The World Bank

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Table of Contents

Tuesday and Wednesday morning, November 10-1 1

World Bank Consultative Workshop on the Policy Research Report on Gender and Development

Wednesday afternoon, November 11 Gender Across the Regions: plenary Gender Across the Regions: regional break-out sessions

Thursday, November 12 Gender Across the Networks Gender and the Private Sector Gender Sector Strategy Paper Conclusions/Wrap-up Gender in the WDR on Poverty

Annex 1 The Members of the External Gender Consultative Group Annex 2 Program of the Third Annual Meeting of the EGCG Annex 3 Letter from the EGCG to Mr. James D. Wolfensohn, February 22,1999 Annex 4 Letter fiom Karen 0. Mason to the EGCG, May 14,1999

Consultative Workshop for the Policy Research Report on Gender and Development

The purpose of the consultative workshop was to provide inputs into the Policy Research Report on Gender and Development (the PRR), which will be written by Elizabeth King of the Bank's Development Economics Research Group (DECRG) and Andrew Mason of the Bank's Gender and Development Group (PRMGE) in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network.

The consultative workshop was the first public consultation to be held in connection with the preparation of a Policy Research Report. It was an important milestone in the consultation process for the PRR on Gender and Development, which includes a web site that will facilitate dialog with civil society as well as with academics, and other development organizations.

The workshop was held in connection with the Third Annual Meeting of the External Gender Consultative Group (EGCG), which was instrumental in coordinating the consultative inputs to the workshop.

Introduction

The workshop was opened by Joseph Stiglitz, Chief Economist of the World Bank. Mr. Stiglitz asked the workshop participants to consider how the PRR should handle a number of issues, including:

What are the dimensions and consequences of gender inequality, and why has gender inequality persisted across cultures and over time; What should be the role of government in addressing gender inequality, and how can policy help to reduce inequality; What are the unintended consequences of policy on gender relations; Can we make more constructive use of our understanding of gender differences to improve development performance, What is the effect of growth on gender inequality; How can policy address the issue of fertility, which affects living standards and per capita income; How can we think more broadly about measures of well-being, beyond income; and Should male as well as female issues be addressed as gender issues in the report.

Mr. Stiglitz said that thinking about gender opens the door to questioning the standard model of development, which has traditionally focused on income growth and economic development. He argued that if one takes a broader of view of development--one that involves changing traditional relationships and empowering people to control important aspects of their lives-then the centrality of gender issues becomes even more evident. He expressed his hope that the consultative process for the PRR will help to provoke a

long-running debate at the Bank about gender in development and how to use public policy to reduce gender inequalities and support positive change.

In the discussion of Mr. Stiglitz's remarks, Ewa Charkiewicz (EGCG) said that the participatory way the PRR is being developed is important because it will provide a model for how to shape public policies in dialogue with various partners. She said that early comments on the PRR highlighted three main issues: the need to see gender equality as an objective in itself, not just as a way to increase efficiency in development; the need to develop knowledge and data on the gender effects of macroeconomic policies, using qualitative as well as quantitative methods; and the need to consider women's unpaid work-the economy of care-as well as the monetized economy.

Joanne Salop (Director, MDOPS and Interim Director, PRMGE) added that gender equity needs to be considered not only in the context of growth or efficiency, but also as a key aspect of sustainable development.

Session 1: Gender and Macroeconomic Policy

The first session, chaired by Lyn Squire (Director, DECVP), focused on how to bring gender issues into macroeconomic policy.

The first presenter, Diane Elson (UNIFEM), said that since the Bank's approach to the problem of gender inequality is in the context of lending and borrowing, it by necessity sees the solution as linked to economic growth. Thus the Bank and similar organizations are involved in a complex intermediation process as they try to match short or medium- term financial instruments with poverty alleviation, gender equality, and other long-term goals. The best approach under these circumstances, she said, is to create an enabling environment for gender equality, one that - at a minimum - doesn't make inequalities worse. That can be achieved, she suggested, by studying the connection between long-run development and such gender macroeconomic variables as the prevalence and value of unpaid labor, the value of the reproductive or care economy, and the creation of human capital. She said that combining economic research with the methods used by anthropologists and sociologists would be useful in this effort.

The second presenter, Gita Sen (DAWN, EGCG), said there is mounting evidence that deficit reduction policies cause declines in the education and health sectors, and that balance of payments policies create low-paying jobs with poor working conditions, both of which hurt women and girls. She argued, however, that the Bank's focus on economic efficiency has been fruitful because it has forced feminist economists to consider what the exclusion of women means for the effectiveness of growth policies, as well as how such policies affect women and girls. Ms. Sen suggested that the PRR look closely at these effects.

The discussant, Homi Kharas (Director, Economic Policy, PREM Network), made several points with regard to the presentations. First, he said that some ideas about gender and growth, such as the importance of girls' education, are becoming part of mainstream

thinking; while others, such as the idea that gender equality should be an objective in itself, whether or not it increases the efficiency of growth, forces us to think about tradeoffs. Second, he said, we are just beginning to understand the tensions between short-run instruments and many long-run development issues, including gender equality, poverty alleviation, governance, and civil liberties; and that more research is needed on how such issues are affected by various instruments, as well as by macro policies. Third, he acknowledged that GDP is not a good measure of what the Bank is trying to achieve; that there needs to be a concept of growth that encompasses the environment, leisure, work in the home, and the question of values. And fourth, he said, given that macro policies are not gender neutral and might have unwanted gender effects, the PRR needs to consider whether macro policies themselves need to be changed, or whether it would be more effective to protect women and girls from the unintended effects of macro policies by shoring up the social safety net.

In response to the presentations, the audience raised several points. One audience member said that the most useful thing the PRR could do would be to provide a concrete set of guidelines for Bank and IMF staff to follow when putting together macroeconomic programs or policy recommendations. Another said that policies and programs by themselves won't change deeply entrenched value systems, which are what perpetuate gender inequalities. A third member suggested that the social impacts of macroeconomic policies could best be assessed using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. A fourth participant cautioned that relying on social institutions to protect women from gender biases may be useful, but that it carries the danger of keeping them in their traditional roles, of perpetuating survival strategies based on past experience rather than helping them to grow. A fifth audience member said that social safety nets will not produce the returns one hopes for as long as the overall environment is disenabling; she questioned, for example, why debt reduction is considered a parameter that can't be changed while education and health expenditures are considered to be variables. A sixth member supported that view, saying that the tendency is to not touch macro policies even though the evidence on the gender effects of such policies is fairly strong, while the evidence on whether safety nets can effectively counteract the gender effects of macro policies is much more fragmentary.

Session 2: Gender and Sector Reform

This session, chaired by David de Ferranti (Vice President, Human Development Network), focused on the gender impacts of reforms in the health, education, and labor sectors.

The first presenter, Hilary Standing (Institute of Development Studies), said that what happens in the health sector is particularly dependent on what goes on at the macroeconomic level. She noted several important linkages among gender, health, and public policy, including the kinds of research that gets funded, how health services are targeted, and how women's role in the informal care economy affects their capacity for employment. She also said that different public policy interventions are needed to address the short, medium, and long-term issues that households face. Acute illnesses, for

example, require short-term interventions,:while vaccinations and clean water are medium-term interventions. And long-term policy approaches are needed to address alcoholism and other symptoms of social breakdown, as well as issues such as financing of the health sector, gender inequalities in the entitlement to medicine and other resources, and nutrition and education. Ms. Standing concluded that gender and health issues cut across sectors and need to be addressed through integrated policy mechanisms.

The second presenter, Laura Frade Rubio (Women's Eyes on the World Bank, LAC), said that ignoring women's reproductive and productive roles in the economy will lead to the failure of education, labor, and land reforms in Latin America. In promoting universal primary education, she argued, the Bank has failed to consider that many girls do not go to school because of the need to carry out survival strategies, and that employers do not value education among women, whom they hire for low-paying jobs. She also said that in the labor market, the Bank's promotion of flexibility is resulting in the removal of maternity leave and other legal protections for women. And in land reform, she said, women are losing their informal access to land while being prevented for cultural reasons from obtaining legal title. As a result of reforms in these three sectors, Ms. Frade concluded, women are working longer hours with fewer protections, and their quality of life is deteriorating.

The discussant, Birger Fredriksen (Director, Human Development Sector, Africa Region) agreed that a number of problems in the developing world can be alleviated by providing basic education and health services for women, and that a cross-sectoral approach is needed to understand why, for example, girls are not going to school. He then suggested several reasons why the Bank has not been as successfbl as it could have been in improving the condition of women: First, he said, the Bank has difficulty handling cross-sectoral problems-it's easier to do projects in a single sector than to address the multiple causes of many problems; second, with gender issues being handled by central macroeconomics units and by PREM, it is not clear that best practice is being built into field operations; and third, the Bank's instruments are still traditional, country-based investment loans, which provide little opportunity for staff to collect and share cross- country information and analysis.

The audience discussion focused on several points. One participant argued that the Bank should examine how policy instruments have increased poverty and gender inequality, and should rethink the model of using private investors to address poverty issues, especially in areas such as the provision of water. Another noted that health and poverty are dynamic issues which need to be considered together to understand how they impact each other. Another audience member pointed out that the effects of reforms need to be evaluated carefully, since reforms that look like they are increasing efficiency may actually be shifting costs to unpaid women's activities. Another member argued that a number of Bank reforms have undermined the social safety net and thus have caused a reversal of health and education improvements. And finally, one participant suggested that the Bank should look at its own incentives for doing gender work and cross-sectoral analysis, especially in light of its emphasis on turning over projects and money rapidly.

In response to these comments, Mr. Fredriksen argued that a country's development is primarily the government's responsibility and that people should focus on their own government's performance before criticizing the Bank's efforts. At the same time, he acknowledged that the first structural adjustment programs were not well designed in terms of protections for the social sectors-although now the Bank is doing a better job.

Session 3: The Role of Civil Society in Promoting Gender-sensitive Government Policy Formulation

This session, chaired by Kristen Timothy (Deputy Director, UNDAW), focused on how civil society can help to ensure that government policy is sensitive to gender issues.

