World Bank Managing DirectorNgozi N. Okonjo-Iweala formally

launched a Private Sector LeadersForum (PSLF) with IFC ExecutiveVice President Lars Thunell and WorldBank Vice President Danny Leipzigerat the World Economic Forum January2009 summit in Davos, Switzerland.This innovative public-private part-nership is the latest initiative of GenderEquality as Smart Economics, theWorld Bank Group’s Gender ActionPlan (GAP).

The PSLF is one of the Bank Group’sPresident Robert B. Zoellick’s sixcommitments on gender equality an-nounced at the International MonetaryFund/World Bank Group 2008 SpringMeetings. Members include highlyinfluential private sector leaders com-mitted to creating economic opportu-

nities for women in key areas such ascore business, strategic philanthropy,diversity and inclusion. These leadershave vowed to work together andwith the Bank to share best practicesand provide research and project-based evidence to support the businesscase for increasing women’s opportu-nities in the private sector.

From Ulla Tørnæs,Minister for DevelopmentCooperation of DenmarkDuring the last few years, I have hadthe opportunity to follow the WorldBank’s work on gender and develop-ment at closer level. Denmark was oneof the first donor partners to support theGender Action Plan: Gender Equalityas Smart Economics, and we are co-financing the Action Plan’s new Ado-lescent Girls Initiative in Liberia andAfghanistan. As I see this new initiativebeing launched, I remember the firstconference in Berlin in early 2007, whenI, along with colleagues from Germany,Norway and Sweden, turned to DannyLeipziger—Vice President responsiblefor Gender and Development—topledge our support, while at the sametime guaranteeing that we wouldmonitor him and the Bank closely in itsperformance on women’s economicempowerment. The stern messagewas: “We will be watching you.”

The launch of the Bank’s plan wastimely. Denmark and other develop-ment partners were becoming increas-ingly concerned that progress towardsthe Third Millennium DevelopmentGoal, on gender equality and women’sempowerment, was too slow, and thatwe would not reach the target by 2015.To remedy this, the Government ofDenmark issued anMDG3 Global Call toAction, and launched a campaign with aseries of activities designed to increasepolitical priority and financial resources,thereby accelerating progress.

continued on page 2

continued on page 7

Inside:Private Sector Leaders Forum at Davos 1GAP Funding At A Glance 2Walking the Talk: Leipziger on GAP 3Statistics for Effective Gender Programs 4Gender Sensitization Training 5Connecting to the Grid: Lao PDR 5A Mine of Their Own 6In Brief 7Opening Doors for Papuan Women 8

ender equalityas smart economicsAWorld Bank Group Action Plan

April 2009

Mailing Label

From left to right: Finansbank Board President Hüsnü M. Özyeğin, Goldman Sachs President GaryCohn, Carlson Chair Marylin Carlson Nelson, INSEAD Dean Franck J. Brown, Ernst & Young GlobalVice Chairman Beth Brook at the launch of the Private Sector Leaders Forum.

Bringing the PrivateSector On BoardBy Amanda Ellis

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The campaign has led to several victo-ries, including a wave of new individualand organizational commitments onMDG3 from a wide range of personslike UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,Nobel Prize Laureate MuhammadYunus and Ruth Manorama from theNational Federation of Dalit Women. InApril last year, by accepting one of theMDG3 torches, World Bank PresidentRobert Zoellick became an officialchampion of theMDG3 Global Coalitionby making six new gender-related com-mitments on behalf of the Bank Group.

I am pleased to see progress on severalof these commitments. In January thisyear, to give one example, theWorldEconomic Forum’s Annual Meeting inDavos for the first time featured aplenary session on the potential ofadolescent girls in developing countries.The session followed up on our collab-oration with the Government of Liberia,the Nike Foundation and the WorldBank to launch a project for adolescentgirls in Liberia, supporting youngwomen’s transition from schooling topaid jobs or entrepreneurship—whichwas one of the commitments PresidentZoellick made as he accepted theMDG3 torch. Similar activities areplanned in four other low-income orpost-conflict countries.

The MDG3 Global Call to Action andthe Bank’s Gender Equality as SmartEconomicswere created because westrongly believe that empoweringwomen and girls is both the right thingand the smart thing to do. This is amessage of increasing centrality inlight of the global economic crisis andits implications for women and invest-ments in the human capital of futuregenerations and thus the potential forpoverty reduction and growth.

