9066
A Progress Report
on the World Bank Initiative
~    A WORLRNIUUATN
',,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~C ...'  73
j        ) -, .. -. .Y   -






Women in Development
A Progress Report
on the World Bank Initiative
The World Bank
Washington, D.C.



i 1990 The International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development/THE WORLD BANK
1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A.
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing September 1990
The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this book are
entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any mnanner to
the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations, or to its Board of Executive
Directors or the countries they represent. The World Bank does not
guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts
no responsibility whatsoever for any consequences of their use.
The cover photograph, by Curt Carnemark, shows a woman and child in
Zimbabwe.
ISBN 0-821341623-0



Contents
Foreword by Barber B. Conable v
Acknowledgments vi
1. Introduction and Summary 1
The Importance of Women in Development I
Education 5
Health and Family Planning 6
Agricultural Extension 6
Credit 7
Other Measures 7
The World Bank's Response 8
Future Directions 12
2. Attention to Women in Lending Operations 14
Projects in High-Priority Fields  15
Education 15
Population, Health, and Nutrition 15
Agriculture 18
Progress in High-Priority Fields 18
Activity in Other Fields 21
Conclusion 23
3. Attention to Women in Economic and Sectoral Work 24
Incorporating Women's Concerns 25
Conclusion 30
Boxes
1. Education and Training for Women 16
2. Population, Health, and Nutrition for Women 17
3. Agricultural Services for Women 19
4. Women in Agricultural Specialties 20
5. Projects Modified to Address Women's Concerns 21
6. Women and Natural Resources 22
iii



iV                                                 CONTENTS
7. Credit and Entrepreneurship 22
8. Macroeconomic Adjustment Operations  23
Case Studies
1. Nigeria: Girls' Education 25
2. Ghana: Policy on Population, Health, and Nutrition 26
3. Colombia: Community-Based Day Care 27
4. Jamaica: Women's Employment 27
5. Pakistan: Women's Employment 28
6. Mexico: Rural Women's Employment 28
7. Bangladesh: Women and Poverty 29
8. Bangladesh: Health Care and Public Expenditure 29
9. Brazil: Public Spending on Health Care 30
10. Rwanda: Women and Food Security 30
11. Indonesia: Women's Access to Credit 31
12. Zimbabwe: Female Farmers, Cooperatives,
and Support Services 31
13. India: Agricultural Extension 32



Foreword
Improving opportunities for women is not only a matter of human
justice, but also a sure route to faster and more sustainable develop-
ment. Most people recognize that women have the right to participate
in political and economic decisionmaking and to enjoy the fruits of
social and economic progress. But in much of the world, they do not
have the opportunity to do so.
Women in many parts of the world still lack access to education and
training, to health and family planning services, and to information
and resources. Often, their legal standing is inferior and they are
unable to participate in politics and in policymaking. As a result, these
women are denied choices in their own lives and also are prevented
from contributing all that they might to family well-being and to
national progress. There is a direct relationship between expanded
opportunities for women and improved health and learning for chil-
dren, slower population growth, and the easing of environmental
pressures.
The United Nations Decade for Women (1975-85) helped focus
public attention on the important role women can and do play in
socioeconomic development. As a result, many governments adopted
strategies to improve opportunities for women, thereby contributing
to development and equality.
The World Bank also identified women in development as a prior-
ity and has integrated this concern into its analytical work and lending
operations. As many as one out of five Bank operations approved in
1989 included specific recommendations for assisting women. In-
deed, it is encouraging to note that some progress has been made in
each area considered in this report on women in development.
This is a promising start, but only a start. I call on all governments,
nongovernmental organizations, and development agencies to work
toward the common goal of equal opportunity for all people-male
and female-and to help transform this goal into a reality.
Certainly the World Bank will continue to intensify its own efforts
for women in development.
Barber B. Conable
President, The World Bank
v



