Cash for Pacific women’s business projects

New World Bank project offers cash for Pacific women’s business projects

United Nations, New York, Friday March 2, 2007: Pacific governments can lobby for new World Bank funding for projects that expand opportunities for women in the world of paid work.

The initiative, Gender Equality as Smart Economics: A World Bank Group Gender Action Plan, has been presented at the 51st Commission on the Status of Women in the United Nations in New York.

It pledges USD $24.5 million for projects that promote women’s access to quality jobs, high-value agriculture, business opportunities, land, credit, and business basics such as transport, water and energy.

“This will put the economic empowerment of women firmly on the agenda,” says Mayra Buvinic, the Washington-based bank’s director of gender and development.

She describes eligible projects as those which would assist women to set up business enterprises, back commercial loans to women, and broaden access to job training.

The initiatives, says the bank, need to be “nimble [and] aimed at increasing women’s earning opportunity in a relatively short time-frame and at low cost.”

Likely sorts of projects were cited in a video played to delegates. It showed land titles in Vietnam being re-issued in the names of both men and their wives so women could secure credit, and schemes that offered loans to women entrepreneurs in Nigeria and Uganda to grow their businesses.

The plan lists “focus countries”, with Papua New Guinea the only Pacific nation on the list. Queried about this, Dr Buvinic said that the bank had to be “selective” but that the list of countries was “tentative”. Pacific governments could approach the bank to make their case for special attention.

The thinking behind the bank’s gender action plan, which initially will run for four years, is that there needs to be some levelling of the playing field to enable women to get into the marketplace.

The World Bank says that an increase in women in the paid labour force equals reduced poverty and faster economic growth. It argues that not only will women benefit from their own economic empowerment, but so too will men, children and society as a whole

The overall target is to accelerate progress towards the third Millennium Development Goal - “to promote gender equality and empower women” – one of eight poverty-reduction goals global leaders agreed to in 2000.

The bank’s gender plan also lists regional work priorities identified for “East Asia and the Pacific”. They include research on women’s migrant labour, both domestic and international, and into labour market policies.

Other work in mind for the region under the plan includes building the advocacy capacity of women’s economic development networks; and establishment of a regional grant-making facility to strengthen these bodies’ ability to influence development policy.

* Full information on the World Bank Gender Action Plan is on the website www.worldbank.org/gender and includes several videos demonstrating the sort of projects the project would fund.

Background notes:
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is part of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and is dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. Set up in 1946, it is the principal global policy-making body. Every year, representatives of member states gather at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women.

The principal output of CSW is a set of “Agreed Conclusions” on the annual priority theme – this year, The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination and Violence Against the Girl Child. They contain an analysis of the theme and a set of recommendations for governments, intergovernmental bodies, civil society actors and other relevant stakeholders.

Forty-five member states of the United Nations serve as members of the Commission at any one time. There is currently no Pacific representation.

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