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Gender Action was established in 2002. It is the only organization
dedicated to promoting gender equality and women's rights
in all International Financial Institution (IFI) investments
such as those of the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund - two of the largest public sources of development financing
in the world.
Gender Action's goal is to ensure that women and men equally
participate in and benefit from all IFI investments.
Gender Action's vision is a World Bank and other IFIs with
mandatory gender policies and strategies that are implemented
to increase women's economic empowerment opportunities and
eliminate their human rights violations.
Over a trillion dollars of IFI investments made over the
last 60 years have done too little to reduce poverty especially
that of poor women and girls. Despite massive IFI investments
in developing countries, per capita income has declined by
over 50 percent in many African countries, studies claim that
females constitute over 70 percent of the world's poor, and
poverty continues to feminize.
Gender Action's agenda is inspired by the need to implement
international conventions including the Beijing Platform for
Action formulated at the 1995 Fourth International Conference
on Women held in Beijing and the United Nations Convention
on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW). About 170 countries have ratified CEDAW,
but few have implemented this "Bill of Rights for
Women" guaranteeing gender equality and an end to violence
and other forms of discrimination against women. Gender
Action is working to ensure that large IFI investments in
developing and transition countries do more to promote
these international conventions.
Our main programs comprise:
• Economic Reforms and Gender
• Engendering Country
Strategies
• Women's Rights in Peace
and Conflict
• Tracking IFI Gender Policy
Implementation
• Women, the Environment
and Infrastructure
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