Acknowledgments
This report was prepared by Barbara Herz, chief of the World Bank's
Women in Development Division, and Gotz Schreiber, principal
economist in that division. Ann 0. Hamilton, director of the Popula-
tion and Human Resources Department, provided general direction.
The report includes major contributions from Hans Adler, Sayeeda
Chaudhry, Laurence Foglierini-Salomon, Benjamin Patterson, Harold
Pilvin, and Julie Scher. Section 1 is based primarily on the findings
from "Women in Development: Issues for Economic and Sector Anal-
ysis," Policy, Planning, and Research Working Paper 269 (World
Bank, Policy, Research, and External Affairs Office, Washington, D.C.,
1989). Bruce Ross-Larson and Patricia McNee edited that paper, and
Judy Lai coordinated its production.
vi



I
Introduction and Summary
During the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-85), govern-
ments and institutions, including the World Bank, adopted policies
to enhance the role of women in development. Although progress was
achieved, particularly in health and schooling, less was accomplished
in other areas. In 1987, therefore, the Bank launched a stronger and
more focused initiative to integrate attention to women in develop-
ment through its analytical work and lending. This report summa-
rizes the rationale for these efforts, describes progress in
implementingthe initiative, and outlines future directions. In general,
the Bank is focusing on increasing women's economic productivity
by investing in human capital and improving women's access to
productive resources and the labor market.
The Importance of Women in Development
The rationale for any long-term effort by the World Bank is its poten-
tial contribution to economic growth and the reduction of poverty.
The Bank's women in development initiative is no exception. Expand-
ing women's opportunities, especially in ways that enhance their
productivity and earming potential, will raise women's own living
standards and contribute to better economic performance, the reduc-
tion of poverty, and improved family welfare. Over time, it will also
help to slow population growth. Because social and cultural forces
influence women's economic productivity, deliberate and thoughtful
effort is required to involve women more effectively in the develop-
ment process.
The economic contribution of women is known to be substantial.
Women produce more than half the food in the developing world and
as much as three-fourths in Africa. They play a substantial role in the
storage, processing, and marketing of food and cash crops, and they
often have charge of small livestock. Women constitute about one-
fourth of the industrial labor of the developing world and an even
1



2                                    INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
higher proportion in many of the expanding export industries of East
Asia and Latin America. Women also work in the large and growing
informal sectors of both rural and urban areas.
The economic contribution of women goes much further. Beyond
their work in the formal and informal labor force, women usually
have the primary responsibility for the care of children and the elderly
and for many household chores. Women often spend several hours a
day fetching household water and fuelwood (which constitutes 90
percent of the household fuel used in Africa).
Because much of women's work is done at home or outside the
formal economy, it is not fully recognized in official statistics or by
policymakers. But studies in Nepal and the Philippines suggest that,
when women's production is valued properly, rural women contrib-
ute about half of the family's income. Moreover, many poor families
are headed by women (for example, one-third of families below the
poverty line in India, two-fifths of all families in Jamaica and rural
Kenya, and one-fifth of those in Togo and urban Brazil). Thus
women's earnings make a particular contribution to the alleviation of
poverty; moreover, women perform such tasks as feeding the family,
which directly relieve misery.
Women make a crucial contribution to the health and learning of
children, which improves future economic performance. Many stud-
ies show that families depend heavily on women for nutrition and
health care, particularly in low-income areas. A study in India shows
a link between women's earnings and children's-especially
daughters'-health, and several studies demonstrate the effect of
maternal education on the schooling of children, especially girls.
Evidence also suggests that the most effective way to slow population
growth is to improve educational and earning opportunities for
women while extending family planning services.
Women's economic options relative to men's vary widely in differ-
ent cultures and at different stages of economic development. In the
early stages of economic development, women tend to bear many
children and to work in or near the home, whereas men are allowed
greater choice of occupation. This tendency for both rural and urban
women to remain inside the home and family is more marked today
in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. By contrast, in
much of East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the rest of
Africa, women are generally less confined. Needless to say, excep-



THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT                    3
tions arise in all regions. Generally, however, as economic develop-
ment opens up more opportunities for education and employment,
women's choices naturally expand: couples tend to have fewer chil-
dren, and women tend to enter the formal labor force, in which
earnings are higher. Economic development thus brings with it the
promise that women will be able to earn more, learn more, and secure
better health for themselves and their children. As economies advance
and options increase, cultural barriers can also be reduced, but the
process is obviously neither automatic nor fast.
For women, as for men, the ability to realize their economic poten-
tial depends both on their human capital-their health and educa-
tional status-and on their access to information, resources, and
markets. Compared with men, however, women face additional and
more intractable barriers to access because of their mothering role
(multiple pregnancies and child care) and because of cultural tradi-
tions, sometimes reflected in law or policy, that tend to keep women
more home-bound than men and more restricted in their choices of
employment and social interactions. These barriers are worse in con-
ditions of poverty, but they persist even in industrial countries. They
restrict women's access to the information and resources required to
respond to economic opportunities. For example:
* Excess fertility can damage the mother's health and, therefore,
the welfare of her family. It can also limit her earning capacity
by making it more difficult for her to leave the home for training
or to buy or sell goods.
* Parents are often more reluctant to educate daughters-or even
to provide them with health care or food-perhaps because
women have (or are expected to have) fewer income-earning
opportunities than men, because girls are expected to do more
household chores, because girls leave their families when they
marry, or because tradition discourages aging parents from
accepting help from daughters.
• Agricultural extension programs customarily address male
farmers, so women must rely on second-hand information,
which may not cover the topics most important to their agricul-
tural productivity.
* Women often have difficulty obtaining credit because they are
poorly educated, because they are not used to dealing with banks
or banks with them, or because they rarely hold title to land or
other assets, often required as collateral.



4                                     INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
* Women's legal position remains inferior by law in some coun-
tries and by custom in more, and women are often reluctant to
use what legal channels they have to pursue claims against men.
* Where women are traditionally secluded, they may not be al-
lowed to work in the fields, gather for training, or travel to
markets; in some places, women must get a male relative's
permission even to seek emergency health care.
In other words, because of deficits in education, poor health, interrup-
tions for childbearing, or laws and regulations, many women have
more difficulty earning money or breaking into the formal sector.
When such problems combine to inhibit women's productive po-
tential and earning capacity, a vicious circle results: women produce
and earn less, so parents invest less in education and health care for
their daughters, who will, as a result, also produce and earn less. The
daughters will also lack some of the skills and resources they need to
care for their own families. The result is a loss of welfare, not only in
forgone production and income, but also for society. Fertility rates
may remain high, children's health may suffer, and the natural re-
sources that women often manage-including land, fuelwood, and
water-may not be used well.
Intervention to assist women will thus also promote economic
performance, family welfare, alleviation of poverty, and slower pop-
ulation growth. Indeed, intervention is justified on grounds of equity
alone. In addressing the obstacles facing women, it is necessary to be
sensitive to the role of culture. Governments must consider how best
to realize women's economic potential within their own sociocultural
contexts, and they should consult with women's groups and nongov-
ernmental organizations when setting priorities and designing pro-
grams.
The problems women have in realizing their economic potential
must be addressed with a wide range of measures. A few areas,
however, are already emerging as keys to success. In the long run, the
greatest effect is likely to come from investment in human capital-in
education and in health and family planning. In the short run, the
ability of the current generation of women to earn more, and to
contribute more to their children's future earning capability, can be
improved by measures to increase women's access to resources, in-
cluding information and credit. A study from Kenya suggests that



THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT                      5
female farmers with the same access as men to productive inputs,
extension, credit, and education produce about 7 percent more per acre.
Yet several studies suggest that the average female farmer in Kenya
produces 4 to 15 percent less than the average man, which gives some
notion of the economic cost of denying female farmers the same access
to education, extension services, credit, and even land that men have.
Education
As is the case with men, educated women tend to produce and earn
more. Evidence from a variety of socioeconomic settings suggests that
the economic returns to female education (measured as proportional
increases in wages) are substantial and comparable to those to male
education. Moreover, the influence of the mother's education on
family health and family size is great-greater than that of the father's
education. Maternal education may also have a greater effect on
children's learning.
Girls' primary school enrollment rates are lower than boys' in
almost all regions. This difference is greatest in South Asia, the Middle
East, and Africa. In spite of the benefits to society of female education,
there may be disparity at the household level between who pays and
who benefits: parents may be willing to invest less (in fees, clothing,
books and other supplies, and labor forgone) in their daughters'
education because the benefits go primarily to the daughters when
they mature and to the daughters' children. In addition, parents may
be more reluctant to send girls to distant schools or to schools that
lack privacy or have mostly male teachers. Even where primary
enrollment rates are more nearly equal, gender-related differences
often show up at the secondary or postsecondary levels of education,
and such differences often appear in specialized fields (for example,
fewer girls enter scientific and technical fields). In addition to improv-
ing the quality of education, which can build demand, promising
measures to increase female enrollment and retention include:
* recruiting and training more female teachers, especially from
their own communities
* establishing more community-based (less distant) schools
* scheduling classes more flexibly with respect to hours, days, and
seasons



6                                       INTRODUCT1ON AND SUMMARY
* providing greater privacy and safety for girls and female teach-
ers-or even, where necessary, establishing girls' schools (with-
out sacrificing quality)
* improving the quality of schooling and encouraging parents to
let girls attend
* waiving fees or providing scholarships for girls.
Health and Family Planning
Improved health not only reduces the toll of morbidity and mortality
on women but increases their economic prospects. Moreover, society
benefits from improved health and lower birthrates. During the re-
productive years, women face special health needs, especially in
circumstances in which they bear many children, are malnourished,
or suffer from chronic diseases such as malaria. In many places, a
fourth or more of all deaths of women of childbearing age are associ-
ated with pregnancy and childbirth. The probability of dying in
pregnancy is fifty to one hundred times greater in many developing
countries than in industrial countries. Because of multiple pregnan-
cies, the lifetime risk that a woman will die in pregnancy-primarily
from infection, hemorrhage, toxemia, obstructed labor, or primitive
(usually illegal) abortion-may reach one in twenty. Thus health
measures of particular relevance to women include:
*providing better services at the community level and improving
referral to health facilities at the next-highest level
* delivering family planning services, including a variety of meth-
ods to meet the needs of couples who wish to delay the onset of
childbearing, space births, or end childbearing when they have
the number of children they wish
• providing prenatal care to improve both maternal and child
health and nutrition and to identify high-risk pregnancies in
time to help both mother and child
- more effectively assisting with normal and high-risk childbirth
X combatting anemia with improved nutrition and iron supple-
ments.
Agricultural Extension
Extension services are traditionally directed to men, even where
women clearly perform much of the farm work and make many of
the farming decisions. A few programs, particularly in Africa, are



THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT                    7
pioneering in providing extension to women as well as men, not
through separate programs but by adjusting existing services. Prom-
ising strategies include:
* designing programs with an awareness of female farmers' issues
(the crops or animals for which women are responsible and the
tasks women perform)
* recruiting and deploying more female extension agents
* working more with groups of, say, fifteen to twenty farmers,
which may be particularly effective for women, who may be
more accustomed to working together in such groups than are
men
* encouraging women to comment on programs and giving them
information.
Credit
Women lack access to credit because of tradition or because they lack
education or collateral. Very poor women in Bangladesh who were
allowed to borrow for the first time (at market interest rates) increased
their incomes by half; they repaid almost all their loans on time; and
they improved their children's attendance in school and increased
their own practice of family planning. Yet few credit programs meet
women's needs. Special measures can help channel credit to women,
but it is worth noting that, since women often pay exorbitant interest
in the informal credit sector, these measures need not include subsi-
dizing interest rates below the levels prevailing in the formal credit
market. Promising measures include:
* providing credit to groups of women, relying on group guaran-
tees and peer pressure to repay instead of asset-based collateral
* lending small amounts for cash-earning activities chosen by the
borrower and allowing gradual repayment in small amounts
* encouraging savings and letting them serve as collateral for
loans
* providing training and administrative support to help women
handle money and bureaucratic requirements.
Other Measures
The areas just noted are those in which investment most obviously
pays off by increasing the productivity of women. This is not to say,