The first presenter, Yassine Fall (AAWORD, Senegal), began by defining civil society as any kind of interest group that can influence policy. She then noted that empowering civil society organizations means several concrete things: bringing NGOs into policy negotiations; building their capacity to develop and carry out programs and projects, rather than relying on foreign consultants; and building their capacity to monitor the ways in which priorities are set and funds are allocated by national-level ministries. Ms. Fall also spoke about what she called the Bank's power to set policy in borrower countries, primarily through the country assistance strategy document (the CAS). The Bank comes to the table, she said, with economic models and socioeconomic paradigms that are presented as best practice for all countries, without accounting for the concerns of civil society groups and women's groups that need to be able to express the kind of society they want and how they want national resources to be used.

The second presenter, Virginia Vargas Valente (Entre Mujeres, Fundacion Flora Tristanl EGCG), said that civil society is not one reality, but is characterized by tensions, conflicts, power relations, and exclusions. For example, she said, the feminist movement and other parts of civil society that are oriented toward enlarging democracy, citizenship, and cultural and economic rights have to deal with an authoritarian political culture that has a different agenda. In Latin America, she said, the state is an expression of that authoritarian culture, so the question becomes how to negotiate with the state to make it more responsive to the issues we care about. The answer, she suggested, is to realize that the power of civil society is the power of capacity building, of extending networks, ideas, and actions - and thus of mobilizing resources and making the necessary alliances to ensure that our agenda becomes part of the public debate. One aspect of that, Ms. Vargas said, is giving people a vision of rights, of their right to have rights. It is important, she said, for people to focus on rights rather than needs because needs has the connotation of powerlessness, whereas the idea of rights is empowering.

The discussant, Najma Siddiqi (ESSD Network), expressed concerned about how the Policy Research Report was going to be used, particularly in light of the complex and competitive nature of civil society. She suggested that rather than trying to target or be useful to particular audiences, the PRR should address the question of how the Bank can achieve effective partnerships with various segments of civil society, as well as with governments and other donor agencies.

The audience discussion raised several issues. One participant said that the globalization of civil society has brought about a transnational consensus on citizenship and human rights, which are now considered to be central to development. But the question is whether global civil society can help to shift the process of economic globalization toward more human-centered processes that take account of people's needs and rights. Another audience member said the World Bank needs to develop the capacity to talk to civil society and should identify a set of criteria for consultations. A third member suggested that the PRR should document the Bank's successes and failures in its partnerships with NGOs. A fourth member said that, in the context of consultations with civil society organizations, the Bank would be more successful in developing appropriate policies if it did not attempt to pick and choose the people with whom it was willing to consult. Rather, that person noted, the Bank should accept the representatives chosen by the organizations themselves.

Further Discussion of Sessions 1-3

In further discussion of the issues raised during the sessions, audience members made the following observations:

The processes by which poverty is created are not well understood. Even participatory poverty assessments say only that women make up a higher percentage of the poor, but don't ask how women get into situations of poverty, or how the processes are different for women and men. Qualitative studies can strengthen quantitative econometric analyses by tracing linkages and processes, and by showing how people perceive and respond to different policy incentives. Guidelines are needed on how to integrate quantitative and qualitative methods.

Discussion of the Process for the Policy Research Report

Elizabeth King (DECRG) discussed the timeframe for production of the Policy Research Report. Further consultations, she said, will take place in 1999, and background papers will be commissioned on various gender issues, including the effects of macroeconomic policies, labor policies, and public sector retrenchment; law and gender; culture and gender; and intra-household allocation, which will address the care economy and social reproduction. The papers, she said, will employ a mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis, and economic, sociological, anthropological, and legal perspectives.

One member of the audience suggested that the workshop participants try to highlight the three key messages they think the PRR should address, since the PRR will not be able to address all the issues raised by participants during the workshop. In this context, various participants said that the PRR should:

Look at the root causes of why women are poor, what kinds of support systems they need, and how we can ensure continuation of the care economy while ensuring equality and fairness for women;

Put forward the main message that development that ignores gender inequality is neither efficient nor sustainable; Speak about the relative strengths and capabilities of men and women; Explain how to improve women's participation in decisionmaking; Address women's access to land and other economic assets, the interface between women's productive and reproductive work, and political participation as a development issue; Speak about how women can get into leadership positions and have greater control over development, and how women's empowerment contributes to better development outcomes. Given that there will be tradeoffs between gender equality and other policy objectives, focus on a hierarchical ordering of what to do to manage the tradeoffs.

Closing Discussion and Wrap-up

The workshop closed with Masood Ahmed (Vice President, PREM Network) noting that the authors of the Policy Research Report will have to grapple with two issues: how to manage the tension between having a consultative process and getting to the work of writing the report; and how to focus the report so that it becomes a document that participants of various perspectives can stand behind. Then Karen 0. Mason (PRMGE Director Designate) thanked the participants for their contributions and the depth and diversity of their ideas. She said that her goal is to see that gender is mainstreamed into Bank operations within five years. It will, she said, be a complicated task, but noted that the Bank is open and has tremendous good will, and that enough people in the Bank are now concerned with gender to act together to make it a more central feature of the Bank's work. She said she is looking forward to continued consultations, not only in the context of the Policy Research Report, but in all aspects of the Bank's efforts to bring gender issues to the forefi-ont of development.

Gender Acro'ss the Regions

Chair: Margaret Samuriwo, Oxfam America, Zimbabwe

This session provided EGCG members with updates on Bank regional gender activities. Speakers from each region spoke in a plenary; then regional EGCG members met with staff fiom their regions to discuss issues in more depth.

Latin America and the Caribbean Guillermo Perry, Chief Economist, Latin America and the Caribbean and Director of the Poverty Reduction & Economic Management Unit in the Latin America and Caribbean Region (LCR/PREM)

Mr. Perry presented three slides on the activities of the Gender Unit in LCR/PREM: 1) a set of analytical pieces on economic and sector work; 2) a program for knowledge management and learning; and 3) operational support activities by sector by the LCR Gender Unit for FY98. The Gender Unit has completed or is preparing many analytical pieces and economic and sector work. Through its GREAT program (Gender Resources and Analytical Tools), the Unit has been training task managers and people outside the Bank to consider gender issues in their work and has organized seminars and training courses on education stereotypes, male roles in reproductive health, labor markets, micro enterprise, human resource reform in the public sector, and violence, among others. They have also published Gender Dissemination Notes.

Mr. Perry also emphasized that he was very proud of the Gender Unit's performance in its first year of activity. There has been a huge increase in demand for gender activities from the regional staff, thanks to a strategic decision made by the team to highlight the point that gender issues are important for everybody, men as well as women. The argument was that gender analysis improves the quality of projects. The Gender Unit was able to accomplish all these tasks in spite of the fact that it does not have a budget for gender issues from the region. The activities increased because of the huge increase in demand for their services from the countries, the CMU (Country Management Units) and task managers.

Comments Questions were raised about the strategic vision of the LAC region with regards to gender, and Mr. Perry agreed to meet with the EGCG to discuss these issues in more detail. A meeting was set for lunch the next day (November 12).

Africa Mark Blackden, Senior Operations Ofhcer, Poverty Reduction and Social Development Group

The region has some funds (US$100,000) to implement the Regional Gender Action Plan for which it welcomes regional consultations. Aside fiom looking at gender and rural development and business services; pursuing gender pilots, economic reforms, learning

and capacity building; and building on networking and partnership, the Action Plan focuses on developing prototypes for a poverty and gedder-focused CAS (Country Assistance Strategy). A Status Report on Povertv in Sub-Saharan Afiica devoted to the topic of gender and poverty reduction, which has just been completed, will be disseminated to start the dialogue with Afiican partners on how to engender macroeconomic policies. Other pioneering activities include helping to organize and sponsor an initiative on Gender and Law in Africa. The initiative started with a conference on "Gender and Law: Eastern Afiica Speaks," in October 1997, involving Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. A follow-up workshop was held in Washington in June 1998, and an Africa Workshop is planned as a follow-up in Nairobi later in the year. Parallel work on gender and law reform is being carried out in hcophone Afiica.

As part of knowledge management efforts, the Region has established gender web sites. NGO liaisons in the resident mission have undergone gender training, and field level training is planned for early 1999. In policy work, gender issues are being integrated into the CAS for Uganda and Mali; policy framework papers have been prepared on issues such as gender and land tenure; a portfolio and gender review is planned for Tanzania; and a gender perspective is being integrated into poverty monitoring in Sub-Saharan Africa for the WDR 200 1 on Poverty.

Middle East and North Africa Daniela Gressani, Sector Leader, MENA Social and Economic Development Group

The greatest progress has been made in consultation and participation. A workshop with women's NGOs fiom North Africa and the Middle East and Bank task managers was held last summer. As a result of this workshop and a meeting during the Mediterranean Development Forum in Marrakesh in September, the Region decided to establish a consultative and evaluation group of women from the region to advise the Bank on gender issues. In Morocco, a gender strategy formulated by women's NGOs is being set- up in consultation with their government counterparts.

Gender activities in the more traditional areas of Bank work have had a more mixed record. While staff working in traditional social services sectors such as health and education have recognized not only the importance but the cost-effectiveness of focusing on gender-related issues, the same is not true for staff in non-traditional sectors such as infrastructure. Mixed results have also been achieved in the overall dialogue for the Country Assistance Strategy (CAS), with progress being made in some cases but not in others. There are plans to establish a network of country social scientists to advise on gender issues.

Future directions for gender activities in the Region include work on legal issues and leadership training for women in the Region.

South Asia Reidar Kvam, Senior Social Scientist, South Asia Social Development Unit

Mr. Kvam explained that the issue of gender lies at the core of the three areas which are the focus of social development work. These areas are: 1) increased focus on vulnerable groups 2) support for partnerships and participation and 3) social, cultural and institutional analysis. Gender is an integral part of all these areas. A concern for the regional staff is with adequate local capacity to address these issues. Furthermore, South Asia has a very weak governance structure compounded by the gendered nature of their institutions, which often leads to women's exclusion from decision-making processes. Yet, while the challenges are enormous, there is strong commitment from senior management to address these issues. Mr. Kvam concluded his presentation by asking for suggestions and support in their work.