I want to take this opportunity to thankand congratulate outgoing Vice Presi-dent Danny Leipziger for his leadershipon gender equality and women’s em-powerment, the creation of GenderEquality as Smart Economics and, indeed,our collaboration. I believe that ourmessage to the World Bank and othersshould be that the Global MDG3 Coali-tion must now raise the level of ambi-tion even higher and, building onLeipziger’s efforts, make gender equalityand women’s empowerment central toall Bank operations.

Ulla Tørnæs

For more information on the MDG3Global Call to Action, visithttp://www.mdg3action.um.dk

Gender Equality as Smart Economics • April 20092

From Ulla Tørnæs,continued from page 1

You May RequestFormore information aboutGender Equality as Smart Economics, contact:

Alexandra Brunais Malcolm EhrenpreisTel: (202) 458-5039 Tel: (202) 458-5219Fax:(202) 522-3237 Fax:(202) 522-3237abrunais@worldbank.org mehrenpreis@worldbank.org

This newsletter, Gender Equality as Smart Economics is published bythe World Bank’s Gender and Development Group twice a year, in printand on the web at www.worldbank.org/gender. EDITOR: AlexandraBrunais. Please send your comments, questions or request for materialsto: abrunais@worldbank.org.

In order to strengthen the genderfocus of World Bank Group opera-

tions in the sectors of labor, land andagriculture, private sector develop-ment and infrastructure, the GAPhas to date provided funding for 149World Bank projects and analyticalwork in 73 countries through com-petitive calls for proposals. The GAPis also funding six Results-BasedInitiatives (RBIs) in Liberia, Egypt,Kenya, the Mekong region (Cambodiaand Lao PDR), and Peru. RBIs arelocal pilot interventions that seek new

ways to improve women’s economicactivities and productivity. With theAdolescent Girls Initiative (AGI) theBank will engage girls and youngwomen, ages 16 to 24, in a transitionfrom school to quality work in fivelow-income or post-conflict countries,including Liberia, South Sudan, Nepal,Rwanda, and Afghanistan. An inno-vative private and public sectoreconomic alliance has funded theAGI at US$16 million to date. Formore information about the AGI,visit http://worldbank.org/gender.

IEs: Impact Evaluations; RBIs: Results Based Initiatives; AGI: Adolescent GirlsInitiative; ESW: Economic and Sector Work

Gender Equality as Smart Economics:Funding At-A-Glance

gender equality as smart economicsAWorld Bank Group Action Plan

GAP Funding by SectorGAP Funding by Activity

Gender Equality as Smart Economics • April 2009 3

WorldBank Gender Equality as Smart Economics

was the brainchild of Danny Leipziger,the World Bank’s Vice President forthe Poverty Reduction and EconomicManagement Network. As he readieshimself to retire from the Bankmid-2009, Mr. Leipziger talks to usabout the creation of the GAP, andhis vision of the Bank’s gender workgoing forward.

The creation of Gender Equality as Smart Economicsin 2006 came about quite suddenly—can you explainthe plan and its timing?

We hosted a conference here in 2006, and a group of ourdonor representatives, notably State-secretary AnneStenhammer from Norway, challenged us in the plenaryto do a better job at mainstreaming gender in the Bank’sactivities. I knew this was an issue we needed to address.Anne’s comments acted as a trigger, and the following day,in the closing address of the conference, I—much to theirsurprise—asked Mayra Buvinic, Director of the Genderand Development Group, and her team, to report backwithin a hundred days with a proposal for a Bank-widemainstreaming strategy.

Realistically, all the Bank’s activities could not be tackledat once, so Mayra and her team proposed to focus theGender Action Plan—Gender Equality as SmartEconomics— on mainstreaming gender in the economicsectors, which tends to be widely recognized as the Bank’scomparative advantage. This choice also aimed to redressa discrepancy: while the Bank’s track record on integratinggender in the social sectors was very good, our recordwas much patchier in the economic sectors. I saw thisapproach in the context of revitalizing the Bank’s workon economic growth and saw strong complementarities.

The plan was launched in February 2007 and the factthat it was strongly endorsed by the G8 during theirsummit meeting that year showed a clear need andstrong will to improve women’s economic empowermentin the developing world.

Everyone seems to agree that women’s economicempowerment is crucial for development. Why is that?