8                                     INTRODUCTON AND SUMMARY
however, that other areas should be ignored. For example, women
often spend hours of drudgery every day in fetching wood and water
and in cooking. Measures to free more of their time for other activities
would thus be of value. Such measures include those of general
benefit, such as investment in water supplies and rural roads, and
those likely to be of particular benefit to women, such as development
of alternative fuels and local woodlots, promotion of more efficient
stoves, and provision of child care. Also promising are the prospects
for increasing female labor force participation. As economies ad-
vance, women's labor force participation tends to increase, but many
studies show that most women work in lower-paying fields. In iden-
tifying ways of improving women's prospects for employment, it is
important to distinguish disadvantage in education or the demands
of child care from legal or regulatory discrimination. This subject
needs to be pursued, particularly in parts of East Asia and Latin
America and the Caribbean.
The World Bank's Response
In 1975, at the start of the United Nations Decade for Women, the
World Bank created the post of adviser on women in development to
increase attention to women in the Bank's activities. The initial focus
was on making Bank staff more sensitive to the need for greater efforts
on behalf of women and on preparing a report, Recognizing the "Invis-
ible" Woman in Development, which was published by the Bank in 1979.
The Bank also participated in United Nations conferences during the
Decade for Women.
At the end of the Decade for Women, the Bank assessed its strategy
with regard to women in development and considered ways to in-
crease attention to these issues in policymaking and lending. The
conclusion was that many Bank staff had been convinced of the
importance of allowing more opportunity for women, but most were
unsure how to go about it or what the operational priorities ought to
be. Consultations with other donors, nongovernmental organiza-
tions, and governments revealed similar situations in many develop-
ing countries and donor agencies.
In 1987 the Bank embarked on a more focused and ambitious
initiative to assist women in the developing world, by establishing a
Women in Development Division, identifying women in develop-



THE WORLD BANK'S RESPONSE                               9
ment as one of the Bank's "special operational emphases," and, more
recently, by placing a coordinator for women in development in each
of the Bank's four regional complexes (Africa; Asia; Europe, the
Middle East, and North Africa; and Latin America and the Carib-
bean). The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and
several member governments, including the Netherlands, Norway,
and Sweden, have provided additional resources for the women in
development initiative.
The women in development initiative first involved establishing a
rationale and a conceptual framework for addressing women's issues
and compiling a portfolio of examples from the Bank's lending oper-
ations. This helped to show that efforts to address women's role in
development are practical and affordable and make economic sense.
It also established the areas in which action was most needed. Efforts
thus far include:
* reviews of the literature on women's issues and issuance of a
general guideline on what is known about how to approach
these issues in the Bank's lending operations
* the launching of research on women's agricultural productivity
in Africa (financed by the UNDP), women's access to public
services, women's education, and female employment
* publication of two country studies, Kenya: The Role of Women in
Economic Development and Women in Pakistan: An Economic and
Social Strategy (World Bank, 1989), which assess the situation of
women and offer a plan of action to expand women's opportu-
nities, and the planned publication of a similar study on
Bangladesh
* an international initiative to provide "safe motherhood" (partic-
ularly through maternal health and family planning services at
the local level) in cooperation with the World Health Organiza-
tion, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, the
UNsP, the United Nations Children's Fund, and others
* projects that include actions specifically addressed to women
* country assessments and action plans on women in develop-
ment
* economic and sectoral work
* training of staff
* efforts by the Economic Development Institute to increase the
number of female participants and to address women's issues
more effectively in its curricula.