Europe and Central Asia Christine Jones, Principal Economist, ECA Region

Ms. Jones informed the group that as the transition progresses in the countries of the Region, increasing attention is being paid to gender issues, as demonstrated by the appointment of a full-time gender specialist for the Region. The Region presents two large areas on which to focus gender activities. The first is the strengthening of partnerships with NGOs and other civil society partners to inform Bank staff, advocate policy change, support the Bank's efforts to pay more attention to gender, and be more effective advocates with their own governments. The second area is the formulation of an issues-oriented work agenda, identifying key issues and bringing them to the attention of people in the Region. The Region is also planning a major report on poverty and inequality in conjunction with the WDR 2001 on Poverty.

Regional staff have identified three sets of issues on which their work will increasingly focus. The first is labor markets, with the issues of judicial enforcement of labor regulations, causes and consequences of the drop in women's labor force participation, and pension issues. The second area is health and mortality, which calls for focusing on the rise in male mortality rates, alcoholism, domestic violence, and women's reproductive health. The third area is intrahousehold issues, which calls for exploring spending patterns, particularly in very poor families which are spending a large share of income on tobacco and alcohol; the decline in school enrollments for both boys and girls; and family law --with issues such as women's rights in the event of divorce, joint ownership of assets, and collateral pledging (whether all household members have to give permission to pledge collateral if it is a joint family asset).

East Asia Scott Guggenheim, Principal Social Development Specialist, East Asia Social Development Sector Unit

Mr. Guggenheim focused his presentation on the case of Indonesia, as an archetype of the problems in East Asia and the directions of the gender program. In Indonesia, the

state and the paramilitary have mounted a campaign to intimidate women's groups that investigate the rape campaign against women of Chinese origin. But Indonesia also has had a reasonably good track record on gender questions overall--even now--and the crisis seems to have had more of an overt impact on men than on women. The Bank also has strong safe motherhood and micro credit-type programs in the country.

The economic crisis has highlighted several gender themes for which Bank staff need advice from the EGCG and other women's NGOs. Safety net programs that follow the South Asian model of putting women to work only pick up 3% to 4% of women in East Asia. Secondly, as the economy stabilizes, what kind of recovery programs should the Bank support to shift the pattern of development or to put gender questions front and center? Another theme deals with the structure of women's participation in governance and the economy. A fourth theme deals with legal system reform. The last theme is that women's groups have been the most successful social actors during the crisis on governance questions, general poverty questions, and on setting up fora and networks for having issues discussed.

Mr. Guggenheim also remarked that the Bank has a certain comparative advantage in what it is able to do, and set the following priorities for the Bank's actions towards gender equality. These are: improving the frameworks within which gender issues are treated in-country, addressing gender questions in labor market integration, designing safety nets and recovery programs that reach and include women, setting up more demand- responsive projects that will bring gender concerns into them, and developing the analytical and research program.

Mr. Guggenheim also identified three areas where the Regional staff needs help and advice. First is how to do mainstreaming; secondly, how to do international coordination with different women's groups; and third, what mechanisms of coordination should be set up in the countries.

Comments

Ms. Charkiewicz welcomed the work that the Regional staff is doing in ECA, and made several remarks about the presentation on the ECA Region. It is extremely difficult to address gender issues in the Region because of the persistent belief that there are no problems with gender equality. The transition in ECA countries is an extremely long and difficult process and, while there is a focus on social safety nets and intermediate remedial measures, there is no forecast on creating income-generating opportunities for people. The decline in the mortality age for males in Russia cannot be attributed solely to changes in lifestyle (e.g. rise in alcohol consumption) since the transition; there is also a rise in the suicide rate because it is very difficult for people to cope not only with economic hardships but also with the changes in the value systems and rules which have not been replaced.

Ms. Charkiewicz then noted the positive developments around regional consultation that took place during the current meeting, such as contacts between the EGCG members and

regional s W , the proposal,for membership and constitution of the EGCG which includes more focus on regional work; and the MENA Region proposal for a regional consultative body with women's NGOs.

Regional Meetings: Small Group Sessions

East Asia Gillian Brown, Scott Guggenheim, and Irene Santiago

It was agreed that the Bank must continue to move forward on two fronts, The Bank must continue to actively promote mainstreaming of gender into the Bank's projects, focusing on operationalizing some of the rhetoric. And it is important that the practical needs of girls and women for such things as access to education, healthcare, and credit are met. The Bank also needs to identify key issues in each country and address these more strategically through the CAS and policy dialogue. There was agreement on the fact that the key issues, which often touch on culture and politics, only should be identified after consultation with civil society groups within the countries.

Irene and Gillian also agreed that a network needs to be established from the regional EGCG member down to country level to get broader participation and feed-back fiom the EGCG. Three upcoming activities will require extensive and coordinated consultation and feedback: i) identifying the strategic post-crisis gender issues in the region and in the countries for our own regional and country gender strategies; ii) the preparation of the Policy Research Report on Gender and Development that has begun and will continue over the next year; iii) preparations for the WDR on gender that is scheduled for 2004. The sooner an efficient and effective network can be established the better. Irene will help identify possible candidates to replace her as the EGCG member from East Asia.

Africa Mark Blackden, Margaret Samuriwo, Yassine Fall, Michael Bamberger

As a result of the discussions it was agreed that the EGCG representatives fiom Afiica will propose candidates to replace the two current members. They are clearly concerned to look for people who will be committed to continuing the work of the EGCG. There was some suggestion to bring "hardcore African economists" into the EGCG.

Margaret emphasized that it was important to build on what was already being done in the Region, not least the collaborative networking between the EGCG and the Africa Regional BankNGO Committee that had led to her participating at the Bamako NGO meeting in September. She stressed the need to exchange information more extensively, especially in the areas of outreach and networking. She specifically suggested that it would be useful to document the experience of integrating gender into Policy Framework Papers (PFPs, such as those in Burkina, Rwanda, Mali) and into CASs (Uganda, Mali), focusing not just on what is said, but how it got to be said. Mark agreed with her and will seek to get this done over the next 6 months.

Mark proposed that the AfXca members of the EGCG be involved in the process of outreach/dissernination of the 1998 status report. Margaret liked this idea, particularly as it related to enabling the EGCG to play a role in bringing Afican voices into the process that might not otherwise be heard. The focus should be on effectively engendering policy change, not on the report itself. She felt that it is important to help build the capacity of African networks to engage in dialogue with the Bank.

Europe and Central Asia Christine Jones, Eva Charkiewicz, Elena Kotchkina, Lucia Fort

This group discussed the need for the Bank set up more income-generating schemes for women that go beyond micro-credit schemes, and to conduct feasibility studies and develop model examples for new income generating activities. In rural areas, rural development should consider off-farm employment given that farming is becoming more of a part-time activity. Also mentioned was the need for research on the gender impacts of privatization, within the context of a study of poverty and the rise of inequality. An example would be the study of the gender-differentiated impact of restructuring the mining industry. Christine remarked that knowledge management resources might be a possible avenue of funding for those studies.

Both EGCG members suggested that they meet with the country officers and Executive Directors to inquire about how gender is addressed in the region's work and what progress has been made.

Latin America and the Caribbean Representatives of the LAC Gender Team and ECGC member Jocelyn Dow

Ms. Dow spoke about the situation in Guyana. She spoke about ethnic divisions, education, population and health, and labor. There is tension between the Afro-Guyanese and the Indo-Guyanese. The Amer-Indians are the poorest of the poor. The voting patterns in Guyana are ethnically based. The public sector is Afro-Guyanese based so as the economy suffers, the ethnic tensions increase. $US30 Million was invested in education for a population of 750,000 people with no results other than some new buildings because of the low wages for teachers. She predicts a population and health crisis. Previously, there was a centralized hospital system. Currently a lot of money is being invested in the health system with few results. HIVJAIDS is an increasingly severe problem. Out migration is causing negative population growth. Women are suffering more than men. Unemployment is worse for men compared to women. Domestic violence is on the rise. She recommended a study on gender and macroeconomics.

South Asia Gita Sen, Reidar Kvam, Sonomi Tanaka, Radhika Srinivasan, Yasmin Tayyab, Valerie Kozel, Jean-Claude Balcet

This group decided that although it is difficult to do the portfolio review for all countries, given the centrally driven structure of current EGCG, selection of some sample countries

including one country from the South Asia Region could be possible. This should be further pursued under the regional partnerships development and EGCG 'regionalization' .

It was also emphasized by the regional staff that overlaps have to be avoided between EGCG's further review initiatives and existing Bank's review work in the region, such as PREM Poverty Thematic Group's portfolio evaluation. Furthermore, there was felt to be a need for improved intra-Bank information flow across networks and regions and between regions and the Anchor.

Though the EGCG's regionalization is important, it may not happen as quickly as expected. The regional staff explained that once a full-time gender specialist is in place, which will be soon, country-based networking would be the first priority. In addition, it was mentioned that in Bangladesh there is already an initiative started, facilitated by Nilufar Ahmad, a Social Scientist in Dhaka Field Office.

The group agreed that the Bank's 'stakeholder consultation' is too superficial and far from 'interaction'. There is a need for a real, regular, honest dialogue, also involving other donors. Efforts should be made by the Bank to at least minimize the misinformation among stakeholders from all sides regarding what the World Bank is and what it is doing.

Gender Across the Networks

Chair: Gita Sen, Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore

At this session EGCG members received an update on activities in four Bank networks.

Human Development Network David de Ferranti, Vice President

Mr. de Ferranti stated that the area he covers contains three main pillars: education; health, nutrition and population; and social protection (which encompasses pensions, labor markets, social assistance and related issues). Under education, he noted that girls' education is a major priority for the Bank. Governments agree with that, but getting from agreement to action is the real challenge. He thinks that NGOs could be very helpful in working on this.

Under the second pillar, much emphasis is given to women's health and reproductive health. A major challenge here is that some of these issues need to be understood from a long-term perspective, yet it is sometimes hard for government officials to focus on longer-term issues, when they face short-term election horizons. NGOs could also be helpful in this regard.

Social protection is an expanding, new area. For example, many governments are now having to reform their pension programs. Since in many countries there are significantly more women than men among the elderly population, it is important to ensure that new policies correct what have been gender biases in the past.

