Das, Maitreyi Bordia

Person:
Das, Maitreyi Bordia

Trust Funds and Partner Relations, Development Finance (DFi)

Fields of Specialization

Demography, Social Protection, Social Development, Human Development, Social Inclusion, Safety Nets, Equity, Labor Markets, Urban Development

Departments

Trust Funds and Partner Relations, Development Finance (DFi)

Last updated: April 3, 2023

Biography

Maitreyi Bordia Das is the Director for Trust Funds and Partner Relations in the Development Finance Vice Presidency of the World Bank. Based in Washington DC, she leads the furtherance of the World Bank’s trust fund reform, implementation of the Bank’s policy framework for financial intermediary funds (FIFs) and supports the ongoing World Bank Group Evolution process. Maitreyi is a leading voice to sustainable development, equity and inclusion, with a career that spans government, academia, the UN system and the World Bank. At the Bank, Maitreyi has held several advisory and managerial positions and led numerous research, policy and programmatic initiatives across urban development, resilience, water security, health, social protection and social development. She was the World Bank’s first Global Lead for Social Inclusion, is a speaker at various public forums and has an extensive publications record. In her last position as Manager in the Global Practice on Urban, Resilience and Land, she oversaw and expanded a wide range of trust funded global programs and partnerships. Having started her career as a lecturer in St Stephen's College, University of Delhi, Maitreyi has also been a MacArthur Fellow at the Harvard Center of Population and Development Studies and an advisor to the United Nations Development Program in Guyana. She has a PhD in Sociology (Demography) from the University of Maryland. Before joining the World Bank, Maitreyi was in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 22

