Amid policy battles over food production, energy resources and
economic decline, one untapped natural resource that is
guaranteed to boost production on a global scale has been
stubbornly overlooked – the power of women in the labour
force.
According to the World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report (WDR)
"Gender Equality and Development", ensuring equal access for women
farmers would increase maize yields by 11 to 16 percent in Malawi and
17 percent in Ghana; eliminating barriers that block women’s access
from certain occupations or sectors could reduce the gender
productivity gap by one-third to one-half and boost output per worker
by as much as 25 percent in a range of developing countries; and
granting women farmers equal to land and resources could increase
agricultural output in developing countries by as much as four
percent.
As the annual fall convergence of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) kicks off
Tuesday in Washington DC,
with participants from international financial institutions (IFIs),
civil society, grassroots movements and private sector enterprises
flooding the city, all eyes are on the Gender WDR, the blueprint for
the course of 2012 development.
"Over the past five years, the World Bank Group has provided 65
billion dollars to support girls’ education, women’s health, and
women’s access to credit, land, agricultural services, jobs, and
infrastructure," the Bank’s president Robert Zoellick said Monday.
"This has been important work, but it has not been enough or central
enough to what we do," he added. "Going forward, the World Bank Group
will mainstream our gender work and find other ways to move the
agenda forward to capture the full potential of half the world’s
population."
Though the report presents some positive trends, much of the data
paints a bleak picture. Excess female mortality after birth and
"missing" girls at birth account for an estimated 3.9 million deaths
of women annually.
Two-fifths of the world’s women are never born because of sex-
selective abortions. A sixth of the world’s women die in early
childhood, and over a third perish in their early reproductive years,
losses that hit particularly hard in Sub-Saharan Africa where the
prevalence of HIV/AIDS is stunningly high.
While the 2012 WDR calls for more work in the areas of human capital,
closing earning and productivity gaps between women and men,
improving women’s voices in their households and society and limiting
the perpetuation of gender inequality across generations, hundreds of
voices from civil society are arguing that unless the Bank undertakes
major structural changes in its approach to women, very little will
change.
"The real issue here is that the World Bank has never had a human
rights policy, and this year’s WDR follows that trendof ignoring
women’s rights as human rights," Elaine Zuckerman, president of the
Washington-based Gender Action, told IPS.
"Rather, the report makes the business case for women’s development –
positing institutional support for women’s struggles as ‘smart
business’," she said.
The report has also been criticised for zeroing in on shallow
solutions to complex issues, looking at symptoms rather than
structural causes of the greatest problems plaguing women’s lives.
"The massive integration of women in the labour market over the last
30 years is not only characterised by significant gender pay gaps but
also by the type of jobs occupied by women, (which tend to be)
insecure, informal, temporary, home-based, precarious jobs with
limited rights and access to social protection," said Claire
Courteille, director of the Equality Department at the International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
"Unless policies directly address the quality of the jobs held by
women, nothing will change," she added.
"The WDR may well recognise that economic growth alone will not
change patterns of gender segregation in economic activity, but again
they missed the train, as now the international consensus goes
further, and calls for a coherent approach that takes account of the
invisible care economy in the formulation of macroeconomic policies,"
she concluded.
In fact, civil society activists say this year’s WDR exposes the
glaring contradictions between the rhetoric of international
development policy, and its impact on women’s lives.
"The [worst contradiction] is that the IFIs have begun to use the
individual development of women as a substitute for economic
development of a country as a whole," Hester Eisenstein, professor of
sociology at Queens College and author of the recent book "Feminism
Seduced: How Global Elites Use Women’s Labour and Ideas to Exploit
the World", told IPS.
"It’s an extremely uncritical approach that does not address the
Bank’s own development policies that have totally impoverished much
of the third world – affecting primarily, and often exclusively,
women and children," she said.
"Though the goals of ending violence against women, or achieving
universal primary education for girls, are admirable, they are mired
in a refusal to step back from the macroeconomic policies that make
those goals impossible to achieve," Eisenstein told IPS.
"Above all I find this approach to be extremely cynical," she said.
"When the IFIs use feminist rhetoric and language, it is misleading
and superficial because they are essentially saying, "we see women as
key to development, we want them to have equal education
opportunities, experience economic advancement and generally be
empowered but we won’t change our macro policies that led to this
unequal distribution of wealth, power and resources in the first/>
place"– so this kind of endorsement of women is doomed to failure,"
she concluded.
According to Zuckerman, "Though the WDR is beautifully written by a
team of experts at the top of their respective fields who are
recruited to research, write and edit what the Bank calls its
‘flagship development report’, there is very little evidence to show
that the WDR has an impact on lending policy."
"In fact, in the WDRs 33-year circulation life, not a single one has
changed policy," she told IPS.
"What we need to keep in mind is that the Structural Adjustment
Policies (SAPs) introduced and implemented by the IFIs actually
hinder women’s rights," Zuckerman added.
"Because of this, the IFIs need to start taking a rights-based
approach to development, they need to genuinely, not just
rhetorically, consult with local men and women before they launch
pipelines or build dams or invest in transnational sponsored
projects."
"They should also, eventually, stop and ask themselves whether they
should be investing in these projects at all. The IFIs and especially
the Bank should be promoting rights and holding genuine consultations
with so-called beneficiaries. After all, it is not the Bank’s
research that eventually affects women’s lives – it is their
investments," she said.
economic decline, one untapped natural resource that is
guaranteed to boost production on a global scale has been
stubbornly overlooked – the power of women in the labour
force.
