on Empowering Adolescent Girls
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-31) World Bank
Overlapping crises such as climate change, the ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, regional conflicts and rising global food insecurity exacerbate the inequalities faced by adolescent girls, making them particularly vulnerable in these critical times. For many girls, these circumstances force them to make decisions about employment and their fertility at an early age, limits their access to formal education, and further exposes them to restrictive social norms. Additionally, domestic responsibilities limit adolescent girls’ time in school and educational achievement, in turn curtailing their ability to enter the labor force. With 60 percent of the total population of Africa under the age of 25, investing in empowering adolescent girls is critical to accelerate economic growth and reduce intergenerational poverty.
Top Policy Lessons in Agriculture
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-22) World Bank
In Africa, agriculture is vital for employment and food security. Despite women contributing 40 percent of agricultural labor, they face barriers leading to significant gender gaps in productivity. Closing these gaps could unlock substantial economic gains, potentially boosting Nigeria's GDP by up to US$8.1 billion. Factors hindering female farmers include caregiving responsibilities, limited access to resources, and social norms. Impact evaluation evidence from the Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) points toward policy solutions that can address many of these constraints and help female farmers reach their full potential, ultimately contributing to the broader economic development of the continent.
From Collateral to Cashflow: Expanding Access to Finance for Nigeria’s Female Business Owners
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-15) Gruver, Ariel; Koroknay-Palicz, Tricia; Papineni, Sreelakshmi; Shaikh, Sarmad; Zottel, Siegfried
Women in Nigeria are starting and growing businesses at a remarkable rate offering a vast untapped market for business lending. The World Bank, through its Nigeria Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), partnered with the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) and two commercial banks in Nigeria – Access Bank and Sterling Bank – to develop innovative credit solutions that expand access to finance for women entrepreneurs. This case study summarizes key lessons from this work, including an initial diagnostic; an assessment of demand for business loans; analysis of SMEs who applied to and/or received Access Bank cashflow loans; and administrative data from Access Bank’s cashflow loan program. Our objective is to provide insights into the successes and challenges of disbursing loans to women-led SMEs (WSMEs) in Nigeria. This research is being conducted in partnership with the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), which is also carrying out an impact evaluation that will capture how cashflow-based lending impacts male- vs female-led firms’ access to credit and business performance.
Enterprising Women: A Decade of Learning from Ethiopia’s Women Entrepreneurship Development Project (WEDP)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-03) Buehren, Niklas; Papineni, Sreelakshmi; Rawlins, Marlon; Weis, Toni
Beginning in 2012, Ethiopia’s first ever women-entrepreneur focused line of credit was established through the Women Entrepreneurship Development Project (WEDP). WEDP provides finance and business training for growth-oriented urban women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia with an aim to boost business earnings and employment. Over the ten years since inception, WEDP has expanded to operate across 18 Ethiopian cities, registering 60,000 women entrepreneurs into the program. As of February 2024, WEDP has provided more than 25,000 loans, and business training to over 30,000 women entrepreneurs. WEDP has also contributed to a wealth of learning and innovation, including research in partnership with the World Bank’s Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), and the Innovations in Financing Women Entrepreneurs (IFWE) project supported by Global Affairs Canada (GAC). In this brief the authors highlight key results from impact evaluations that were embedded into the WEDP operation and provide details of some of the innovations being tested.
Schoolgirls Not Brides: Secondary Education as a Shield Against Child Marriage
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-02-12) Giacobino, Hélène; Huillery, Elise; Michel, Bastien; Sage, Mathilde
Child marriage is recognized as a major burden in low-income countries, with severe consequences on women’s life trajectories. It is particularly pervasive in Niger, where middle school enrollment for girls is low, and dropouts are high. In the context of a multi-sectoral World Bank project, researchers evaluated the impact of a three-year intervention eliminating the financial and logistical barriers for girls admitted to middle school. Offering adolescent girls from vulnerable households in rural Niger scholarships and tutoring upon admission to middle school improved educational outcomes and wellbeing. Girls that received the program were 53 percent less likely to have dropped out of school at the time of follow up. They also reported a higher degree of life satisfaction. Importantly, there is no evidence that the positive effects on beneficiaries have been at the expense of non-beneficiaries. The program was effective in postponing girls’ marriage or engagement. Girls who received a scholarship program were 49 percent less likely to be married in the summer following their third year of middle school and 30 percent less likely to be engaged. The intervention raised girls’ educational and professional aspirations for themselves as well as parents’ aspirations for their daughter, plausibly due to changes in girls’ human capital and preferences. These results suggest that the intervention’s effects are likely to last beyond the mere duration of the scholarship.
Designing and Implementing Low-Cost Childcare Solutions: Lessons from the Africa Gender Innovation Lab
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-30) Cassidy, Rachel; Zighed, Roxane; Gokalp, Cansu Birce
This case study presents lessons learned by the Africa GenderInnovation Lab (GIL) and its partners from pilots of different models of low-cost childcare provision across four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: mobile crèches in Burkina Faso and Cameroon, fixed-location crèches in Ethiopia, and community-based childcare centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We also share findings from qualitative research conducted to inform the design of a new community-based childcare pilot in Cameroon. This case study does not intend to prescribe best practices, but instead to provide examples of the key questions, challenges and solutions encountered by project teams.
Breaking the Cycle of Intimate-partner Violence: Harm Reduction by Engaging Men in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-28) Gurbuz Cuneo, Alev; Falb, Kathryn; Kabeya, Rocky; Koussoubé, Estelle; Pierotti, Rachael S.; Vaillant, Julia
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global problem and a widespread issue in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where nationally more than one third of women have reported experiencing physical or sexual violence in the past year (2013-2014 DHS). The Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) tested the effectiveness of the Engaging Men through Accountable Practice (EMAP) program, a male-only discussion group intervention which aimed at preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) and promoting more egalitarian gender relations. EMAP was implemented by the International Rescue Committee (IRC). New analyses of the study data paint a nuanced picture of the impact of the intervention. The authors find that among men who were the most physically violent at baseline, the EMAP program was effective at reducing the probability and severity of IPV perpetration. Although zero violence is a necessary and critical goal when promoting gender equality, these results reinforce the importance of measuring the contribution of policies and programs to reduce IPV’s occurrence, in addition to measuring effects on primary prevention and cessation of violence.
Supporting Youth Employment through Cash Grants for Entrepreneurship: Findings from a Qualitative Study of the Perspectives and Experiences of Cash Grant Recipients under the Benin Youth Employment Project
(Washington, DC, 2023-10-25) World Bank
Benin’s labor market is characterized by a high participation rate, but extensive informality and underemployment. Underemployment is even higher among youth and rural women. The labor market is also extremely segregated by gender. Under the Benin Youth Employment Project(PEJ), closed in June 2019, the Government of Benin (GoB) successfully piloted a gender sensitive economic inclusion program. In addition to a comprehensive package of services, the project included services and operational processes to maximize female participation. The PEJ focused on helping youth start or expand their income-generating activities by delivering business and life skills training and cash grants. The life skills modules focused on communication, problem solving, gender and empowerment, aspirations, and initiative. An impact evaluation of PEJ, conducted by the World Bank’s Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), was designed to measure the impact of these components alone and in combination. One group of participants received both interventions, one group only the training, one group only the cash grant, and a control group received neither. The ambition was to evaluate the relative impacts of relaxing the financial capital constraint, the human capital constraint, and both simultaneously. The purpose of the study was to investigate the mechanisms of impact of the cash grants by gathering grant recipients’ perspectives on the support they received. The research questions and methodology are described in this report.