Investing in Women: Progress and Prospects for the World Bank

Despite important progress, large numbers of women in many countries live under conditions of severe deprivation. In the interest of both economic efficiency and social justice, it is time for the international development community to attend as a matter of priority to improving women's lives and their participation in public life. Investing in Women is about the role of the World Bank--the largest and most influential source of development finance, research, and advisory services--in helping to break the cycle of deprivation that engulfs women and to advance their economic and social well-being. The analysis examines selected projects that have aimed to benefit women in major sectors of World Bank lending, spotlighting ones that have seemed to work well and drawing lessons from them; explores areas that remain as-yet unrealized opportunities for Bank investments in women; and discusses a number of crosscutting issues that bear importantly on all of the World Bank's efforts to improve women's lives. An appendix to Investing in Women includes excerpted remarks from a 1995 conference on the role of the multilateral development banks in improving the lives of women by Nancy Birdsall, Executive Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank; Mahbub ul Haq, President of the Human Development Center in Islamabad, Pakistan; Margaret Catley-Carlson, President of The Population Council; and Sven Sandstrom, Managing Director of the World Bank.