Where to begin? Research shows that countries withgreater gender equality tend to have lower poverty ratesand that increases in women’s productivity and earningslower household poverty, as women tend to reinvest amuch higher portion of their earnings into their familiesand communities than men do, spreading wealthbeyond themselves.

Giving women access to credit is also good business becauserepayment rates are higher for women in all regions ofthe world. That’s why most successful conditional cashtransfer programs target women as the recipients. Anotherexample is the fact that there is compelling evidence thatagricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa could beraised by as much as 20 percent, simply by reallocatingexisting agricultural inputs more equally between menand women.

This year, the GAP also launched the Adolescent GirlsInitiative (AGI) to help young women transition fromschool to work. When a young woman is employed, notonly does her life improve, but she is also likely to reinvestabout 90 percent of her earnings into her family’s well-being, bettering the lives of those around her. She willalso marry and have children later in life and have gainedknowledge that allows her to keep her children healthyand educated. These immediate effects contribute toslowing population growth, which in turn impacts every-thing from health to climate change to the economy. Youngwomen are a key factor in breaking intergenerationalcycles of poverty.

This year, Gender Equality as Smart Economics hasreached its midway point, what is your take on theresults to date?

We have won a few good battles but the war is far fromover. Substantive inroads have been made concerning theprimary goal of the plan, which is to assist the Bank inintegrating gender concerns into its projects and researchin the sectors of labor, land and agriculture, private sectordevelopment and infrastructure. I think our innovativeapproach to mainstreaming through incentives, which isto provide matching funding for projects and research toinclude gender concerns, rather than through mandates,is proving quite successful. We are funding 149 activitiesin 73 countries, some of which are having a definiteimpact on the way the Bank does business. The plan hasdiversified into other initiatives, including the AGI andthe Private Sector Leader’s Forum (see page 1).

An immediate priority for the plan is to keep buildingthe evidence base that shows that improving women’seconomic opportunities is indeed a smart economic deci-sion. Gender mainstreaming should not be considered anobligation, but rather a high-return activity.

Also, the fact that President Zoellick chose last year to makesix additional World Bank Group commitments to gender

Walking the Talk on Gender Equality:Incentives Help Bank Redress Lagging Sectors

continued on page 6

Danny Leipziger is the World Bank Vice President for thePoverty Reduction and Economic Management Group.

Gender Equality as Smart Economics • April 20094

By Shaida Badiee

The third Millennium DevelopmentGoal (MDG3) reflects the develop-

ment community’s strong commitmentto promoting gender equality andempowering women. Success on MDG3will contribute to poverty reductionand achieving other MDGs, such asuniversal primary education, lower-ing under-five mortality, improvingmaternal health, and lowering thelikelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS.

There has been significant progresstowards the completion of MDG3 inboth education and health. The avail-ability of sex-disaggregated statisticsin these sectors has led to the devel-opment of policies and projects bene-fitting both men and women. However,the limited availability of statistics tomeasure women’s economic empow-erment has restricted the developmentcommunity’s ability to design effec-tive programs.

A priority for the Development DataGroup (DECDG) and the GAP is toimprove knowledge and statistics onwomen’s economic participation toaccelerate the economic advancement ofwomen. There are three key initiatives:� improving the availability of gender

indicators by centralizing data heldby different entities,

� identifying gaps in knowledge andnew indicators, and

� building national capacity to collectand analyze sex-disaggregated data.

Existing sex-disaggregated informa-tion is scattered across differentagencies. To bring these data intointegrated databases, GAP and DECare working with the United NationsStatistics Division’s Global GenderStatistics Program, the Inter-Agencyand Expert Group on Gender Statistics,the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS),and national statistical offices. Thishas led to a more comprehensiveversion of the World Bank Gender-

stats website. Continuously updated,this website provides a range of sex-disaggregated data at the countrylevel. As a result of the partnershipwith LIS, a free access database calledthe key Gender Employment Indicatorsnow provides detailed information onwomen’s employment in developedand middle-income countries, a use-ful tool for benchmarking.

Through these and other partnerships,the GAP and DEC are identifying thegaps in sex-disaggregated data neededto design economic policies that ben-efit women and men. Some of the mosturgently needed data include access toand use of credit, participation in infor-mal employment and self-employment,levels of wages and earnings, and own-ership of both productive and consumerassets (land, livestock, houses andother properties, credit and businesses).The GAP and DEC are currently draw-ing up methodologies and data collec-tion strategies to capture these data.