The Bank is also becoming increasingly active concerning the issue of child labor, which raises questions for both girls and boys.

Questions and comments

The first comment mentioned the dichotomy of building education infrastructure while people are hemorrhaging out of the education system, so that overall quality of education is declining. Another noted the need for more open consultation on issues such as HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative). One participant wondered to what extent the Human Development Network and the issues it covers are integrated into the debt sustainability analysis done through HIPC. To promote more solidly designed consultations, some sort of standing advisory committees could be set up with well- respected and credible experts in-country who could help facilitate the consultation process. The Bank does use various forms of conditionality, and this could help to ensure that proper attention and resources go to the social sector.

Response

Mr. de Ferranti agreed that in education, buildings are not the important thing, quality is. He concurred that consultations and other interactions between the Bank and NGOs could be better, and that the Bank is working on this. Concerning HIPC, he indicated that increased information sharing is already taking place. In terms of taking account of social sector spending as a part of total spending, this is now being done better than before. Furthermore, the Bank has used conditionalities in a variety of ways to push the social agenda. Using conditionalities is complicated, however, as a project that has 50 conditionalities in effect has none, and a project that insists on an unreasonable array of conditionalities, which then leads the government to walk away, is a project that never happens.

Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Network Douglas Forno, Sector Technical Leader & Executive Manager, Rural Sector Board Jean-Claude Balcet, Coordinator of the Gender and Rural Development Thematic Group, Senior Economist, South Asia Rural Development

Mr. Forno began by saying that there has been an important shift in the Bank concerning the rural sector. The Bank formerly had an agriculture sector, but now the focus is on rural development, of which agriculture is of course an important part. With this new emphasis, there is more work on the livelihoods of people, both on-farm and off-farm. Furthermore, staff have organized themselves into thematic groups, including one on gender and rural development. These groups are now starting to look beyond their specific topic to the links between topics, for example, the connections between sustainable production systems and gender. Within rural development, there are two issues particularly critical for gender: access to rural finance, and access to land and natural resources. There is a reemergence of interest in these areas outside the Bank as well. Mr. Forno mentioned that one of the exciting things recently has been the alliance established between the Bank and IFAP (the International Federation of Agriculture Producers). This is an internationally organized federation that represents 80 farmer organizations around the world, most of them representing smaller organizations. IFAP has a Gender Committee.

Mr. Balcet noted that one of the constraints is to reach down to the field and find intermediaries to help do this. He said that the Gender and Rural Development Thematic Group started very recently. They have a three-pronged orientation: a focus on key themes, establishing strategic partnerships, and trying to reach down to the field as quickly as possible. One important theme concerns the productivity of women, through a focus on foreign technology transfer. Microfinance is another topic, along with gender and rural infrastructure and making national institutions in the agriculture sector gender- responsive. They feel that the priority in the Bank is to provide task managers with the tools and training they need to address gender issues. Certain "breakthrough7' projects include the Agriculture Services Project in Cote d'Ivoire, where gender is being mainstreamed at the national level through a kind of logframe approach, and the

agriculture sector reform investment in Nicaragua, which examines how to make the national agency for extension gender-sensitive.

Questions and comments

The first comment raised the importance of three issues: the problem of access to land, particularly in patrilineal societies governed by customary laws; access to marketing, especially where privatization has occurred; and the risk of farmers' associations being patrilineally controlled. Another comment concerned the difficulties faced when scaling up projects, as often gender aspects get lost, especially objectives such as empowerment. It was mentioned that in the ECA region, it is often assumed that gender is not a problem, but often it is. Therefore it would be very useful to see how experiences from developing countries can be transferred to transition economies. Another comment was that it would be very interesting to hear about gender in other parts of ESSD (besides the Rural Family), for example, concerning linkages between gender, environment and health. Many southern countries do not have the capacity for toxicological research, yet there are a number of places with "industrial hot spots" that have impacts on local populations. One participant wondered how aware the Bank was of some of the strong civil society networks, such as the rural women's network in the Andean Zone.

Response

Mr. Balcet agreed that the political dimension of gender is important, such as the influence of political parties in rural areas. This may be an area of focus for the next Rural Week (an annual event for Bank staff working in the Rural Family). He also concurred that upscaling of projects is the major issue. The Bank is also, however, trying to mainstream gender into existing projects, so that it is not just a matter of scaling up small women's projects. Mr. Forno added that the issue of male-dominated farmers' associations is significant, and that maybe through its partnership with the Gender Committee of IFAP the Bank can work on this. Furthermore, macroeconomic linkages, the links to food security and nutrition, are critical. The Bank has just hired a food and nutrition policy advisor to focus on this. The Bank also has just hired a pesticide advisor. The Bank also will work more to ensure it is making the appropriate links with women's groups, such as the Andean one mentioned earlier.

Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network Finance, Private Sector and Infrastructure Network Masood Ahmed, Vice President

As the last few days have focused on the gender sector within PREM, Mr. Ahmed said he would like to discuss the other parts of PREM (poverty, economic policy and the public sector). The best links are perhaps between gender and the work in the poverty area, for example the WDR on poverty that is being prepared. For public sector work the Bank is trying to look more at what drives the effectiveness of public institutions, at the constraints to their effectiveness. The public sector people are trying to develop a strategy which would provide a sharper analytical framework for this area. A key

question here is examining how effectively public institutions respond to gender differences in the delivery of their services. At the next EGCG meeting, he recommends that there be a discussion of how to address this and related public sector issues.

In the area of economic policy there are two broad categories. One covers macroeconomics and trade. The PRR is going to be the instrument for trying to get a better handle on the interactions of gender and adjustment, trade, etc. The second part of economic policy looks at development effectiveness. There has been a sense that the overall fiamework for looking at adjustment strategies has been heavily driven by a narrow financial macro framework. Over the last couple of years the social sector has been added into that framework. As outlined in Jim Wolfensohn's annual meeting speech, there is a need for a new development framework, which would examine the social and structural agenda and the macro, financial framework. This new framework would cover several areas: one is a set of things related to governance and the effectiveness of public institutions, second is what market institutions are needed for a market economy, third is inclusion, fourth infrastructure, and fifth is the longer-term perspective of environmental sustainability. All this would then relate to macro, which would be the sixth element. The Bank wants to work with partners to develop the elements of this framework and test it out in a few countries. The Bank will benefit from EGCG inputs to this process. In terms of gender, there is a tension between mainstreaming and focusing on specific areas where there is the highest payoff. There is a need to manage this, so as to maximize impact.

Comments and questions

The first comment concerned the special nature of countries in transition. Another underlined the importance of the issue of "inclusion", especially of the powerless. It was also stressed, however, that gender should not just show up in the new framework under "inclusion", but be mainstreamed throughout. It will be very important to see how gender is integrated into the "test countries".

Gender and The Private Sector

Chair: Lydia Williams, Oxfam America

This session included a discussion of current analytical work along with the operations of the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Andrew Ewing, Senior Manager, Off~ce of the Vice President, FPSI

Mr. Ewing began the session with remarks regarding the Bank's role in infrastructure and private sector development. He enumerated various activities FPSI is conducting, including the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP). He noted that in infrastructure, the Bank is trying to focus more on community participation, including the

gender aspects. Mr. Ewing then launched a discussion of the Bank's biggest issues within private sector development.

Mr. Ewing discussed two major objectives in private sector development. First of all, "bringing the energy of the private sector into helping development in individual countries is a way to speed up the rate of economic growth". Then, the next step is to distribute the extra benefits that economic growth will bring. The second objective is "taking the government's attention away from trying to run businesses so that they can focus on the social agenda". Gender issues are important in the discussion of the proceeds of privatization and how and where they should be distributed. There are also gender differentials in the impacts of the East Asia crisis.

Susan Joekes, Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex

Ms. Joekes' work is part of the Bank's efforts in expanding the empirical basis for gender work in economic development, and is also a response to the request from the United Nations to draft a chapter on Gender and Private Sector Development for the 1999 World Survey on Women. Ms. Joekes explained that her work is still in progress and that this forum was a good opportunity for the input of the EGCG members and Bank staff.

Her report looks at the shifting balance between the public and private sector. This balance has been manifested in two ways. Privatization is based on the idea that governments should not and need not be involved in the direct production of marketed activities in which there is not a great pervasive social benefit. The state does need to act on behalf of the people to correct for undesirable market outcomes. This process is moving unevenly in different countries and across different sectors. A more complex area concerns products and services for which there is a broadly-based social benefit that the state needs to ensure is equitably distributed.

It has become quite clear that civil society movements are having a genuine and broad- based effect on the area of corporate social responsibility. Civil society organizations are playing a part in the delegation of community management structures from the state level to the local level. Unless women's organizations are explicitly part of the process, gender issues tend not to be well-represented.

The main conclusions are that the shift toward greater participation of the private sector is mixed regarding gender equality. There are areas where gender equality is promoted, namely in the areas of employment. Private corporations are a strong source of demand for female labor. In most cases, women are cheap labor. Ms. Joekes noted "deep irony" in the fact that women's advances in terms of demand for their labor are founded on their social disadvantage. She questioned whether or not the greater demand for female labor in the private sector, under improved and more liberal macroeconomic and trading considerations, would to convert into convergence in wages for men and women.

Ms. Joekes then presented her findings in the following areas:

Wages--Women are taking a larger share of the aggregate wage bill in the manufacturing sector but gender discrimination against women has not lessened in wage payment systems. Property Rights, the emergence of markets and formalization of title in land and natural resources--The findings suggest that there are marked asymmetries in property rights by gender in rural areas. The emergence of land markets can exacerbate the situation instead of improving it. Women are disadvantaged in terms of access to land through inheritance, access to land through purchase, and access through sweat equity. Public Goods (Education, Health, Infrastructure)--The provision of public goods has become an area where increased partnerships between the public and private sector have developed.

-In education, the situation is complicated by the fact that the Bank has put large resources into supporting girls' education. The main issue is whether or not special efforts to improve girls' education prove sustainable after this huge program has run its course. -In health, Hillary Standing's work to assess the gender equality impact of health sector reform is the only effort of its type. Ms. Standing concluded that there is still insufficient information. -In infrastructure, very little work has been done except in the areas of water and waste disposal. Women often are highly involved in informal activities and may be adversely affected when water and waste disposal activities are privatized.