Silver Hues: Building Age-Ready Cities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022) Das, Maitreyi Bordia; Arai, Yuko; Chapman, Terri B.; Jain, Vibhu
Cities and countries the world over are at the cusp of epochal global trends whose impacts are likely to be more intense and more far-reaching than those of similar trends in the past. The simultaneity of the demographic transition, deepening urbanization, a technological revolution, frequent shocks brought on by health and climate emergencies, mean that one will need to plan for an older and more urban future. This report is intended as a policy document that helps articulate the idea of age-readiness while building on the idea of age-friendliness. It highlights the varied trajectories of aging and urbanization and draws on the experiences of older and more urban countries to show how others can become age-ready. It is intended for cities and towns as they prepare for an older urban age, offering examples and options to help younger cities visualize age-readiness while focusing primarily on the built urban environment. Its main audience is intended to be policymakers, city leaders, and implementing agencies, but it is also expected be useful to researchers, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and communities.
Inclusion Matters in Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020) Espinoza, Sabina Anne; Das, Maitreyi Bordia
Africa has garnered global attention for its many achievements and its dynamism, and at the same time, it has taken the spotlight for its substantial challenges. As in other parts of the world, positive developments have been uneven in Africa. This report places the notion of social inclusion in an analysis of Africa’s achievements and challenges. Its interdisciplinary approach uses evidence to bring empirical weight to issues that are often debated through advocacy and contestation. It also contributes to the priority areas of a new regional strategy for the Africa region of the World Bank by focusing on women’s empowerment, digital technology, fragility, and climate change, among others. The report asks, in the wake of the advances Africa has made over the years, who is excluded, from what, how, and why. It then highlights what has been attempted in the quest of African countries for social inclusion. One of the main contributions of this report is that while grounded in the experience of African countries, it shows that Africa’s challenges in social inclusion are not unique or exceptional. It highlights examples of the remarkable innovations that abound in Africa and of the policy and programmatic movement towards social inclusion. It surmises that social inclusion must be based on a clear social contract that recognizes both the costs and benefits of policies and interventions towards social inclusion.
Results-Based Financing Through Social Enterprises: A White Paper for the Global Partnership for Results-Based Approaches, in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-08-04) Khan, Ibrahim Ali; Das, Maitreyi Bordia; Tinsley, Elaine
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a global humanitarian crisis, putting both lives and livelihoods at risk. In the initial stages of the pandemic – especially in contexts where the state machinery was caught unawares or lacked capacity, or both, social enterprises (SEs) or socially-driven private enterprises – have been particularly active and have stepped up to provide relief. These enterprises will continue to be important as the pandemic stretches out, with recovery likely to be a long-drawn process. Since the Global Partnership for Results-Based Approaches (GPRBA) has a history of working successfully with SEs and other non-state private providers, the Partnership draws upon its significant experience and its partners' institutional capacity towards building productive partnerships with numerous SEs. To that effect, this White Paper is intended as an approach and guidance for GPRBA partners, World Bank task teams, and other actors who engage in Result Based Financing (RBF). It focuses on two overarching objectives, i.e., helping reduce the spread of COVID-19 cases and helping minimize the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, especially on poor and excluded groups, that can be achieved by engaging SEs through an RBF approach. Additionally, it explores tools and mechanisms that could be used to substantiate results while taking into account the need to reduce in-person interactions in light of COVID-19. Lastly, building on the foundation of successful GPRBA projects, the paper provides an overview of the financing arrangements that can be utilized to collaborate with SEs.
The Rising Tide: A New Look at Water and Gender
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-08-24) Das, Maitreyi Bordia; Hatzfeldt, Gaia
The report reviews a vast body of literature to present a "thinking device" that visualizes water as an asset, a service, and a "space." It shows water as an arena where gender relations play out in ways that often mirror inequalities between the sexes. And it examines norms and practices related to water that often exacerbate ingrained gender and other hierarchies. Informal institutions, taboos, rituals, and norms all play a part in maintaining these hierarchies and can even reinforce gender inequality. The report's key message is clear—interventions in water-related domains are important in and of themselves and for enhancing gender equality more broadly. The report discusses examples of initiatives that have had intended and unintended consequences for gender equality, and makes the important point that gender inequality does not always show up where we might expect.
What Does Social Inclusion Mean for a Resilient City?: A Policy Note on Urban Floods
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-05) Majumdar, Shruti; Das, Maitreyi Bordia
Cities today face an unprecedented risk of natural hazards compounded by serious governance challenges. How can cities ensure that in building resilience, they address the needs of those most at risk of being excluded? How can they develop strategies that simultaneously foster resilient infrastructure and social inclusion? This note focuses on urban floods—one of the most pervasive forms of disasters that strike cities—and illustrates who may be left behind, and how building city resilience and social inclusion can work together. It is intended to stimulate thought and debate, and to lead the way for a more in-depth analysis of the problems and solutions, and towards more effective and sustainable city resilience.
Does Culture Matter or Firm? Demand for Female Labor in Three Indian Cities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02) Mehta, Soumya Kapoor; Das, Maitreyi Bordia; Zumbyte, Ieva; Sasmal, Sanjeev; Goyal, Sangeeta
