Gender equality is an urgent imperative. The world is experiencing an unprecedented set of crises with disproportionately negative impacts on women, girls, sexual and gender minorities, and marginalized groups. Climate change, fragility, forced displacement, and pandemics threaten hardwon gains in women’s human capital. As crises intertwine with structural transformations, gender constraints increasingly harm societies, including men. Adding to the urgency are reversals in countries like Afghanistan, forced displacement from conflicts, and backlash in many societies.

At stake is the fundamental human right of gender equality for all people, a matter of fairness and justice. It is a foundation for a peaceful and prosperous world and essential for development. Studies consistently show that removing gender barriers unlocks economic productivity, reduces poverty, deepens social cohesion, and enhances well-being for current and future generations. Women’s participation and decision making improves community resource management and resilience and makes companies more competitive.

Yet achieving gender equality is uniquely challenging and complex. It calls for changes spanning country laws and policies, public and private sector activities, and personal lives. Accomplishing such changes requires a sustained and broad-based commitment, and financing for evidence-based solutions. This is especially difficult in the current global environment of sluggish growth and rising poverty, as governments face hard choices under fiscal and debt constraints. Growing evidence on the wide-ranging negative impacts of gender constraints, and on how to address them, can inspire and inform the way forward.

The proposed 2024–2030 World Bank Gender Strategy puts forward the bold ambition to accelerate gender equality for a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive future in alignment with the World Bank Evolution Roadmap. The Strategy responds to the global urgency, fundamentality, and complexity of achieving gender equality. Building on implementation of the 2016-2023 Gender Strategy, the new strategy proposes to engage with greater ambition—approaching gender equality for all as essential for global development—and to engage differently (Figure 1).

First, the new strategy emphasizes six outcomes across three strategic objectives.

Foundational wellbeing: End Gender-based Violence & Elevate Human Capital

• Outcome 1: Accelerate progress in eliminating all forms of gender-based violence
• Outcome 2: Build and protect human capital Economic participation:

Expand and Enable Economic Opportunities

• Outcome 3: Improve equal access to more and better jobs, including jobs of the future
• Outcome 4: Expand ownership and use of economic assets
• Outcome 5: Expand access to and use of services that enable economic participation

Leadership: Engage Women as Leaders

• Outcome 6: Advance women’s participation, decision-making and leadership

Compared with the four pillars of the 2016-2023 Gender Strategy (human endowments, jobs, asset control and ownership, and voice and agency), the new strategy responds to the global context by adding emphasis on ending gender-based violence; expanding care, digital, mobility, and other enabling services; and engaging women as leaders for sustainable, resilient, and inclusive futures.

The new strategy reaffirms the World Bank commitment to nondiscrimination, inclusion, and equality of opportunity, encompassing sexual and gender minorities. It acknowledges the  disadvantages facing men and boys as well as the vulnerabilities arising from the intersection of gender with poverty, ethnicity, disability, and other characteristics. It proposes to involve men and boys to address issues specific to them as well as those that affect gender equality.

Figure 1: The World Bank will engage with greater ambition and differently

Note: Words in bold represent a new emphasis compared with the 2016-2023 Strategy.

Second, the strategy identifies innovating, financing, and acting collectively as drivers of change toward gender equality. Innovating refers to promoting solutions (based on data and evidence, digital tools, and analyses informed by behavioral insights) as well as learning from and refining solutions initiated locally. Financing involves securing and allocating resources effectively in and through the public and private sectors. Acting collectively recognizes that realizing gender equality requires concerted engagement by public and private sector actors, civil society, and international agencies.

The World Bank will approach the drivers of change in line with its comparative advantage. It will help clients test, adapt, and expand solutions, and achieve results at scale by addressing structural limitations and integrating gender analysis in macroeconomic and public finance policies, sector strategies and private sector practices. Securing financing and mobilizing private sector capital to advance gender equality will enable more comprehensive and lasting outcomes, while reserving scarce public resources for areas where it is needed most. Wider partnerships and stakeholder engagement will facilitate reforms and their implementation through collective action.

Third, the strategy fosters accountability for gender outcomes. Building on the current accountability in project design (gender tag/flag), the World Bank will stress gender outcomes in project implementation and in country engagement. Country Partnership Frameworks will elevate gender outcomes in synergy with other development priorities and engage more actors in the gender space.

The 2024-2030 World Bank Gender Strategy will include an outcome-oriented results framework that builds on current corporate commitments and the World Bank Evolution Roadmap. While engaging with greater ambition to accelerate gender equality for a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive future, the World Bank will approach the related complex challenges with realism and long-term commitment.

Source: World Bank, (http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099013107142345483/pdf/SECBOS04cf7b650208a5e08b784c0db6a4.pdf)