GAP and DEC are also working to de-velop a data collection methodologyto include gender indicators in largenational surveys, such as the LivingStandards Measurement Study (LSMS),to provide a wide range of muchneeded information, comparablebetween countries and over time.Additionally, the GAP’s funding of an-alytical work for women’s economicempowerment has contributed to thecreation of statistics on women in theproductive sectors.

The third goal of the GAP-DEC part-nership is to enhance the capacity tocollect, report, analyze and use sex-disaggregated and gender-relevantdata within the Bank, in nationalstatistics offices, and on a globalscale. It is hoped that a capacitybuilding program, implemented bythe World Bank Institute (WBI), willlead to an increased number of sex-disaggregated impact evaluations ofBank interventions.

The International Labor Organiza-tion and the United Nations StatisticsDivision are advancing initiatives tosensitize national statistics offices tothe need for gender statistics. Inpartnership with the United NationsDevelopment Program, and the UnitedNations Economic Commission forEurope, and with funding from theDevelopment Grant Facility and theMarrakesh Action Plan for Statistics,the WBI, GAP, and DEC have launcheda three-year Gender SensitizationTraining seeking to build capacity inEastern Europe and Central Asiathrough a training program on genderstatistics, national training events ongender mainstreaming, and contentand data sharing in areas such aspoverty and labor markets (see page 5).Due to its high level of success, thereare plans to work with the EconomicCommission for Africa to expand thetraining program for developingcapacity in countries.

These initiatives have begun to makeprogress towards sensitizing the de-velopment community and statisticaloffices to the need for sex-disaggregatedstatistics in the productive sectors tocreate better policies to economicallyempower women.

To access the Key Gender EmploymentIndicators and GenderStats, visitwww.worldbank.org/gender.

Shaida Badiee is Director of theDevelopment Data Group (DECDG)

What Is Not Counted Does Not Count

The Importance of Sex-Disaggregated Statisticsfor Effective Programs

Gender Equality as Smart Economics • April 2009 5

Update on Shining a Light on Women’s Productivity in Lao PDRBy Souridahak Sakonhninhom and Thalavanh Vongsonephet

In the September 2008 issue, we reported on the difficultiespoor, mostly women-headed, households in rural Laos PDR faceto pay the initial fee to connect to the country’s electricity grid.With funding from Gender Equality as Smart Economics, theBank’s EAP region devised a concessionary, interest-free creditplan to allow the households to borrow US$80 to connect tothe grid and repay the loan over three years from the savingsincurred on traditional fuels, estimated to cost more than doublea monthly electricity bill.

The implementation of the pilot project, Power to the Poor Project(P2P), co-financed by theWorld Bank andAusAid and implementedby Electricité du Laos (EDL), was launched in September 2008.Connection rates in the 20 pilot villages increased from 78% to95%overall, and from 63% to 90% for female-headed households.The project is being rolled out to three other provinces and targets1,800 more connections by the end of 2009 and 8,000 by end of 2010. Assuming an average of 5.2 members per family,this project has the potential to reach 50,000 direct beneficiaries by the end of 2010. Opportunities are being sought toreplicate the model in other countries. GAP funding in the amount of US$65,000 helped to leverage additional fundingfrom AusAID in the amount of US$500,000 to expand the rollout of electricity.

Souridahak Sakonhninhom and Thalavanh Vongsonephet are ProgramAssistants in the Vientiane, Laos,World BankOffice.

Gender Statistics Training in Eastern Europe and Central AsiaBy Gulnara A. Febres

In 2007, the World Bank Institute, jointly with the World Bank Development Economics Group and Gender and Devel-opment Group, as well as the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, launched an innovative 3-year proj-ect on Gender Statistics for the ECA Region. The project is building the capacity of the National Statistical Offices(NSOs) in 13 ECA countries to improve the production, analysis, and dissemination of sex-disaggregated statistics forthe purpose of social and economic analysis. The initiative is funded by the Development Grant Facility and the Mar-rakesh Action Plan for Statistics. Twenty regional and national activities were delivered in FY07- FY09.

