September 1997
The U.S. chapter of the Women's Eyes on the World Bank Campaign will release its report, Gender Equity and the World Bank Group: A Post-Beijing Assessment this September. A summary version was released in May. The report provides a comprehensive review and analysis of how the Bank has performed in implementing commitments made at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women and in placing women at the center of the development process. It was produced in collaboration with the campaign's Latin American chapter and the Fifty Years is Enough U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice.
Due in large part to the leadership of its president, James Wolfensohn, the World Bank now gives gender equity concerns a higher profile than ever before. A number of encouraging initiatives have been launched during the past two years. These include preparation of regional Gender Action Plans, which offer strategies to promote gender equity in the Bank's operations; creation of the External Gender Consultative Group (EGCG), which had its second annual meeting in May; and, most recently, elevation of gender concerns within the Bank's recent reorganization to the level of a Sector Board, on a par with issues such as finance, energy, health, poverty and environment.
Despite these promising signals, campaign analysts determined that the Bank is still failing to make adequate progress on a number of fronts. Key findings were:
The report includes some 40 recommendations to the Bank to rectify these problems. At its May meeting with the Bank, the EGCG, comprised of 14 women from non-governmental organizations in every region, presented some of these recommendations to Mr. Wolfensohn, who assured them of the Bank's commitment to:
Mr. Wolfensohn was, however, conspicuously noncommittal on EGCG recommendations that the privatization and deregulation programs be reviewed with a gender lens and that women's groups should be consulted in the Bank's lending for private sector development (through the International Finance Corporation) as they do with the Bank's lending to governments. He merely said that the IFC was "a much harder nut to crack" than other channels of Bank lending.
Nevertheless, if the Bank moves quickly to implement the agreements on other issues, it will prove a new degree of commitment to gender equity and show that it takes the EGCG seriously. Many women's groups have called both into question. EGCG members feel that the responsibility has fallen entirely on them to maintain ongoing communications and do outreach, with virtually no support from the Bank's gender staff. Some members have taken the initiative to communicate with Bank staff in their countries and/or organize meetings with other women's groups, but emphasize that the Bank must take steps and provide resources to support such activities.
Gains in Latin America: While the EGCG met, nine members of the Women's Eyes Latin America chapter came to Washington to meet senior World Bank officials who work on their region and to strategize with members of the U.S. chapter. Their central message was that the Bank still has far to go to integrate a gender perspective into its programs, even in such traditional women-focused sectors as health and population.
In their meeting with Guillermo Perry, the head of the region's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network (the Gender Sector Board falls within this network), the Latin American campaign members gained a commitment for a quality assurance procedure that would require solid gender analysis and design as an important component to be evaluated in project performance. Such procedures would apply not only to the social sectors but to infrastructure and financial services.
"We are very excited about the implementation of this measure," said Laura Frade, the Women's Eyes Campaign coordinator for Latin America, "because it clearly shows that gender has achieved greater recognition as an important factor to consider in evaluating the success of the Bank's operations in the region."
The Latin American group is now developing two proposals that were accepted in principle by senior Bank managers. The proposed initiatives would enable women to carry out their own gender analysis on selected Bank projects which are in the design and implementation stages. The findings of this review will be presented and discussed at Bank-organized meetings next year, with participation of government representatives in addition to Bank staff and women's groups.
Misled in Mexico: The Mexico chapter of the Women's Eyes Campaign, in a case study, has highlighted three aspects of the Bank's activities there to illustrate its misleading monitoring of gender.
The Second Basic Health Project to improve women's reproductive health, which operates in 11 southern states and is aimed mainly at indigenous peoples, fails to consider cultural factors that could influence its goals. A truly gender-sensitive approach to health care in these communities would include measures to educate men about the value of family planning and would develop women's trust in the project by recognizing and building upon their traditional medical knowledge and other deeply held beliefs.
Second, the Mexico chapter notes that the The Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for Mexico pays scant attention to the needs of poor women. It sets a general goal of "raising human welfare and reducing the country's high poverty," but lacks an in-depth analysis of gender-differentiated constraints such as women's lack of access to education, training, land inheritance, credit and other productive assets. The CAS also does not consider the impact of economic reforms on women.
Third, on the question of labor law reform in Mexico, the Bank states that in many cases laws designed to protect workers impose unnecessary restrictions on employment opportunities for women. It calls for reform of such protective laws as a first step in eliminating obstacles to women's economic participation and increasing remuneration. In fact, the Women's Eyes Campaign contends, the Bank is advocating for dismantling the very laws that are the result of hard-won struggles by women! It appears that behind the Bank's call for reform of labor laws is less a concern for women than a drive toward more efficient labor markets at any cost.
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