According to the World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report (WDR)
"Gender Equality and Development", ensuring equal access for women
farmers would increase maize yields by 11 to 16 percent in Malawi and
17 percent in Ghana; eliminating barriers that block women’s access
from certain occupations or sectors could reduce the gender
productivity gap by one-third to one-half and boost output per worker
by as much as 25 percent in a range of developing countries; and
granting women farmers equal to land and resources could increase
agricultural output in developing countries by as much as four
percent.
As the annual fall convergence of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) kicks off
Tuesday in Washington DC,
with participants from international financial institutions (IFIs),
civil society, grassroots movements and private sector enterprises
flooding the city, all eyes are on the Gender WDR, the blueprint for
the course of 2012 development.
"Over the past five years, the World Bank Group has provided 65
billion dollars to support girls’ education, women’s health, and
women’s access to credit, land, agricultural services, jobs, and
infrastructure," the Bank’s president Robert Zoellick said Monday.
"This has been important work, but it has not been enough or central
enough to what we do," he added. "Going forward, the World Bank Group
will mainstream our gender work and find other ways to move the
agenda forward to capture the full potential of half the world’s
population."
Though the report presents some positive trends, much of the data
paints a bleak picture. Excess female mortality after birth and
"missing" girls at birth account for an estimated 3.9 million deaths
of women annually.
Two-fifths of the world’s women are never born because of sex-
selective abortions. A sixth of the world’s women die in early
childhood, and over a third perish in their early reproductive years,
losses that hit particularly hard in Sub-Saharan Africa where the
prevalence of HIV/AIDS is stunningly high.
While the 2012 WDR calls for more work in the areas of human capital,
closing earning and productivity gaps between women and men,
improving women’s voices in their households and society and limiting
the perpetuation of gender inequality across generations, hundreds of
voices from civil society are arguing that unless the Bank undertakes
major structural changes in its approach to women, very little will
change.
"The real issue here is that the World Bank has never had a human
rights policy, and this year’s WDR follows that trendof ignoring
women’s rights as human rights," Elaine Zuckerman, president of the
Washington-based Gender Action, told IPS.
"Rather, the report makes the business case for women’s development –
positing institutional support for women’s struggles as ‘smart
business’," she said.
The report has also been criticised for zeroing in on shallow
solutions to complex issues, looking at symptoms rather than
structural causes of the greatest problems plaguing women’s lives.
"The massive integration of women in the labour market over the last
30 years is not only characterised by significant gender pay gaps but
also by the type of jobs occupied by women, (which tend to be)
insecure, informal, temporary, home-based, precarious jobs with
limited rights and access to social protection," said Claire
Courteille, director of the Equality Department at the International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
"Unless policies directly address the quality of the jobs held by
women, nothing will change," she added.
"The WDR may well recognise that economic growth alone will not
change patterns of gender segregation in economic activity, but again
they missed the train, as now the international consensus goes
further, and calls for a coherent approach that takes account of the
invisible care economy in the formulation of macroeconomic policies,"
she concluded.
In fact, civil society activists say this year’s WDR exposes the
glaring contradictions between the rhetoric of international
development policy, and its impact on women’s lives.
"The [worst contradiction] is that the IFIs have begun to use the
individual development of women as a substitute for economic
development of a country as a whole," Hester Eisenstein, professor of
sociology at Queens College and author of the recent book "Feminism
Seduced: How Global Elites Use Women’s Labour and Ideas to Exploit
the World", told IPS.
"It’s an extremely uncritical approach that does not address the
Bank’s own development policies that have totally impoverished much
of the third world – affecting primarily, and often exclusively,
women and children," she said.
"Though the goals of ending violence against women, or achieving
universal primary education for girls, are admirable, they are mired
in a refusal to step back from the macroeconomic policies that make
those goals impossible to achieve," Eisenstein told IPS.
"Above all I find this approach to be extremely cynical," she said.
"When the IFIs use feminist rhetoric and language, it is misleading
and superficial because they are essentially saying, "we see women as
key to development, we want them to have equal education
opportunities, experience economic advancement and generally be
empowered but we won’t change our macro policies that led to this
unequal distribution of wealth, power and resources in the first
she concluded.
According to Zuckerman, "Though the WDR is beautifully written by a
team of experts at the top of their respective fields who are
recruited to research, write and edit what the Bank calls its
‘flagship development report’, there is very little evidence to show
that the WDR has an impact on lending policy."
"In fact, in the WDRs 33-year circulation life, not a single one has
changed policy," she told IPS.
"What we need to keep in mind is that the Structural Adjustment
Policies (SAPs) introduced and implemented by the IFIs actually
hinder women’s rights," Zuckerman added.
"Because of this, the IFIs need to start taking a rights-based
approach to development, they need to genuinely, not just
rhetorically, consult with local men and women before they launch
pipelines or build dams or invest in transnational sponsored
projects."
"They should also, eventually, stop and ask themselves whether they
should be investing in these projects at all. The IFIs and especially
the Bank should be promoting rights and holding genuine consultations
with so-called beneficiaries. After all, it is not the Bank’s
research that eventually affects women’s lives – it is their
investments," she said.