-----Original Message-----
From: GREAT Network <[log in to unmask]>
To: Development-Gender <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 18 January 2000 08:39
Subject: Gender in the World Bank - EGCG internal report
>--- Begin Forwarded Message ---
>Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 19:44:16 +0100
>From: Ewa Charkiewicz <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>below please find the internal report of the 4th annual
>meeting of the World Bank External Gender Consultative
>Group. The report includes an update on gender related
>developments in the World Bank. A more extensive report
>from the EGCG meeting will be prepared the Bank to be
>available at their gender website
>(www.worldbank.org/gender/.
>With all the best, creativity and joy for the New Year,
>
>
>Ewa Charkiewicz
>
>***************************************************************************
*****************
>Internal Report of the World Bank External Gender
>Consultative Group (EGCG) 4th annual meeting
>Washington, 14 -17 November, 1999
>
>Members:
>
>Gita Sen, Indian Institute of Management, India (in the
>EGCG since 1996); Kassey Garba, Dept. of Economics,
>University of Ibadan, Nigeria (since >1999); Naila Kabeer,
>IDS, University of Sussex, UK (since 1998), Rokeya Kabir,
>BNPS, Bangladesh (since 1999); Agnes Khoo Ee, Global
>Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, Thailand/Hong Kong
>(since 1999); Mary Okelo, Makini Schools & Women's World
>Banking , Kenya (since 1999); Magaly Pineda, CIPAF, Santo
>Domingo (since 1999); Rosalba Todaro, Women Studies
>Center, Chile (sine 1999); Lydia Willliams, Women's Eyes
>on the Bank & Oxfam-America, USA (since 1997); Mona
>Zulficar, Shalakany Law Office, Egypt (since 1999); Ewa
>Charkiewicz, Karat Coalition for Regional Action & Tools
>for Transition, Poland/ Netherlands (since 1996),
>Absent with apologies:Elena Kotchkina, Open Society
>Institute & Women's Resource Center, Russia (since 1998);
>Eugenia Piza-Lopez, International Alert, UK, (member since
>1996).
>
> 1. EGCG pre-meeting, 15 November, 1999
>
>In 1999, in place of the outgoing members whose three
>year term in office had expired, seven new members joined
>the EGCG: Kassey Garba, Rokeya Kabir, Agnes Khoo, Mary
>Okelo, Magaly Pineda, Rosalba Todaro and Mona Zulificar.
>The first part of the pre-meeting was devoted to briefing
>new members about the organization of the Bank and how
>gender is addressed at the policy level and in the
>organizational structure. Gita Sen introduced the history
>the EGCG. Lisa Jordan, director of the Bank Information
>Center and Rachel Kyte, senior policy advisor at IUCN
>briefed the group and highlighted recent developments and
>key leverage points for gender in the Bank.
>
>2. Meeting with the Bank 16 - 17 November
>
>The agenda for the meeting with the Bank included sessions
>with: (1) Lyn Squire, director, Global Development
>Network; (2) Ravi Kanbur, director World Development Report
>2000; (3) Gita Gopal, Operations Evaluation Department
>(OED); (4) Masood Ahmed, vice-president of Poverty
>Reduction and Economic Management Network (PREM) and Nemat
>Shafik vice-president of Finance, Private Sector and
>Infrastructure Network (FPSI). There were also sessions
>devoted to (5) gender in the work of the IFC, to (6) the
>progress on the PRR on Gender & Development. (7) An
>outline of the Gender and Development Strategy was
>presented by Karen Mason. The meeting ended with the
>discussion about the role of the EGCG with Karen Mason,
>Gender and Development Director, and with the members of
>the Gender Sector Board.
>
>3. Highlights from the meeting
>
>Since the 1998 EGCG meeting further progress has been made
>to mainstream gender in the Bank. The highlights of the
>progress are: the work done on the Policy Research Report
>on Gender and Development, the installation in the office
>of the director for Gender and Development (PREM), Karen
>Mason, the initiation of the major review of the
>mainstreaming of gender in the Bank by the Operations
>Evaluation Department, the launch of the process to
>prepare Gender Sector Strategy. Also, the International
>Finance Corporation, the private sector lending entity in
>the World Bank Group developed gender guidelines and
>increased the number of staff performing social and
>environmental impact assessments. Three years ago when
>the EGCG had requested a meeting with the IFC, gender
>was not on their agenda. As the IFC provides a framework
>for regulating social and environmental impacts of
>investment projects, the steps they begin to take may have
>wider ramifications, in particular as private investment
>flows are rapidly increasing and public expenditures for
>development are in decline.
>
>
>However, the mainstreaming of gender is far from being
>accomplished. The biggest gaps appear in integrating
>gender and macro-economic policies. For instance, while
>in 1998 63 % of Bank's lending has been disbursed
>for structural adjustment, and half of it is counted as
>funding for social safety nets, the analysis of the
>gender impacts of structural adjustment to inform policy
>interventions has not been developed within the Bank The
>prospects for the integration of gender in economic
>policies may also be at jeopardy when the Bank is
>increasingly committing its resources and
>institutionalizing its cooperation with the WTO, as
>illustrated with the plans to sign the Coherence
>Agreement between the two global organizations. This may
>result with subordinating the development agenda of the
>World Bank to the priorities to liberalize trade in goods
>and services as pursued at the WTO. (contact Lisa Jordan,
><mailto:[log in to unmask]> ).