One of the main achievements of the program, which ensures sustainable capacity after the program ends, is that partici-pating NSOs took a strong ownership of the program, from design to implementation, and adhered to the Community ofPractice (COP) built during the first year of the program activities. All the countries involved are developing follow-upobjectives and taking further steps in advancing gender statistics at the national level. They have also started producingstatistics that can be used for gender sensitive policy making, including designing new and improved surveys, developingaction plans, and targeting decision-makers. For example:� The Moldovan NSO is currently involved in developing gender relevant indicators for MDGs monitoring and has received

funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency to support this effort.� The Kazakh NSO developed a project proposal for a 3 year program aimed at studying gender and labor market issues,

including informal employment, migration, correlation between women’s education and employment, and access to assets.� In Bosnia & Herzegovina, precise follow-up objectives were outlined, including reviewing the labor force survey by

identifying areas where gender can be further incorporated into the methodology, preparing a questionnaire for2009 where the gender component will be included in close cooperation with gender institutions in accordance withEU/Eurostat requirements, and including a gender component in questionnaires and surveys conducted by statisticalinstitutions wherever possible.

There is a strong interest from other regions in the program and the project may be replicated in other countries in thefuture. The project has also resulted in the creation of a manual and a textbook on gender statistics, now used byleading Statistical Offices around the world, including Statistics Sweden.

For more information, visit http://go.worldbank.org/F0GL4PFY50.

Gulnara A. Febres is Senior Operations Officer for the World Bank Institute

In the participating village of Khaiydiow in the Champassakprovince, 78-year-old Mrs. Chanh, who looks after her sixgrandchildren, has electricity for the first time in her life. Shehopes this will benefit her grandchildren’s education and allowthem to find a part-time paid activity in the evening.

ThalavanhVongsonephet/W

orldBank

Gender Equality as Smart Economics • April 20096

By Alex Burger and Benedicta Sepora

Maternity leave programs, sexual harassment aware-ness programs, accommodations for pregnant

women and those who are breast-feeding. All this, pluswomen’s bathrooms up to 1.3 kilometers below theearth’s surface. This is all part of Lonmin—the world’sthird-largest primary platinum producing company,with over 25,000 employees and three facilities acrossSouth Africa. And where 25 percent of all new hiresare women.

Lonmin is committed to its compliance with the SouthAfrican Minerals and Development Legislation/SocialLabor Plan, which requires all mining companies tointegrate women into mining operations, with a settarget of 10 percent women representation by 2010.

To achieve inclusiveness, Lonmin partnered with IFC.The first step was to conduct an audit to understandpotential barriers to reaching the gender equalitycompliance target. The audit laid the groundwork fora 13-point “Women in Mining” initiative.

Following the initiative’s recommendations, among othermeasures, 11 change houses and 197 undergroundsanitation facilities were built for women, with an addi-tional 212 forthcoming. Lonmin and IFC also designed asexual harassment awareness campaign and workshopsto ensure that all employees are educated on workplacebehavior that constitutes sexual harassment.

The results have exceeded expectations: since thebeginning of the Lonmin-IFC partnership in November

2007, over 597 new positions have been filled by womenwho now constitute 6.2 percent of the workforce, a 42percent increase from the end of FY07 to FY08. Thewomen retention rate has also improved from a 15.5percent turnover rate for women at the end of FY07(13.5 percent for men) to 0.7 percent as of January2009 (3.2 percent for men).

“For us to unlock and liberate the workplace of anygender bias, we needed to accelerate this program,and as such a new culture of tolerance and acceptanceis beginning to emerge” says, Barnard Mokwena, VicePresident: External Affairs. “Notably, we are dealingwith an industry with more than 100 years of legacy,systems, behaviors and practices that were not designedto be women-friendly.”

In October 2008, the IFC-Lonmin program was awardeda top prize in the socio-economic category of the NedbankGreen Mining Awards, which celebrates responsiblemining. Going forward, the program plans to capturethe impact of women’s employment on the well-beingof their households and the community at large.

Alexander Burger is an IFC Program Manager andBenedicta Sepora is an IFC Operations Officer inJohannesburg, South Africa.

While the Lonmin project did not benefit from any fundsunder Gender Equality as Smart Economics, the GAP hasbeen funding projects to better integrate gender issues inmining, such as “Power to the Women: integrating genderconcerns in energy, hydro and mining operations in Lao PDR.”

The Women of Lonmin

A Mine of Their Own

Walking the Talk on Gender Equalitycontinued from page 3

equality shows that the Bank’s top leadership believesin the Bank’s gender work and its results. We must bedoing something right.

How do you hope to see the Bank’s gender work evolve,and what are the biggest challenges going forward?

I cannot emphasize how important it is for the workand the initiatives started under the GAP to continuebeyond the plan, which is meant as a catalyzing force toinstitutionalize gender concerns into the Bank’s work.