Three areas within the expanding private sector which are germane to the Bank's operational interests are:

Infrastructure-- Governments should aim to increase their capability for contract- setting and there should be much greater sensitivity to gender issues. Downsizing--Some of the Bank's work to alleviate the effects of downsizing, such as the optimal design of severance pay schemes and retrenchment arrangements, do show a gender awareness to the extent that they are capable of tracking the after- effects for women as opposed to male retrenched workers. Quality of employment for women in the private versus the public sector-- Important issues to note are insecurity of employment, rates of turnover, pay differentials and whether or not there is more or less discrimination against women in wage payment systems. There is some literature that suggests that the public sector is more equitable for women than the private sector.

Conclusion More work needs to be done to assess the impact of private sector development on gender equality. The Bank needs to continue its interest in promoting and sponsoring work in this area. Governments must continue to set standards in service provision and contracts. Finally, civil society organizations are responsible for interfacing with all of the different players helping guide the direction of private sector development toward improved gender equality.

Questions and Comments

Questions were raised regarding retrenchment and if, when Ms. Joekes mentioned retrenchment not affecting women as much as men, she was referring to most developing countries, and in which specific sectors of economy. Another question concerned wage differentials and that in some countries the differential has decreased because male wages have decreased. Privatization is supposed to increase women's employment but is there any evidence that women are participating more in ownership or are involved in ownership at any level? Is women's presence in paid employment having an effect or positive benefits on the amount of unpaid work that they do? How is gender being addressed in the Bank's overall shift from IBRDADA toward more private sector-oriented lending. What about privatization in transitioning economies?

Responses

On the issues of severance pay and unionization it appears that severance payments in downsizing events have been quite generous, partly because unions are well represented in state-owned enterprises in many countries. If they were not generous, unions would not accept them. According to recent research the rate of convergence of the wage system is now much faster in developing than in developed countries. The quality of employment including unpaid labor and length of employment are all areas that have been well-researched in the literature. Regarding transitioning economies-- the shift toward private sector activity is more pronounced in transition economies both in terms of employment and output. The final point made was that most of the current literature tries to assess the gender impact of increased employment within economic household models. These studies indicate that there are improvements in women's decision making capabilities within the household.

Dan Aronson, Principal Social Scientist, Environment & Social Review Unit, IFC Milton Wanyama, Senior Investment Officer, IFC

Mr. Aronson started by giving an overview of what the IFC does. Typically, a company investing or planning to make an investment comes to the IFC as one of a series of possible financiers to see if the IFC would want to invest money in the operation. Sponsors often come with a plan all ready, including possibly a draft environmental assessment or resettlement plan. By investing in the operation, the IFC implicitly certifies that a country has a stable enough business, tax, justice and other regimes to be investible. The IFC has been greatly involved in investment in the "heavy" sectors, but is now talking about moving to new sectors, such as health care and education. They are also moving toward more small and medium-scale enterprises.

Until recently, the IFC position was to take on Bank policies only when they were appropriate. But now the IFC is getting much more in line with the general policy framework of the Bank. In particular, the IFC has adopted or pledged to adopt policies similar to the Bank's "safeguard" policies (also known as the "do no harm'' policies). These include indigenous peoples policy, environmental assessment, cultural property,

etc. Another set of Bank polices, informally called the "do some good" policies, have so far not been addressed by the IFC. These policies include gender. It looks as though the next policy area for the IFC may be relate to core labor standards. However, the IFC unit in which Mr. Aronson works (Environment and Social Review Unit) looks at the social impacts as they relate to policies, including the broad environmental assessment policy. This gives some room to ask questions about social issues. There is firm commitment of IFC senior management to be thorough on this.

Mr. Aronson mentioned a few areas where those working on gender could focus: they can make the connections between gender and the sections of the private sector being discussed in a CAS, for example; they can support the useful initiatives of the private sector going on in their countries, and they can examine the question of labor conditions for both women and men. He noted that there is a simultaneous globalization of enterprise and an emergence of a strong and widespread movement toward community management and decentralization. Given this, the discussion should be less about government regulatory structures and more about talking directly to companies about where their money is going, where their activity is centered, etc.

Mr. Wanyama added that in recent years the IFC has been working with the Bank to come up with joint country strategies. IFC projects then support these strategies. So whereas the IFC operates in the private sector, it operates in a framework which is a World Bank Group framework. The IFC is, in a number of ways, going in a direction that is more friendly to gender issues, especially in the increased support to smaller companies and exploration in the micro enterprise area.

Comments and questions

The first comment was that gender was not mentioned in the IFC safeguard polices, nor were poor people. While there is a goal to "do good" concerning gender, the first priority should be to "do no harm". Therefore, gender should be included in the safeguard policies. There is a need perhaps for a development scorecard or a development screen of some kind, to then see what actually happens when trying to operationalize gender. It was noted that there is also not a lot of gender specificity to core labor standards, and there was a question as to whether the IFC was willing to use conditionalities for this. Another participant said that it would be useful for the IFC to begin to obtain some data on what is happening in the private sector where women are concerned. There should also be more linkage with the grant areas of the Bank, so there would be more support for training, for women's ownership, etc.

The IFC representatives were asked what would be needed for the IFC to develop more sound policies, to improve IFC staffing and resources so that gender concerns could be integrated into social safeguard policies? How much gender expertise is there in the IFC social unit? One participant had heard that the IFC is looking for an ombudsman. This ombudsman should not become a substitute for the extension of the Inspection Panel to the IFC. Another participant asked how some congruence is achieved between the private sector work of the World Bank and that of the IFC.

Mr. Aronson mentioned that IFC does have an internal "scoring" mechanism. There is an Operations Evaluation Group (OEG), an equivalent to the Bank's OED. Mr. Aronson feels that the IFC is a long way from having conditionalities related to core labor standards. Many of the issues that have been raised could be seen as an agenda for the private sector. There are currently four social scientists in the IFC Environment and Social Review Unit. This unit is new, and hopes to get larger. These four social scientists are quite careful about gender issues. Their mandate for looking at gender is mainly through the safeguard policies.

Andrew Ewing (Senior Manager, Ofice of the Vice President, FPSI) said that one of Mr. Wolfensohn's primary concerns is that the World Bank Group become an integrated institution. There has been a private sector group chaired by Mr. Wolfensohn, and this group includes the Executive Vice President of the IFC, the head of the FPSI network, the head of MIGA and others.

Gender Sector Strategy Paper

Chair: Virginia Vargas, Centro de la Mujer Peruana, Flora Tristan, Peru

Ms. Salop opened the session by discussing what a Sector Strategy Paper is and her vision of the Gender Sector Strategy Paper (GSSP). The Bank has adopted an approach of formulating a strategy paper for each sector, across regions. So far, the health sector has finished its strategy paper, and other papers are being prepared for education, population, the financial sector, institutional development, and public sector institutions. The Gender Sector Strategy Paper will set the Bank's strategy for gender for the next three to four years. The Sector strategy paper will be discussed and endorsed by the Gender Sector Board. Ms. Salop presented a generic outline for the paper and went over the different sections, explaining what was the goal for each. She also explained that the outline was very generic and the process of producing the paper was in its early stages. While a few background papers have been produced, the production process will really start after Karen Mason starts as Gender Director. Ms. Salop welcomed the opportunity to discuss and keep an open dialogue with the EGCG during this process, and asked for their suggestions about how to approach the regional consultations.

Ms. Mason began her remarks with the idea that it is better to do the strategy paper right than to do it fast. She also said that the GSSP would probably be ready by the end of 1999 and not before. She remarked that she was impressed by how complicated the issue of gender in the Bank was and that this called for a very consultative process within the Bank and sister institutions (IMF, IFC) as well as with the EGCG and outside partners. She alluded to the learning curve she must travel as she joins the Bank and her intention to take at least two trips out to the field within her first months here.

She ended by asking the group for their ideas about what is critical to put into the document, understanding that as it is a Bank document, it is going to follow more or less

the outline proposed, and it is really speaking not to what the world should be doing for gender, but what the Bank should be doing.

Ms. Dow suggested that there were two notions about the Bank's work for gender that need to be turned on their head: 1) that some countries are higher priority then others, because the Bank could obtain "more bang for its buck" focusing on these countries; and 2) the notion of the failed state which has become self-defining and self-fulfilling in terms of expectations. She called for focusing on the global context, and beginning to develop some sort of purpose and energy that transcend the country level. This involves not just critical analysis but also support mechanisms to help institutionalize at a higher level the way in which women are involved.

Ms. Salop explained why and how the focus on the worst cases was developed and she posed a question: Faced with limited resources, where do you focus your efforts? In the worst cases? And, after girls' education, what are the key issues to focus on? The issues on which she personally would focus are education, law, and leadership.

Ms. Piza-Lopez remarked that, given the complexity of gender, the strategy will have to have a series of critical pillars. One pillar has to be what do you want to strategically advance? Women in leadership positions but also areas which are fairly non-traditional, to push the envelope in that direction. This could include creating a regulatory framework for women's equality and empowerment. Another pillar is the bread and butter work of the Bank on the challenge of mainstreaming gender. As you mainstream them, the issues on which progress is made change. In that case, the critical priority is the Bank's commitment to poverty reduction and gender. The third pillar is the issue of institutional reform and gender, because institutions which are gender-blind cannot deliver gender-sensitive policies.

Ms. Vargas suggested that focusing on best practices alone will not be enough to build a framework, that it is also necessary to focus on the mistakes, on the weaker points. Her other point was that there are other players that must be integrated into the process-- governments and other partners: their policies should also be involved. She also remarked that leadership is crucial in the process of institutionalizing change, rights and their application, and education. She called for framing the struggle against poverty as the people's right to have access to a minimal welfare.

Ms. Sen, corning from a South Asia perspective, brought up as first priority women's access to resources of any kind, which would not necessarily follow from education, law or leadership. The main constraint for women is that they have no time except for figuring how to survive. She also expressed her concern about the need to prioritize a set of countries or issues as a way to deal with limited resources; these things sometimes get set in stone--so that if we do this, then we have done gender. She also suggested that the way to engender policy frameworks and program mechanisms without enormous amounts of resources is to simply remove barriers and constraints and make it possible for people to start dealing with women in a more straightforward way.