>
>The proposed new "third way funding" to begin next year
>includes SAP loans specifically designated for public
>expenditure management and poverty reduction. Credit will
>also be designated for sector investment loans, to
>increase government's capacity and for adaptable program
>lending. Given the attached goals of flexibility and
>selectivity in funding, it is not certain how to assure
>the clear focus and accountability of the flows of
>finance under the new third way funding proposal to
>deliver on reducing poverty and achieving gender equality.
>Questions are also raised about the relationship of the
>new "third way" loan policy with the new Poverty Reduction
>Framework now also under discussion.
>
>Many obstacles to mainstreaming gender still appear at the
>level of policy. Since 1994 no social and environmental
>impacts assessment has been done. Among the obstacles
>is the lack of conceptual clarity and lacking consensus &
>commitment across the Bank. While the staff concerned
>about gender develop efficiency and equity arguments to
>mainstream gender in the Bank, the progress is stalled by
>economists who do not find gender is an issue in
>economic development. The recently updated operational
>policy on gender dimensions of development, (OP 4.20,
>October 1999) re-states the commitment to reduce gender
>disparities and enhance women's participation in economic
>development by integrating gender consideration in country
>assistance strategies (CAS), but this is far from being
>accomplished. The level of compliance with gender policy is
>not high. The operational policy on gender does not have
>the status of safeguard policies based on do no harm
>restrictions which exclude projects that violate
>safeguards from being approved.
>
>Other obstacles include lack of trained staff, and hence a
>tendency within the Bank to refer gender issues to
>designated structures and processes, such as gender unit,
>regional gender specialists, or in case of conceptual work,
>to the PRR on Gender. The mainstreaming of gender is
>further affected by the confusion resulting from the
>introduction of matrix management and creation of internal
>labour market which pushes staff to work along the lines of
>existing demand for expertise and does not include
>incentives for addressing a cross-cutting issue of gender.
>Meanwhile, gender unit can hardly generate more interest
>in gender when its funds have been cut, and only 6 % of
>1998 research funds have been committed to gender related
>research.
>
>Nevertheless, several decision making groups within the
>Bank, such as the Committee for Development Effectiveness
>(CODE) and the group of IDA deputies who are negotiating
>the three year replenishment of IDA (funding base for
>lending to the poorest countries), as well as the
>Operations Evaluations Department, are not happy with the
>lack of progress in mainstreaming gender. The IDA
>deputies recommended that the attention to gender should
>be one of the main factors determining the volumes of
>financial assistance to a country. They also called for
>the strengthening of the role of the EGCG.
>
>Women in senior positions at the Bank
>
>Several women have been recently nominated to senior
>positions in the Bank. Meg Taylor was appointed a
>compliance advisor and an ombudswoman for the IFC and MIGA
>(the private sector lending entities within the World Bank
>Group). Nemat Shafik (Egypt) is a new vice-president in the
>FPSI network. (Finance, Private Sector and Infrastructure
>Network). Mamphela Ramphele (South Africa) was appointed
>a Managing Director of the World Bank. She is the first
>African and the second women ever appointed to this post.
>She will be a member of a senior management team which is
>responsible for corporate leadership and strategy. As
>Managing Director, Human Development she will oversee the
>Bank's activities in health, education and social
>protection.
>
> 4. Current major gender related initiatives in the Bank
>include:
>
>* the Policy Research Report (PRR) on Gender and
>Development. The PRR is currently in the stage of drafting
>subsequent chapters. After a review >within the Bank the
>draft will be available for consultations in the end of
>January/beginning of February (check at the
>www.worldbank.org/gender/ . The summary of the PRR will be
>presented at the last PrepCom before Beijing Plus 5, the
>final report will be put on the web in June 2000, and a
>hard copy launched in August/September 2000. The PRR
>co-authors, Beth King and Andy Mason, have pulled
>together a remarkable amount of comparative research on
>gender. A very broad range of topics has been addressed in
>the background papers. However, it is not clear to what
>extent the PRR work to date has actually filled the
>knowledge gap in the Bank on gender impacts of
>macro-economic policies. This is a cause for concern
>because the PRR is expected to provide the conceptual
>underpinnings for gender policy in the Bank and related
>institutions. It is also expected to pave way for the WDR
>on gender in 2004. In 1998 the EGCG organized consultations
>on the internet and sponsored a workshop on the outline of
>the PRR that took place at the Bank in conjunction with
>the EGCG annual meeting. It has been suggested at the
>workshop to produce an EGCG commentary to the PRR. *
>Gender Sector Strategy is expected to become a major
>vehicle for mainstreaming gender in the Bank, and will
>eventually provide a basis for redefining operational
>policy on gender, that has its roots in the policy papers
>on the role women in economic development developed in
>1994. The timetable for finalizing the GSS has been
>extended as compared to previously made plans and
>expectations. The EGCG has not received any draft paper
>prior to our meeting. During the discussion one of the
>major issues of concern was to assure the participatory
>process of the development of the GSS, and to focus it not
>only on changes within the Bank but also on the impacts on
>changing national/local realities. So far only in a few
>regions (Middle East& North Africa, and South Asia among
>them) a participatory consultative process on
>priorities for GSS has taken place. In other regions the
>consultations are either to take place or are in the
>planning stage.
