Interview: World Bank official says progress in gender equality has been "very slow"

by Xiong Maoling

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Progress in gender equality has been "very slow" overall, said Hana Brixi, the World Bank Group's global director for gender, calling for more efforts to expand economic opportunities for women across the globe.

In an interview with Xinhua earlier this week, Brixi said that the progress has been "encouraging" in most countries on girls' education and reduction in maternal mortality in recent years, but in other areas, progress has been "very, very limited."

For example, female labor force participation was around 50 percent in 1990, and it is still around 50 percent in 2022, Brixi noted. "It has not changed much at all … So we cannot take progress for granted."

The main obstacles for women that prevent them from embracing better economic opportunities include gender-based violence and social norms, said the World Bank official.

"Social norms, the mindsets, the perceptions, sometimes very old-fashioned perceptions of what the role of woman is, they also, in many countries -- especially countries with cultural conservative context -- represent a significant constraint," she said.

The World Bank Group on Thursday announced a set of actions and concrete goals that aim to boost economic opportunities for more women, taking the first steps toward implementing its Gender Strategy 2024-2030.

The targets, unveiled at a flagship event during the ongoing 2024 International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group Annual Meetings, will focus on use of broadband, social protection and access to capital.

By 2030, the multilateral lender aims to enable 300 million more women to use broadband, unlocking essential services, financial services, education and job opportunities; support 250 million women with social protection programs, focusing especially on the poorest and most vulnerable; and provide 80 million more women and women-led businesses with capital, addressing a critical constraint to entrepreneurship growth.

Brixi told Xinhua that the gender strategy has three key objectives: First is to improve the "foundational well-being" for women and girls, which specifically means to end gender-based violence and also elevate human capital with emphasis on sexual and reproductive health.

The second objective, Brixi said, is to expand and enable economic opportunities, allowing women to have equal access to productive jobs, to have equal access to economic assets such as land, and to have equal access to enabling services such as childcare and safe transport.

"Affordable quality childcare is key to development, and it's key, not only to women's economic opportunities, but also to productivity," she said.

The third objective is to engage women as leaders, "recognizing that when women participate in decision-making, the results are better," she continued.

"Evidence is very clear that for countries to end poverty, they must unleash the potential of women," said the World Bank official. "When women participate in the economy, economic growth is stronger and productivity is higher, and overall results are better," she said.

Brixi, who served as World Health Organization's health systems manager and United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) social policy chief, was based in China during 2001-2010.

She told Xinhua that she was impressed by the engagement of Chinese women in both public and private sector.

"A lot of my counterparts in ministries were women, very, very highly competent, impressive women leaders. I met a lot of powerful and inspiring women in the private sector as business leaders," Brixi said.

"Also in communities, even when I visited villages … women had a say in the communities and I think their influence (is high) on education of children, on nutrition, but also on the economic activities and investments at the community level. It was very impressive," she said.

Commenting on the current phenomenon of some Chinese women being reluctant to marry or have children, Brixi said a similar situation is observed in a number of countries.

"On one hand, young women have aspirations. They have education. They would like to have productive life. On the other hand, the society has expectations of women, that women would play some traditional role," she said, noting that it's a "clash" between two worlds.

"That's where investing in childcare, for the government, for the private sector, is really key," she said, adding that it is the "economically profitable investment" to make for the companies. ■