Ms. Mason brought up the fact that it is very difficult to come up with general policy frameworks because of how context-specific and diverse gender systems are. This calls for coming up with a series of projects, not just for different regions, but specific countries or even sub-parts of countries.

Ms. Salop remarked that, in order to help change the gender dimension of policies, the Bank needs country-specific gender assessments, knowledge about the country's problems, priorities, big-ticket issues. We should use the social development model of social assessments to develop a program of gender assessments.

Ms. Piza-Lopez expressed her concern to Ms. Salop that to do the necessary country gender assessments requires capacity and expertise on gender issues in the regions and cannot be delegated to the tiny gender Unit that can only do so many assessments or produce knowledge in a few areas at a given point in time.

Ms. Salop responded that the gender assessments would have to be done under the auspices of the regions and be run by the country departments, which means facing the issue of whether they will want to do them. And that requires resources, so that her strategic objective for the strategy paper is to surface very clearly the issue that if you want to make it happen, you have got to spend. You need to have funding for these assessments which in will in turn drive the programs, but you also need management committed behind them.

Ms. Kotchkina pointed out that one aspect of the mainstreaming issue is which tools are you going to use and how are you going to prioritize the use of your tools. The CAS is a tool as the gender assessment could be. Rather than having separate poverty, social, and gender assessments, maybe it would be strategic to have one assessment reconceptualized as a social and gender assessment. A strategy which can be implemented will enable you to decide which aspects of your policies you are going to prioritize and put gender on, and how you are going to do it. But this has to be linked to institutional change. How do you to improve the capacity of people in management positions? How do you give women and men working on gender better incentives?

Ms. Williams suggested that the notion of leadership be expanded to include women in decision making. The idea can be sold with the argument of better projects, because so much of the Bank's research has shown that women's participation in Bank policy and Bank projects leads not only to better gender analysis but also to better projects, as this is defined by the Bank. 'Women's substantive participation in the process of decision making is essential and critical for the CASs and for project design. In regards to education systems, Ms. Williams suggested looking at these systems in general, not just at girls' enrollment, and asking whether the systems are of good quality and whether boys and girls are actually completing school.

Ms. Charkiewicz brought up two issues having to do with how to develop a gender strategy. One is that the gender assessments would have to be prior to the strategy. This leads to the question of the framework for carrying out those assessments, which would

have to developed in a participatory process with local groups in the regions and the countries. She also called for extending the notion of transition to the whole world, because the transition is going on for the whole world, although it is faster for some countries than for others. The issue of transition can be brought out by the analysis of macro/micro linkages in the gender assessments or other studies of what happens in the regions and countries. Finally, she suggested marrying the issues of leadership and institutions. Looking through the lens of governance, we can see what types of institutions are obstacles to gender equality, but also women's leadership in these institutions

Ms. Santiago brought up the idea of a trust fund for gender activities in the Bank, based on her positive experience in UNIFEM, where having control over monetary resources served as a leverage for ideas. She also remarked on the need to have both long-term and short-term goals, so that some success is visible early. Education, or survival issues, could be the short-term goals, and national development planning and budget allocation could be the long-term goals.

Chair: Eva Charkiewicz, Tools for Transition

During this session EGCG members discussed several suggestions with Bank staff. The idea of a list server for PRR consultations was mentioned. The EGCG secretariat could collaborate in synthesizing feedback. A new website is not needed, as the Bank already has a gender website, but a place on it for the PRR and/or a listserve could be created. Gita Sen will be the EGCG representative on the PRR Technical Advisory Committee. This committee will be very informal, a very small group. The writers of the PRR will call upon individuals on this committee according to the particular expertise they have. It was decided that further discussion on other issues (such as the agenda for the next full EGCG meeting) could take place as needed at the May meeting of ECGC Coordinating Group.

Gender in The World Development Report (WDR) on Poverty

Christina Malmberg Calvo, Economist, East Asia Transport and team member of the WDR on Poverty

Ms. Calvo provided an update on the WDR on poverty. She noted that extensive consultation would take place both before and after the first draft of the report is produced. The WDR team recognized that standards of living must be seen as a multidimensional concept, and that there was a need to go beyond the usual measurements and listen to the poor themselves.

There has been significant progress in reducing poverty in the last decades, but this has been very uneven between regions, countries and groups in society. In the first two decades of the next century there are enormous opportunities due to the evolution of technology, trade and political systems. But there are also great risks of increased inequality, vulnerability and marginalization. The challenge is to bridge the enormous gap between opportunity and risk in order to harness the huge potential for poverty reduction.

Ms. Calvo said that the WDR should produce a global perspective on poverty, recognizing that issues differ across regions. There is no single sector or 'conventional cut' that will resonate among regions. Instead the team proposes to evolve the report around a few key themes which are common for the poor wherever they are -- risk, vulnerability, exclusion and inequality. The flip side of these are empowerment, security, and opportunity. These themes will form the basis for a program of analysis and dialogue. Gender is an issue in all of the themes. The report will also look at what makes successful institutions and what the implications are for policy formulation and implementation.

Comments

It was noted that the concept of poverty in former socialist countries may be different than elsewhere; different indicators may be needed. It is important to look at poverty among indigenous women. It was suggested that there be consultation with developed countries concerning global poverty and developed countries' role in it; poverty is not just an issue of poor countries. EGCG members recommended that there not be a separate chapter on gender, that gender not be added to the document at the end, but that it be integrated from the beginning. Women often are more vulnerable and more at risk than men, and this can be brought out when discussing the issues of risk and vulnerability.

ANNEX 1

The Members of the External Gender Consultative Group

The Group currently has about 14 members. Members were invited for their experience working on gender issues at the operational, policy and research levels, for their extensive contacts with organizations or individuals working in this field, and for their familiarity with international development. The Group includes experts on a wide range of development topics, encompassing macro-economic development; the promotion of economic opportunities for women; health; education; and legal and human rights. There was a concerted effort made, when forming the Group, to include representatives fiom all regions. The Group represents a broad spectrum of civil society, including NGOs, women's organizations and academic and research institutions in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia and the OECD countries.

Dr. Hoda Badran. Egypt Chairperson, Alliance for Arab Women Dr. Badran is Professor of Community Organization and Social Research at the University of Helwan in Cairo, Egypt. She is a member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at the Center of Human Rights, United Nations, in Geneva. Dr. Badran was the Regional Coordinator for NGO preparations for the NGO Forum on Women, Beijing '95; the Secretary General of the National Council for Childhood

and Motherhood in Egypt; the Regional Advisor for Women's Programs in the Arab Region, UNICEF, Lebanon; and the Urban Development Advisor for UNICEF, Egypt. Dr. Badran has a Ph.D. in Social Welfare fiom Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio; an MA in Social Administration fiom the University of Louisville in Kentucky; and a BS from the American University in Cairo.

Ms. Ewa Cbarkiewicz. Poland Karat Coalition for Regional Action Ms. Charkiewicz is currently working with the Karat Coalition for Regional Action, a women's network in Central and Eastern Europe, established in 1997 to follow-up on the Beijing conference. Previously, she was the coordinator of the international working group on changing consumption and production patterns with the Netherlands Committee for IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural

Resources) since 1993. She has lectured on ecologically sustainable development, gender and the environment at the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague. Ms. Charkiewicz founded "I Prefer to Be," a national network of 24 grassroots environmental activist groups in Poland. Since 199 1, she has worked with the Alliance of Northern People for the Environment and Sustainable Development to integrate women's, environmental and citizens' organizations. Ms. Charkiewicz contributed to the activities organized by the Women, Environment and

Development Organization and the Eastern European Women's Caucus at the 1995 NGO Forum in Huairou, China. She has a B.A. in Applied Linguistics fiom the University of Warsaw and is working on her Ph.D. at the University of Amsterdam.

Ms. Jocelyn Dow. Guyana President Red Thread Women 's Employment Collective, Guyana Ms. Dow is co- chair of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). Red Thread helps Guyanese women apply a skill that nearly all possess- the ability to sew- for economic empowerment. Ms. Dow is a member of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action and is currently serving her second term on Guyana's Elections Commission. She is the Vice President of the Guyana Manufacturer's

Association and a past board member of the Caribbean ~onservation~~ssociation.

Mme. Kaudjhis-Offoumou. Cbte d'lvoire Lawyer, Founder, and President of "Association pour la Democratie en Afiique " ( 'D-Afica) Mme. Kaudjhis-Offoumou, a practicing lawyer in the C6te d'Ivoire, has also been teaching law courses since 1983 and was a foreign magistrate in France. She was in charge of Legal Affairs in the Ministry of Women fiom 1982- 1987 and has been active in the fight for women's rights, human rights and sustainable

development. She is the founder and President of the NGO "International Association for Democracy in Afiica" (AID-Afiica). Mme. Kaudjhis-Offoumou is a founding member and was Vice President of the Association of Women Lawyers in the CGte d'Ivoire (1984-95); founding member and Vice President of the International Movement of Women for Democracy (1993- 95); and a member of the CGte d'Ivoire League of the Rights of Man (1990-95). Her books include The Legal Rights of Women in C6te d 'Ivoire. Mme. Kaudjhis-Offoumou has a Master's Degree in law from the University of Abidjan and holds a Certificat d7Aptitude in law.

Mme. Faiza Kefi. Tunisia Presidente Union Nationale de la Femme Tunisienne and Vice- Prisidente de 1 'Union Ginirale des Femmes Arabes

! Mme. Kefi has been President of the National Union of Tunisian Womenand Vice President of the General Union of Arab Women since 1992. Since 1994, she has been a member of the Chamber of Deputies. From 1988 until 1992, she was Director General of Human

Resources in the Ministry of Planning and Regional Development and Director of the Institute of Research and Studies in Population. Mme. Kefi previously held positions as Director of Population and the Family in the Ministry of Planning and Finances and Director of Studies and of Planning in the Ministry of the Family and the Promotion of Women. Mrne. Kefi has a law degree; a diploma from UNESCO, with a specialization in Planning; and a diploma from the National Defense Institute.

