Enabling Women's Access to Economic Opportunities in Fragile Settings

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

• In fiscal year 2024, the World Bank committed nearly $3 billion in International Development Association (IDA) funding and over $1 billion in International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) funding to supporting human development and gender interventions in  countries classified as fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS).
• Between 2018 and 2024, women in the Democratic Republic of Congo established over 5,000 businesses through the World Bank's Small and Medium Enterprise Development and Growth Project, creating more than 15,000 jobs.
• Between 2016 and 2022, the Yemen Emergency Crisis Response Project provided grants to support 13,000 women farmers and 3,000 women-owned small and micro businesses.
• 2,800 young Yemenis, of whom 51 percent were women, were trained and employed as teachers, positively impacting about 83,000 students between 2016 and 2022.
• Over 27,000 women across Ethiopia have secured a business loan from the Women Entrepreneurship Development Project to either start or expand their businesses between 2012 and 2024.

“A key ingredient in my success is the Women Entrepreneurship Development Project (WEDP). The liquidity facility and training from WEDP was a critical success factor for my business expansion.”

CHALLENGE

Fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) can impact everyone, but tends to put women and girls at a greater disadvantage, leading to unequal chances in education, health, and work—and constrained voice for women in their societies. In countries experiencing protracted conflict, less than 20 percent of women are likely to be in paid work—compared to 69 percent of men. Women and girls made up more than 45 percent of the over 122 million people driven from their homes by conflict at the end of June 2024; compounding this issue, forcibly displaced women and girls in FCS face unique challenges, such as discriminatory laws and restrictive gender norms in accessing employment opportunities.

APPROACH

At the heart of the World Bank’s operations targeting gender inequality in FCS are its Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence 2020-2025 and Gender Strategy 2024–2030. Both strategies commit to assisting clients in FCS in promoting women's welfare and agency while addressing the root causes of conflict. The World Bank Group (WBG) directs resources to foster women’s economic inclusion through a people-centered approach to expanding and enabling economic opportunities in FCS. This approach includes deploying the World Bank’s expertise and financing to help remove constraints for more and better jobs and eliminate barriers to women’s access to income-generating opportunities. In fiscal year 2024, 95 percent of World Bank-financed operations used gender analysis to promote gender equality, up from 50 percent in 2017. Gender analysis helps identify and address gender-based inequalities by understanding norms, roles, and power dynamics.

RESULTS

Women’s economic participation, including access to finance, entrepreneurship, markets and opportunities in agriculture and food supply chains, is central to maintaining functioning economies in FCS. Therefore, ensuring equal access to resources is crucial. Economic independence can enhance women’s decision-making power within their households and communities. In fiscal year 2024 (FY24), the World Bank committed nearly $3 billion in International Development Association (IDA) funding and over $1 billion in International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) funding to supporting human development and gender interventions in low- and middle-income FCS respectively. Examples from World Bank projects in FCS demonstrate the various avenues through which the World Bank’s work is having an impact, including knowledge and support for reforms, loans and entrepreneurship support, and shoring up human capital in FCS.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a $100 million World Bank-financed Small Medium Enterprise Development and Growth Project enabled women entrepreneurs to create more than 5,000 new small and medium-sized businesses between 2018 and 2024, creating nearly 15,000 jobs. The project supported the DRC government in implementing provisions of its Parity Law and enhanced Family Code, focusing on those aspects that could expand employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for Congolese youth and women. The project promoted gender-friendly business regulations and small and medium enterprises supported have seen, on average, a 53 percent increase in revenue.

The World Bank has been engaging on women’s economic participation in DRC for over a decade and the project built on previous advances in promoting reforms. A 2012 World Bank Group report, The Democratic Republic of Congo - The Potential for Growth: An Investment Climate Assessment and the Women, Business and the Law project contributed compelling evidence on the benefits of women’s economic participation, supporting efforts to enact legal reforms to foster gender equality in DRC. These efforts led to the passing of DRC’s Law on Parity in 2015 and the amendment of its Family Code in 2016. The Law on Parity lifted barriers to women’s political representation and economic participation. Allowing women to access bank accounts and loans and to enter the workforce without their husbands’ permission was a key result of the new Family Code approved in 2016.

In Ethiopia, the $153 million World Bank-executed Women Entrepreneurship Development Project (WEDP) is providing women access to business loans through a network of banks and microfinance institutions. It also offers entrepreneurship training to registered business owners across 18 Ethiopian cities. Between 2012 and 2024, over 27,000 women in Ethiopia secured a loan from the WEDP network to either start new businesses or expand existing ones, employing more people. Moreover, more than 38,000 women have graduated from a technical and entrepreneurial skills training program. The average income of a WEDP client has grown by 67 percent and the number of employees in a firm has grown by 58 percent.

Funded with more than $870 million from IDA between and 2016 and 2022, the Yemen Emergency Crisis Response Project aimed to protect human capital and sustain local service delivery institutions as well as the national social protection system. The project emphasized closing gender gaps. The project assisted vulnerable communities. These included grants to support 13,000 women farmers and 3,000 women-owned small and micro businesses, cash assistance to over 4 million women, nutrition services to 679,000 mothers and children, and temporary jobs for 90,000 women. Additionally, 2,800 young people, with women making up 51 percent, were trained and employed as teachers, better positioned to have a positive impact on over 83,000 students.

DATA HIGHLIGHTS

Number of World Bank Projects that address gender inequality in FCS

WORLD BANK GROUP CONTRIBUTION

In FY24, the World Bank committed nearly $3 billion in IDA funding and over $1 billion in IBRD to supporting human development and gender interventions in FCS. IDA contributed $100 million to fund the Small Medium Enterprise Development and Growth Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. An $840 million IDA grant financed the Yemen Emergency Crisis Response Project. IDA is contributing $50 million to the Women Entrepreneurship Development Project in Ethiopia.

PARTNERSHIPS

The World Bank partners with United Nations (UN) agencies, bilateral donors and multilateral institutions, humanitarian agencies, and civil society organizations in fragile situations to support programs that promote the empowerment and leadership of women and girls and improve their economic chances. These partnerships enable the World Bank to deliver services and help expand opportunities to women, particularly in areas without state presence. In Yemen, for example, the World Bank channeled its support through UN agencies—the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)— to reach poor and vulnerable people with health and nutrition services and livelihood support.

LOOKING AHEAD

The WBG Gender Strategy  2024-2030 aims to accelerate gender equality to reduce poverty on a livable planet. The strategy focuses on improving country engagement, encouraging innovation, mobilizing global efforts for impactful results, and delivering outcomes at scale. By 2030, it plans to increase economic opportunities for women by facilitating broadband access for 300 million women and supporting 80 million women and women-owned businesses with capital. Tailored, scalable approaches will be used to reach these objectives in FCS.

KEY WORDS

Gender equality, fragile and conflict-affected situations, women’s economic participation, women’s access to economic opportunities.

LEARN MORE

• A Development Approach to Advancing Gender Engagement and Addressing Gender Inequalities in Fragile, Conflict and Violent Situations
  
• Increasing Gender Equality in Fragile, Conflict, and Violence Settings
  
• Investing in women means investing in solutions for peace and progress
  
• Girls’ Rights, Fragility, and the Future
  
• Ethiopia: Helping Women Entrepreneurs Succeed, One Challenge at a Time