>
>* The development of indices for mainstreaming gender ( a
>study commissioned by Karen Mason)
>
>* The review of mainstreaming gender carried out by the
>Operations Evaluation Department (the WB internal auditing
>department) to be completed and presented to CODE by June
>2001. The purpose of the OED review is to (i)
>assess the relevance of gender strategy and its role in
>meeting a country's development needs; (ii) to assess how
>gender is integrated in Country Assistance Strategy
>(several countries have been selected for a review) (iii)
>to assess the impact of the WB assistance on strengthening
>gender equality. The OED review has in-built
>participatory mechanisms and consultative meetings have
>already started to take place. (contact Gita Gopal
><mailto:[log in to unmask]> >)
> 5. Other relevant initiatives:
>
> *World Development Report 2000/01, "Attacking Poverty"
>is proposing a framework for poverty reduction that
>conceptualizes three dimensions of action to reduce poverty
>(1) empowerment as addressing economic, social and
>institutional inequalities that disadvantage the poor and
>prevent them from influencing decisions which affect their
>lives (2) security, as addressing risk and vulnerability as
>micro and macro level (3) opportunity as sustainable
>economic expansion and human development to provide a
>material basis for poverty reduction. Another new
>development in the preparation of WDR is the consultative
>process that included the Consultations with the Poor.
>While the framework represents a significant step forward
>in comparison to previous approaches, and will allow to
>develop comprehensive packages of policy measures to deal
>with poverty, work still needs to be done to integrate
>gender analysis in conceptualizing three dimensions of
>action against poverty. For instance, women can be
>excluded from participatory institutions. A case in point
>is an otherwise excellent Consultations with the Poor in
>Bulgaria. Neither the researchers facilitating the
>consultations nor participating women themselves had a
>vocabulary to articulate and address gender inequalities.
>
>* Poverty Reduction Framework paper is now being prepared.
>It will be crucial to ascertain gender analysis is
>integrated in the framework.
>
>
> 6. EGCG work plan/priorities to raise up with the Bank
>
>The EGCG discussed two possible gateways through which we
>could influence the Bank's knowledge and operations, and
>identified the following priorities to address:
>
>(i) Knowledge gateway
>
>* EGCG commentary to PRR on Gender and Development
>(February 2000) * Feedback and monitoring of participatory
>process for developing Gender Sector Strategy * Feedback
>on gender in WDR 2000 on Poverty
>
> (ii) Operations gateway
>
>* Feedback to the OED study on mainstreaming gender.
>(Contact with Gita Gopal) * Feedback and evaluation on the
>development of indices for main streaming gender * To
>propose carrying out several country case studies on
>lessons in operationalizing gender * To propose a review
>of the allocation of resources (finance, staff time) to
>gender and to the gender unit.
>
>Issues to raise in preparation for the next meeting:
>
>* How gender is addressed when the World Bank is
>operationalizing participation * How gender is
>operationalized in regional departments (meeting with some
>regional vicepresidents during the next meeting) *
>Establish contact between CODE (chair Jan Piercy) and EGCG
>Issues related to the organization of the EGCG work: * To
>ascertain the continuous recognition and compliance with
>previously made agreements on the role and autonomy of the
>EGCG * To reaffirm the necessity to maintain external
>secretariat * To establish a mechanism for regular means
>of communication (updates, draft documents) in-between
>annual meetings between the gender sector board and for
>monitoring the implementation of common decisions related
>to the EGCG work program * To request that additional
>resources are allocated for the costs of EGCG (meeting and
>secretariat costs) so that these costs are not covered
>from the current Gender Unit budget.
>
>Regarding the next meeting a proposal has been made (by
>Magaly Pineda) to organize an internal EGCG evaluation
>session after the meeting.
>
> (7) Outcome of the Elections to the EGCG Coordinating
>Group and related decisions
>
> Gita Sen (out-going chair)
> Ewa Charkiewicz (out-going secretary)
> Lydia Williams (new secretary, pending the agreement with
>Oxfam) Kassey Garba Naila Kabeer Mona Zulificar
>
>The group decided to revisit the decisions (EGCG statute
>& membership, June 1997) about the duration of the
>membership and to extend it so as to assure the continuity
>of work and transfer of knowledge within the group. To
>facilitate the transition, Gita Sen and Ewa Charkiewicz
>have been asked to stay for another year as members of the
>EGCG.
>
>
>
>Contact: Ewa Charkiewicz, Tools for Transition
>Netherlands: Atjehstraat 20, NL-2585 VK Den Haag, tel. &
>fax + 31 70 3520 289,mailto:[log in to unmask] Poland:
>Sniegockiej 10/35, PL-00 430 Warsaw, tel. & fax + 48 22 622
>74 29
>
>
>
>
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