Ms. Eugenia Piza-Lopez. U.K Policy and Advocacy Manager, International Alert At the time of the first meeting, Ms. Piza-Lopez worked with

" OXFAM U.K as Team Leader for Gender. She joined International Alert in August 1996, where she manages a program aimed at

, , promoting the de-escalation of violent conflict and conflict I

i resolution. Her program works with IGOs, governments and NGOs \ I - : on: small arms transfers and

containment; early warning and early action; the role of the European Union and its institutions in conflict prevention; development; humanitarian assistance; women and gender issues in the peace building process and, reconstruction of war-tom economies. She has had extensive experience in macro-economic policy, producing six position papers for the Beijing Conference and four for the European Union. As Chair of EUROSTEP, a gender advocacy group, she lead the development and implementation of a three-year advocacy strategy and achieved the European Union resolution on Gender. Ms. Piza-Lopez was a member of the Steering Committee Beijing Forum U.K. and has done extensive advocacy work with the World Bank. She has a Master's Degree in Mass Communication with Distinction from the University of Leicester; an Honors Degree in Social Communication from the University of Costa Rica; and a Diploma in the History of Art from the Royal School of Art, London University.

Ms. Margaret Samuriwo. Zimbabwe Program OfJicer, Oxfam America, Zimbabwe Ms. Samuriwo has worked with NGOs for almost 20 years. Before joining OXFAM in February 1996, she was Projects Manager for the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) where she introduced a gender awareness project for Southern African. This project collected research on women and gender in the region for purposes of analysis and development of regional gender

advocacy strategies. She was the first Director of the Zimbabwe Women's Bureau, one of the largest women's NGOs in Zimbabwe, in 1978. The Bureau aimed to prepare women to lobby for changes in the laws adversely affecting female status in society. Women successfblly lobbied for the Legal Age of Majority Act in 1982, which recognized women as legal adults. Ms. Sarnuriwo was also instrumental in founding the Zimbabwe Women's Finance Trust, an affiliate of Women's World Banking. She has a Bachelor of Science Degree and a Diploma in Social Work from the University of Zimbabwe.

Ms. Irene Santiago. The Philippines President, Center for Women's Leadership, The Philippines Ms. Santiago has extensive experience in international development. Starting as a grassroots organizer, political activist and consumer rights activist in the Philippines, she worked with, and was a founding member of, a number of national and international NGOs. She was Chief of the AsiaPacific Section of the United Nations Women's Fund (UNIFEM). In this capacity, she was responsible for UNIFEM strategies to provide

direct support to innovative and experimental projects and to act as a catalyst to mainstream women in development. She was Executive Director of the NGO Forum on Women which coordinated NGO participation in the Beijing Women's Conference in September 1995. Ms. Santiago holds an M.A. in Journalism fiom Columbia University, where she was a Fulbright/Smith-Mundt scholar. She received her B.A. from the Philippine Women's College of Davao, summa cum laude.

Ms. Gita Sen. India Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and founding member of DA U?V (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era) Ms. Sen is a Visiting Professor at the Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard University. She has been a Fellow of the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandnun, India. Her recent

work includes research and policy advocacy on the gender implications of globalization and economic liberalization, the gender dimensions of population policies and the linkages between population and the environment. Ms. Sen is coeditor of studies on population and development and coauthor of Development, Crises and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives. She is currently the research coordinator of a DAWN project on alternative economic frameworks. (Dawn is a network of Third World researchers, activists and policymakers committed to alternative development and gender justice.) Ms. Sen received her B.A. in economics from the University of Poona; her M.A. from the Delhi School of Economics, and her Ph.D. fiom Stanford University.

Ms. Ruth Rempel. Canada Inter-Church Coalition on Africa (ICCAF) Ms. Rempel taught English and A£iican history and geography in Uganda. She has worked in the program of economic literacy training established by the Women's Desk of the All-Africa Conference of Churches and wrote scripts for two films about the impact of economic reform on women in Africa. Ms. Rempel currently works with ICCAF, one of several organizations

established by Canadian churches to carry out advocacy and public education on issues of national and international concern. ICCAF focuses on the issues of economic justice, human rights, and the popular image of Africa. ICCAF is the Canadian representative on the NGO Working Group of the World Bank. Ms. Rempel has been the convenor of the gender subgroup of the Bank-NGO committee. She is now completing her Ph.D. studies in African history at the University of Toronto.

Ms. Virginia Vargas Valente. Peru Director, Centro de la Mujer Peruana, Flora Tristan Ms. Vargas was Latin American Coordinator for the NGO preparatory forum for Beijing. She is also Regional Coordinator of Social Watch, a civil society initiative to follow-up on the implementation of international agreements by governments. Ms. Vargas is a sociologist, founder and presently director of the Center for Peruvian Women Flora Tristan - a Peruvian NGO that focuses on

analyzing policy issues and preventing violence against women. She is editor and author of a number of publications on women and development issues, and also a professor for the Women and Development program at the Social Studies Institute in the Netherlands. She is a member of the Advisory Council on Women and Development Unit of the InterAmerican Development Bank.

Ms. Lydia Williams Program Coordinator for Public Advocacy, Oxfam America/Women's Eyes- US

Ms. Williams is currently the Program Coordinator for Public Advocacy for OXFAM America. As a leader for policy advocacy initiatives for OXFAM, Ms. Williams monitors the policies of US and international financial institutions (IFI) focusing on participation of civil society in IF1

decision making, debt relief, and gender equity. She glso is the convener of women's Eyes- US, as part of her work for Oxfam. She served as an editor of Gender Equity and the World Bank Group: A Post-Beijing Assessment, an independent report on the Bank's record on the promotion of gender equity in its programs. From 1989-1992 she served as a Policy Analyst for the National Coalition for the Homeless where she successfully led an advocacy program resulting in the creation of a $30 million federal Rural Homelessness grant program. Ms Williams has a B.A. in Political Science fiom the University of New Hampshire.

Ms. Naila Kabeer Institute for Development Studies (University of Sussex)

Naila Kabeer is on the staff of the Institute for Development Studies (University of Sussex) in the UK. She is currently directing a 3 year project for integrating gender analysis into the planning process with state-and national-level administrative training institutes in India. She is also engaged in health systems research in Vietnam. Her recent publications include: Reversed realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development nought and Gender, Production and Well- being: Rethinking the Household Economy.

Ms. Elena Kotchkina Russia Women's Resource Center and the Open Society Institute-Russia

Ms. Kotchkina is currently Co-chair of the Strategic Board, Women's Resource Center and Network Women's Program Coordinator of the Open Society Institute-Russia. Previous academic positions include: researcher, Moscow Centre for Gender Studies and project director "Developing

Gender-based Expert Analysis of Russia's Legal Refom". She has a master's degree fiom Moscow State University, Faculty of Sociology, Department of Politics (thesis: Feminism in Anglo- American Political Science: Social Movements and Political Theory). She is currently in the Ph.d. program at the Institute of Socio-Economic Studies of Population of Russia (Dissertation theme: The Institutionalization of National Machinery for the Advancement of Women during Russia's Time of Transition, 1985-1995). She has written extensively. Some of her more recent publications include: Directory of Russian Women's Organizations (co-editor), Feminist Reconstruction of Conventional Political Science (forthcoming), and Women's Political Representation in Russian Politics.

Annex 2 Program of the Third Annual Meeting of the World Bank External Gender Consultative

Group, November 9-12,1998 Room MC13-121

Monday, November 9: Internal meeting for EGCG members Tuesday, November 10 and Wednesday morning, November 11: PRR Workshop Wednesday 2:30 - 3:30

3:30 - 4:OO

4:OO - 5:30

afternoon, November 11 Welcome and Opening of Core EGCG Meeting a Masood Ahmed, Vice President, Poverty Reduction and Economic

Management Network a Joanne Salop, Interim Director, Gender and Development Gender Across the Regions (plenary panel presentation)

Guillermo Perry, Chief Economist, Latin America and the Caribbean Region

a Roger Sullivan, Manager, Poverty Reduction and Social Development Group, Afiica Region

a Daniela Gressani, Sector Leader, MENA Social and Economic Development Group

a Christine Jones, Principal Economist, ECA Scott Guggenheim, Principal Social Development Specialist, East Asia Social Dev. Sector Unit Reidar Kvam, Senior Social Scientist, South Asia Social Development Unit

Regional Meetings (small group discussions)

Thursday, November 9:OO -1O:OO

10:OO - 10:30 10:30 - 1:OO

- 1:oo - 2:oo 2:OO - 3:OO

3:OO - 3:15 - 3:15 - 4:30

12,1998 Gender Across the Networks

Masood Ahmed, Vice President, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network &Vice President, Finance, Private Sector & Infrastructure Network David de Ferranti, Vice President, Human Development Network Douglas Forno, Sector Technical Leader & Executive Manager, Rural Sector Board, ESSD

Break Gender and the Private Sector

Susan Joekes, Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex Dan Aronson, Principal Social Scientist, Environment & Social Review Unit, IFC Andrew Ewing, Senior Manager, Office of the Vice President, FPSI Milton Wanyama, Senior Investment Officer, IFC 0

Strategy Paper Joanne Salop, Interim Director, Gender and Development

Coffee

4:30-4:45 Gender in the WDR on Poverty , Christina Malmberg Calvo, Economist, East Asia Transport

Annex 3

February 22. 1999

MI, Jarrles Wolrensohn The \Norid Bank 1818 H Street Washinylolr OI, USA

Fax: 202 522 3237

Recon~me~rdatio~ls of the External Gender Conrultatlve Group

Dear Mr Wolfe~~sohn,

Wc arc writing to follow up on Ihe mecting of thc External Gender Consultative G~oup tt~al was held in Novemkl. lgS8. We wish first of all to express oirr satisfaction 31 the fad that the positiorl of the head of thc Gender Seclo~ Board has now been filled since this slrengthens the possibility of dcvclopir~g the Wor'ld Bank's Gender Scctor Stratc~y without fu~rrier delay. 11.1 the inlerim we have been worlrirlg closely with Joanne Salop arid Ihe Bank staff charged with writlrig the Policy Review Report on Gender to provide effedive feedback from researchers and activists. Thls was done ll~rough a procvss of email consultatiorr arrd a workshop that we co-organized in Novarr~bor. 0u1 rneeting in November also focussed on how gender is beir~y hnndled by IFC arid FPSI.