The biggest challenge the GAP currently faces is theglobal economic and financial crisis. This is hittingwomen hard and advances in women’s economic oppor-

tunities may be compromised due to the increasing lackof resources. Young women will often be the first onesto be pulled out of school to lend a hand finding moreresources for the household. Micro-lending institutions,which cater to women who often cannot obtain loansthrough commercial banks, are increasingly lacking cap-ital and female employment will suffer as exports decline.

The Bank and the GAP program are facing an uphill taskprotecting social safety net expenditures and supportingthe small and medium-sized enterprises and microfi-nance institutions that are crucial to women’s well-being.Under the plan, some US$3 million this year will beallocated to mainstreaming gender in the Bank’s responseto the crisis. But this is a drop in the bucket, so all who arecommitted to this agenda need to have our voices heard.

Gender Equality as Smart Economics • April 2009 7

continued from page 1

The PSLF comprises Boeing Interna-tional, Carlson, CISCO Systems, Inc.,Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, GrupoInter-Quimica S.A., Heidrick & Struggles,Husnu Foundation, INSEAD, NikeFoundation, Norfund, McKinsey &Company, Monte Rio Power Corp.,PriceWaterhouseCoopers, ShalakanyLaw Office (Egypt), Standard CharteredPLC, SunMedia, Sungjoo International,Unilever, and The Women PrivateEquity Fund.

At the official launch, chaired byOkonjo-Iweala, moderated by Leipzigerand co-hosted by PriceWaterhouse-Coopers and Standard Chartered Bank,members discussed the key role of theprivate sector in women’s economicempowerment and emphasized theurgent need for coordinated effortsin the current global financial andeconomic crisis.

“We must ensure that women get thesupport they need to avoid setbacksduring the ongoing economic crisisand to build the human capital of thenext generation,” said Okonjo-Iweala.“When women are given access toresources and opportunities, it bringsbenefits to families, communities andthe next generation. So it’s not onlyfair, it’s also smart economics.”

Members reported on progress andmade additional commitments andsuggestions for next steps around thethemes of advocacy, analytics andaction. INSEAD announced a partner-

ship with Gender Equality as SmartEconomics to produce case studies ofmembers’ activities to facilitate fur-ther learning and cross-fertilization.McKinsey offered to lead an effort todevelop a strategic framework/valuechain model for women’s economicempowerment. Ernst and Youngannounced new research on the rolewomen can play in mitigating thecurrent crisis. Standard Charteredand Cisco announced in kind com-mitments to the Adolescent GirlsInitiative and the Sung-Joo Groupoffered its support. Heidrick andStruggles announced their commit-ment to ensure the inclusion of atleast one woman on every Board

recruitment short list. GoldmanSachs announced their support ofwomen’s economic empowerment inLiberia as a result of their engage-ment in the PSLF, and, with StandardChartered, will explore options toprovide financing to women businessowners graduating from the “10,000Women” training program.

The next PSLF meeting will take placein Turkey on the margins of the WorldBank Group/International MonetaryFund October 2009 Annual Meetings.

Amanda Ellis is a Lead GenderSpecialist with Gender Equality asSmart Economics.

GoldmanSachs

Bringing the Private Sector on Board

Fashion business owner Tuokpe Esisi from Nigeria said that prior to enrolling in Goldman Sachs’10,000 Women program, “I had been running a business for several years, but not really doingbusiness.” Now, she is building on her talent and operational strengths, and taking critical stepsto make her business truly scalable. As her business has begun to grow, Tuokpe has already in-vested a portion of her profits to provide tutors for the illiterate tailors she employs. This notonly positions her and her enterprise for greater growth, but is also a perfect demonstration ofthe multiplier effect of investing in women.

In BriefThePREMGenderandDevelopmentGroupandtheDevelopmentEconomicsDataGroup, inpartnershipwith theLuxemburgIncomeStudy (LIS)have launchedtheKeyGenderEmployment Indicators,a setof sex-disaggregated indicatorsonemploy-ment in 27OECDandmiddle income countries,withmore countries tobeaddedperiodically. The indicators providedetaileddataongender earnings ratios, employment status by gender, percentage ofmale and female in specific industries—andare available in a query format, allowingusers to create their owndata tables, atwww.worldbank.org/gender.