In discussing the inordinately low employment of Indian women in urban areas, several studies have argued that culture and attitudes have created a labor market that is inherently discriminatory. The unsaid corollary is that culture is slow and hard to change and so, women will stay out of the labor market until social change occurs. The empirical evidence on the role of culture is slim at best. This paper fills the void in the policy literature, as it assesses the relative role of culture, as signified by attitudes of employers, and firm characteristics in hiring women. The paper is based on a unique survey of 618 firms in three of the largest cities in the state of Madhya Pradesh (India)—Bhopal, Indore, and Gwalior. Using detailed descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analysis at the firm level, the hiring process, and attitudes toward male and female workers, the paper addresses the issue of culture and firm characteristics, while noting that the two are not necessarily in binary opposition. The results reinforce the conventional wisdom in some ways and are surprising in others. The most salient result is that employer attitudes matter much less for the chance that women will be hired, than do firm and location characteristics. This has significant policy implications, the most important of which is that female employment in urban India is amenable to policy intervention, and that it is not necessary to wait for culture to change.
Social Inclusion: What Does It Mean for Health Policy and Practice?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11) Evans, Timothy Grant; Das, Maitreyi Bordia; Palu, Toomas; Wilson, David
This paper applies the tenets of social inclusion to health policy and practice, arguing that achieving the goal of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) will be impossible without considering social and economic inclusion. The idea of social inclusion in the achievement of UHC goes well beyond a focus on local level interventions to an expansive notion that addresses the policy environment, social practices, and institutions. The paper summarizes ways in which social exclusion affects access to health services and health outcomes. It argues that social exclusion plays out through practices, processes, and behaviors of service providers, elites, and those most likely to be excluded. Such practices may permeate the structure and function of both formal and informal institutions. Through a discussion of the design and delivery of policies and programs, the paper highlights ways in which social inclusion can be advanced toward UHC. Finally, it draws from the experience of World Bank–supported interventions to highlight illustrative actions toward social inclusion in ways that can affect health outcomes. The expected audience of this paper are teams involved in the financing, design, and delivery of health programs, both within the World Bank and outside. The paper concludes with the exhortation to define the scope of “social inclusion” so that interventions can be targeted to those who are most likely to be excluded that interventions can be targeted to those who are most likely to be excluded.
The Motherhood Penalty and Female Employment in Urban India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03) Zumbyte, Ieva; Das, Maitreyi Bordia
Since the 1990s, India has seen robust economic growth, rising wages, steady fertility decline, increased urbanization, and expanded educational attainment for males and females. But unlike other countries that have undergone similar transitions, urban women's employment has refused to budge, never crossing the 25 percent mark. This paper fills a critical gap in policy research on women's employment in India. The discussion is situated in the normative construction of motherhood and the gendered nature of caregiving in India. The analysis uses pooled data from six rounds of the National Sample Surveys to examine the effects of having a young child on mothers' employment in urban India over 1983-2011. The analysis also looks at household structure, and analyzes the effects of other household members on women's labor supply. The results show that although the onus of childbearing may have reduced, that of caregiving has increased. Having a young child in the home depresses mothers' employment, an inverse relationship that has intensified over time. Further, living in a household with older children and women over the age of 50 is positively associated with women's employment. These results show that the care of young children is an increasingly important issue in women's employment decisions, in a context where formal childcare is practically nonexistent. These results have significant implications for policy to raise women’s labor force participation in India.
All in My Head?: The Play of Exclusion and Discrimination in the Labor Market
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-10) Das, Maitreyi Bordia
Labor market discrimination is very difficult to pinpoint, even more difficult to measure and almost impossible to “prove”. It has been studied in many disciplines of which economics and sociology are prime. The latter has focused more on the manner in which discrimination plays out and how it is related to different forms of social stratification. This paper reviews the literature and makes two main contributions: first, it builds a four-fold typology to think about discrimination—overt or covert; conscious or unconscious; legal or illegal and real or perceived. Second, it identifies screens and filters—devices through which discrimination plays out in the labor market. Unless more empirical studies identify the play of discrimination and exclusion, subordinate groups may well be told that discrimination is actually in their heads—that they are imagining it.
Scaling the Heights : Social Inclusion and Sustainable Development in Himachal Pradesh
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-01) Kapoor-Mehta, Soumya; Das, Maitreyi Bordia; Tas, Emcet Oktay; Zumbyte, Ieva
Himachal Pradesh has the reputation of being stable, inclusive, cohesive and well-governed and it stands apart in many respects from its neighbors in northern India. It has additionally, achieved remarkable growth, especially in the last two decades, which has been accompanied by very good human development outcomes. Despite being a predominantly rural society, educational attainment in Himachal Pradesh for instance, is among the best in the country; poverty headcount is nearly one-third of the national average; life expectancy is 3.4 years longer than the number of years an average Indian expects to live; and, per capita income is the second highest among "special category" states in India. Underlying its strong economic and social development outcomes is Himachal Pradesh's commitment to expand access to public services to the remotest areas, across tough, hilly terrain and its strong institutional foundations. Inter-group disparities are low in a state where traditionally disadvantaged groups such as the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) make up a solid 30 percent of the population.