Person:
de la Briere, Benedicte
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Social assistance,
Impact evaluation
Degrees
Departments
Gender Cross Cutting Solutions Area group of the World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Bénédicte de la Brière is a Lead Economist in the Gender Cross Cutting and Solutions Area group of the World Bank. She was previously in the Human Development group of the Africa Region, as well as focal point for Governance and Service Delivery in the Office of the Chief Economist for Human Development. At the World Bank, she has worked on social assistance in MENA, LAC and SSA. She has previously served at FAO, leading research about the productive impacts of social cash transfers in Africa, and was DFID adviser to the Ministry of Social Development in Brazil during the first Lula government . She holds a Ph.D from UC Berkeley in Agriculture and Resource Economics and undertook post-doctoral research at IFPRI on intra-household impacts of rural development and social interventions.
Publication Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
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Publication
From Mines and Wells to Well-Built Minds: Turning Sub-Saharan Africa's Natural Resource Wealth into Human Capital
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-05-02)Sub-Saharan Africa's natural resource-rich countries have poor human development. Children in these countries are more likely to die before their first birthday, more likely to be stunted, and less likely to attend school than children in other countries with similar income. Despite the current price downturn, extractives will remain an important part of Sub-Saharan Africa's growth story—using resource rents wisely remains a long term challenge. Governments must choose how to allocate resource rents between spending, investing in human or physical capital, or investing in global financial assets. The return to investing in physical and human capital will be high in countries where the capital stock is low. Moreover, higher levels of human capital make investments in physical capital more productive, which suggests that the optimal portfolio will involve investing in both. Human capital should be prioritized in many of Sub-Saharan Africa’s resource-rich countries because of the low starting point. Investing effectively in human capital is hard because it involves delivering services, which means coordinating a large number of actors and activities. Three dimensions of governance are key: institutions, incentives and information. Decentralization and leveraging the private sector are entry points to reforming institutional structures. Revenues from natural resources can fund financial incentives to strengthen performance or demand. Producing information, making it available, and increasing social accountability helps citizens understand their rights and hold governments and providers accountable. Improving the quality of education and health services is central to improving human capital. Two additional areas are promising. First, early child development—mother and newborn health, and early child nutrition, care, and education—improves outcomes in childhood and later on. Second, cash transfers—either conditional or unconditional—reduce poverty, increase household investments in child education, nutrition, and health, and increase the investment in productive assets which foster further income generation. -
Publication
Unrealized Potential: The High Cost of Gender Inequality in Earnings
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-05-01)This first note in the series on the cost of gender inequality focuses on the losses in national wealth due to gender inequality in earnings. There is a substantial literature on the impact of gender inequality on economic growth and performance. By focusing on wealth, the approach usedfor measurement in this note is different. Wealth is the assets base that enables countries to produce income Gross Domestic Product or GDP). A country’s wealth includes various types of capital. Produced capital comes from investments in assets such as factories, equipment, or infrastructure. Natural capital includes assets such as agricultural land and other renewable and non-renewable natural resources. However, the largest component of countries’ wealth typically resides in their people. As noted in the recent World Bank study on the Changing Wealth of Nations, human capital measured as the present value of the future earnings of the labor force accounts for two thirds of global wealth. If gender equality in earnings were achieved, countries could increase their human capital wealth, and thereby their total wealth substantially. This would enable them to strengthen the sustainability of their development path. Gender inequality has major economic implications forwomen, communities, and countries in a range of areas. While the cost of gender inequality – in terms of human capital losses - for development is not solely due to losses in earnings, the impact of gender inequality on earnings is key. This is the area on which this note focuses. -
Publication
How Large Is the Gender Dividend? Measuring Selected Impacts and Costs of Gender Inequality
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03-03)Reducing gender inequality makes economic sense apart from being the right thing to do. Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls is the fifth sustainable development goal and is a top priority for governments. Countries can achieve this goal if they take appropriate steps. This note is part of a series that aims to measure the economic cost of gender inequality globally and regionally by examining the impacts of gender inequality in a wide range of areas and the costs associated with those impacts. Given that gender inequality affects individuals throughout their life, economic costs are measured in terms of losses in human capital wealth, as opposed to annual losses in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or GDP growth. The notes also aim to provide a synthesis of the available evidence on successful programs and policies that contribute to gender equality in multiple areas and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).