Based on our discussions we would like to presenl the followir~g points to you:

1. Orie or lhe key points emphasized in the workshop on the Policy Review Repoll or1 Gur~der is the need to ensure that rr~awoeconomic policies promoted by the Bank as part of Counlry Assistance Strategies and other sedor-specific.; lnrlding should "do no harrrr" irr terms of women's access to acorrorr~ic lesuurces, thc sccufity of women's livelihoods, and the access that women have lu basic needs such as education, health, and support services suctr us childcare. A concern expressed in Ihe workshop was that all too often. Bark Jucumenls pay lipservice to these issues which is then not Carried Il~rcruyh in adual policy or program support. In this context, it is espec;ially irrrporlanl lhal Lhc Policy Review Repod provide a conceptual framework for i:~teyraUrlg a gender analysis into both macroeconomic policies and sector-spccific prograrrls.

2. Frurri tlrc tiiiiu of Lhe nrsl meeting of thc EGCG, we have recognized and expressed lo you our belief that we need clear guidelines for irilegraling gender analysis ir~to Lhc work el country lovel through Reqlonal Gender Actiorr Plans. Now lhal the Oender Seaor Board is about to bepin developing a Gerrder Sectur Strategy, we reel this is the right tirne to hold a series of rneetir~gs at the regional level as well as a set of country workshops that will provide Bank staff with input from women's organlzatioris and others on

how the Bank% programs ate affecting women and gender on Ihe ground, and how gender rnay bc inlegrated into khe participatory appruu~hes that you have bee11 espous~riy as a basis of eflective lending. We would alw lacall in this regard our stlugestion to you last year that thc loan porlfolio of orlc counlry in each rcgio~i be reviewed with resf,n?cl to yerider through the Quality Asse::srnenl Group. We believe this will provide tangible evidence about what is ~ctuelly happening with regalrl to impleinenlalion orr tlie ground.

3. Wc appreciate the Bank's respolise to our request to pul the gender impe~ls of private sector ler~ding on the agenda of the November 1998 rnceting. Foll::wirig on our discussior~s with the represer~tatives of IFC and FPSI, wc propose the following: - morc timc-bound research be iriiliated immcdiatcly in the Barik un this subject. inclilding analysis of ttre impacls of orr-going IFC co-loa~ied projects, Bank sporlsored privatizatiori prograrns, as well as case studies of the gender irripacts of trade liberalization

- carry out A r.eview of IFC procedures for Soaal and E~rviror~r~lental Review of Projcds in order to analyze the irnpacts or1 gender equality and reproductive health

- develop :In IFC policy frurnework on gender. artd integrate yerider into the IFC procedures tor Environrnerital and Social Review of Projeds

due to mounting evidence of the harmful effects of persiblent organic pollutants (POPS) on heaHt~. 111duding men's and women's repfo<luc:tive tiualth, and thelr transfer through the placenta and breast rriilk to infants, we strongly recommend that the IFC as well as MlGA shotrld exclude from eligibility projects and aaivities [hat produce or use POPs. This shorild apply not only to those POPs lhat are currently slrbja to phase-outs aor barrs, but also to those that may tx? added in the future but are already candidates for binding iritnrnationel action.

4. Thc oxperi~nant of holding an annual worksllop or1 a substantive theme piggybacked on the aoriual rnccting of the EGCG was very succe~s f~ l lad November. Following on this. wc recommciid Iiolding a similat workshop in Ihe Fall on 'Gender and Trade''. This a a subject that is gainiriu r:onsideroble irlterest and il would be timely and useful to hold it pnor to the rlext W O Mi~~isterial meeting in Seattle. We would be glad to assist the Gender Sedor Bonrcl in idcnt~fying parlicipanls and resource p c r UU~IS.

In gerierel, otrr leeling is that while llle Bank is makirly same progress towards incorporating gcndcr into its lending, the pacc needs awleration. WMh your expressed wrnmnmerlt to gender equality we hope that you can move Lhe Bank more rapidly in lhe direction lhal we all believe is esst*litial.

*,External Gender Consultative Group: /-

Cite Sen (Cltai~person) Woda Badran Ewa Cllarkiewicz Jocelyn Dow Naila Kabser Falur Kefi Elella Kochkina Francnise K~eudjnls- Mournotr Eugenia Piza-Lopez Ruth Rempel Morgarct Samuriwo Irene Santiago Virginia Vorgas Valenle Lydia Williams

The World Bank Washington, D.C. 20433

U.S.A. Annex 4 Karen 0. Mason Dimtor, Gender and Development Povrrty ReducUon m d Economic Manauement network

May 14,1999

Members of the External Gender Consultative Group

Dear Members of the External Gender Consultative Group,

I have discussed your February 22 letter to Mr. Wolfensohn with the Gender Sector Board and with others at the World Bank Group, including the IFC. Our responses to your points are below. I would be happy to discuss any of these points further with the EGCG Coordinating Committee when they meet with the Gender Sector Board on May 2sth or with the full EGCG at our next meeting here in Washington. I would also be happy to hear from any of you individually (my email address is Kmason@worldbank.org).

1. It is important that the Policy Review Report provide a conceptual framework for integrating gender analysis into both macroeconomic policies and sector-specifc programs.

The issue bfgender and economic policies, including macro policies, is at the core of the work for the forthcoming Policy Research Report (PRR) on gender and development. In fact, a key objective of this PRR is to strengthen our conceptual and empirical understanding of how public policy is linked to gender equality and other development outcomes. The report will argue that incorporating gender as a central analytical tool in the design and implementation of policies and programs enhances the equity, efliciency, and sustainability of development. An important contribution of the PRR will be to provide policy guidance to the Bank's macroeconomic dialogue and sectoral lending program.

2. Now that the Gender Sector Board is developing a Gender Sector Strategy, it is the right time to hold a series of meetings at the regional level as well as a set of country workshops that will provide Bank staffwith input from women's organizations and others. A recommendation also has been made for a gender review of the loan portfolio of one , country in each region through the Quality Assessment Group (QAG).

Regional consultations have taken place or are planned for most of the regions in which the Bank works. For example, the Latin America and Caribbean regional gender team has carried out consultations with civil society in Argentina, Ecuador, and Brazil and is planning consultations in five countries in Central America. Many of these consultations take place as part of gender portfolio reviews. The Middle East and North

-2- May 14,1999

Africa region had a gender workshop in June 1998 which brought together representatives from women's groups in the region and Bank staff. A follow-up meeting was held in September 1998, and in January 1999 a meeting with representatives from women's NGOs discussed the creation of a regional Consultative Council for Women, which has now been established. The South Asia region is organizing a series of country-level consultations to take place in the Fall. East Asia plans to hold consultative meetings in the Philippines, Korea, Thailand and perhaps China in the next few months to discuss elements of a regional gender strategy. Consultations in Africa, Europe and Central Asia are under discussion. '

The Bank's Operations Evaluation Department (OED) is planning a review of gender work in the Bank, tentatively scheduled for completion in 2001. They have hired a new gender specialist to take the lead on this work and have met with me to discuss the approach they intend to take. They plan to work with NGOs to develop suitable indicators. In terms of other reviews, the Gender Sector Board discussed this issue at a retreat held in March. Although we are planning to conduct several post-implementation and post- completion reviews, the Board felt that providing assistance during the development of projects, policies, and strategies is more effective. We plan to share with you the Board's plans for the Gender Sector Strategy, which identifies what we believe are the priority "levers" for mainstreaming gender in the Bank's work.

3a. There should be more time-bound research initiated on gender and the private sector.

The World Bank has drafted a chapter on "The Changing Role of the State and the Private Sector" for the United Nation's 1999 World Survey on Women in Development. Part of this material will also be used for notes and presentations to inform World Bank staff on gender in private sector development. The Bank is exploring what additional analytical work needs to be done on this topic.

3b. The IFC should carry out a review of the IFC Procedure for Social and Environnzental Review of Projects to analyze the impact on gender equality; develop an IFCpolicy framework on gender and integrate gender into the IFC Procedure for Social and Environmental Review of Projects; and exclude from eligibility projects and activities that produce or use persistent organic pollutants.

Integrating gender concerns into our private sector work is an important issue which we would like to pursue more vigorously. The IFC has informed the Gender Sector Board that they will contact the EGCG on these points directly; they look forward to a dialogue on this important issue.

4. At the next annual EGCG meeting, there should be a workshop on "Gender and Trade".

Unfortunately, with the imminent end of the Strategic Compact, budgets across the Bank are being cut. This requires that we prioritize resources in a more strategic manner than has been necessary in the recent past. The time of Gender Anchor staff is also

-3- May 14,1999

stretched very thin. We feel strongly that our limited resources must be invested in such key activities as completing the PRR and developing the Gender Sector Strategy. A workshop on the topic of gender and trade, although dealing with an important topic, would seriously impair our ability to meet our strategic objectives. I hope you will understand these constraints and work with us to make the Fall meeting of the EGCG as fiuithl and productive as possible.

Given the importance of the PRR and the Gender Sector Strategy now being developed, the Gender Sector Board would like the Fall meeting to encompass the following topics: (a) the Gender Sector Strategy; (b) the PRR, and (c) specific areas of current or possible hture Bank work in which EGCG members are particularly interested. We think these topics can be covered adequately in two days.

We look forward to meeting with the Coordinating Committee on May 25, at which time we will discuss the agenda for the Fall meeting. I look forward to welcoming EGCG members to Washington in November.

Sincerely,

Karen Mason Director

Gender and Development Group Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network

Distribution: Mesdames: Hoda Badran, Ewa Charkiewicz, Jocelyn Dow, Precious Kassey Garba, Agnes Khoo EE Hong, Naila Kabeer, Rokeya Kabir, Faiza Kefi, Elena V. Kotchkina, Francoise Kaudjhis-Offoumou, Eugenia Piza-Lopez, Ruth Rempel, Margaret Samuriwo, Irene Santiago, Gita Sen, Magaly Pineda Tejada, Rosalba Todaro, Virginia Vargas-Valente, Lydia Williams, Mona Zulficar