In advance of International Women’s Day, your timely piece on the World Bank’s new report finding no equality for working women in any country (5 March) was a stark reminder of the work left ahead. However, it’s important ask whether there is equality for working women at the World Bank itself, or any of the seven major international financial institutions (IFIs) that my colleagues and I studied in 2023.
At the time we found that, though the share of women in leadership at these important institutions has doubled in the last two decades, not a single IFI had reached gender parity in its management ranks. Since the study was released, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has achieved gender parity in management – which is to say that only one IFI has achieved this at any point in time. It’s also worth noting that gender equality gains are easily reversed and prone to periods of stagnation.
Most IFIs recognise the essential role women must play in development, and have put forth robust gender strategies. The World Bank places the engagement of female leaders as one of three strategic objectives. Yet only two out of nine IFIs have a female head; and no woman of colour has ever been the head of an IFI. Their boards of directors are even further from parity than the managerial positions filled by technocratic ranks.
It’s important that these institutions, collectively responsible for more than a quarter of a trillion dollars of lending in 2022, lead by example. They should do it because it’s right, and central to their work. Closing the gender gap has been labelled “macrocritical”: essential to economic growth, financial stability, and lower income inequality.
As we ask what more can be done for gender equality this International Women’s Day, we must also look at the role we all can and should play.
Eeshani Kandpal
Senior fellow, Center for Global Development, Washington DC; former senior economist, World Bank
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