The World Bank-Agriculture and Rural Development Department, in partnership with FAO and IFAD, completed anExpert Consultation onGender in Agriculture onMarch 16-17, 2009 as followup to theGender in Agriculture Source-book and a platform to consult stakeholders toward the development of a plan of action on gender in agriculturethe three organizations. View details of the Consultation and provide your input at http://ardblog.worldbank.org.

The Gender Equality as Smart Economics Two Year Progress Reportwill be posted to www.worldbank.org/genderon April 14, 2009.

8 Gender Equality as Smart Economics • April 2009

Papua, Indonesia’s eastern-mostand largest province, is also

one of its poorest and the one withthe deepest gender inequalities.Papua’s Governor’s Office has cre-ated RESPEK, a US$64 millioncommunity driven program to re-duce poverty and improve liveli-hoods by funding proposals forlocal development created by vil-lages through a participatoryprocess. Problematically, the pro-posals often omit the concerns of

women who remain vastly underrepresented in decision-making processes.

With funding from Gender Equality as Smart Economics,the World Bank’s East Asia Pacific Region hired YohanaBaransano, a Gender Specialist and Papuan national, towork with the Governor’s Office to improve the opportu-nities for women to participate in RESPEK. Yohana’s workhas not only made important inroads, it has unlockedUS$1.8 million in funding from the Japan Social Develop-ment Fund to finance the Papuan Women’s EmpowermentProject (PAWE) to advance the involvement of women atall levels of decision-making.

As a Gender Specialist and Papuan National, what do youthink are the biggest challenges facing women in Papua?I think the biggest challenge, which affects men and womenalike, is that Papua is undergoing a rapid change in itssocio-political and economic environment, and there is alack of action to help Papua’s mixed population of 2 millionto maintain their cultural and anthropological roots as thishappens. Current development is not based on the needs,potentials and problems of the population, nor on the differ-ences between tribal groups, geographical settings andanthropological characteristics. Papuans are not equippedto compete in this fast-changing socio-economic environ-ment and indigenous communities are especially affected.

The challenges faced by women in particular include thefact that they are increasingly becoming infected with HIV/AIDS. Malaria and TB are also big problems. Many do nothave the education to seek treatment and blood banks arenot always reliable. Economically, very few Papuan womenhave access to credit to start income generating activities.

Can you describe the gender-oriented work you do withinthe RESPEK program?It is good that community driven development programssuch as RESPEK are now being run at the village level toaddress some, if not all, of the problems I just mentioned.The gender-oriented work I carry out within RESPEK isto identify the gender needs of over a thousand RESPEKdevelopment facilitators placed in 2727 sub-districts inPapua. I work to improve the gender approach of the pro-

gram, which is to ensure women’s recommendations areincluded in creating the village proposals for develop-ment projects. I also work to improve the gender aware-ness of managers who supervise the facilitators: it isimportant to ensure that both male and female facilita-tors working in the villages receive support. Women doface discrimination in Papua and it has happened thatwomen facilitators have encountered violence.

How is RESPEK improving the lives of women?While the effects are not optimal yet, Papuan women nowhave a program that works towards ensuring their issuesare placed on the table and considered. It is life-changingfor many women to be able to participate fully in publicmeetings and have their proposals considered by thewhole community.

How do you involve women’s group and what role dothey play?Women’s groups play a valuable role in organizing andmobilizing women at different levels, though their involve-ment is still low, especially in indigenous communities.Identifying the nature, capacity, and potentials of women’sgroups and trying to work with them to mobilize and or-ganize the Papuan women scattered in the villages, in thehighland, coastlines, islands and also those hidden withinbusy towns is very important. We hope that throughPAWE, we can further explore their potential.

Howwill the Papuan Women’s Empowerment Project(PAWE) differ from RESPEK?I think the main difference is that while my work withinRESPEK targets the whole of society with a focus on women,PAWE focuses exclusively on women and women’s organ-izations as separate and specific target beneficiaries, andthe whole of the community as an indirect beneficiary.Through PAWE, we hope to see the capacity of womenimproved sustainably at the village level and we hopethat a number of women will gain skills.

Opening the Doors forWomen’s ParticipationInterview with Yohana Baransano, Gender Specialist for the RESPEK project in Papua, Indonesia

Yohana and villagers of Timika, a community with no adequatewater supplies.

YosefHadar/WorldBank

Papuan National YohanaBaransano is a WorldBank gender specialistworking with RESPEK.