10                                      INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
Since lending operations provide the most concrete opportunity for
the World Bank to assist women in development, the Bank assessed
the treatment of women's issues in all 442 operations approved in
fiscal 1988 and 1989. The review suggests that the women in develop-
ment initiative has begun to have some effect, at least as reflected in
stated objectives, although the real benefits must, of course, depend
on implementation. One in five operations approved in fiscal 1989
included project-specific recommendations about the role of women,
compared with only one in ten in fiscal 1988 and even fewer in earlier
years. More than one-third of all fiscal 1989 operations in Africa
included actions specifically addressed to women.
The review of lending operations revealed that activities to assist
women were, in fact, concentrated in high-priority fields, particularly
education; population, health, and nutrition; and agriculture. Some
28 percent of the education projects approved in fiscal 1988 and 44
percent of those in fiscal 1989 propose specific actions to improve
female education. Six of the eight population, health, and nutrition
projects approved in fiscal 1988 and ten of the eleven in fiscal 1989
address women's needs specifically. Of the fifty-three operations
approved in agriculture in fiscal 1989, twenty-two (sixteen in Africa)
included specific actions to help women. This compares with nine out
of fifty-six projects approved in fiscal 1988.
Progress can also be discerned in these important areas over the
longer term. Comparison of seventy-three operations in these fields
in fiscal 1988 and 1989 with a paired set of seventy-three similar
projects in the same countries approved from 1980 to 1987 reveals that
the share of operations with project-specific actions to assist women
increased from 9 percent in the earlier period to 30 percent in the later
one for agriculture operations and from 22 percent to 33 percent for
education projects. It remained at 75 percent for population, health,
and nutrition operations. In addition, some projects approved in fiscal
1988 and 1989 illustrate the possibilities for addressing women's
needs in other fields-small-scale industry, water supply, energy-
and in adjustment operations. Such projects are described in section 2.
A review by the World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department
of a sample of projects approved in the early 1980s emphasizes the
importance of effective planning (incorporating gender-disaggre-
gated data) and supervision of projects to ensure that women's needs
are taken into account. Some ongoing projects have been modified to



THE WORLD BANK'S RESPONSE                                11
give greater attention to women. For the past five years, the Opera-
tions Evaluation Department has systematically assessed projects'
effects on women in agricultural production in the course of impact
evaluations, which assess the experience and results five to ten years
after completion of a project. The evaluations show that projects that
benefited women usually had sound sociological analysis in advance,
with data disaggregated by gender and a clear target population;
well-defined objectives relating to female beneficiaries, and adequate
instruments for achieving these; suitable institutional mechanisms
and strong commitment from management; and Bank staff trained to
oversee the achievement of the objectives.
The results of a similar review of the treatment of women in
economic and sectoral work-which provides the analytical basis for
a policy dialogue with governments and for the Bank's lending and
technical assistance-are summarized in section 3. Based on a review
of the 254 internal reports on economic and sectoral work written in
fiscal 1988 and 1989, the review concludes that more of them (25
percent) discussed women's issues in some depth than in the preced-
ing eight-year period (when 19 percent of the total were deemed to
have done this). In economic and sectoral work as in lending, atten-
tion to women's issues is focused on the high-priority areas-social
services and agriculture. The same is true in country economic mem-
oranda and other internal macroeconomic reports. Examples of eco-
nomic and sectoral work addressing women's issues are included in
section 3.
In the second half of 1989, each of the Bank's country departments
began, for one or more of its client countries, a women in development
assessment and action plan. These plans, which build on the earlier
operational and analytic work that helped establish priorities, gener-
ally confirm those priorities, adapted to countries' circumstances. The
plans provide an integrated set of recommendations, covering the
principal sectors and sometimes other sectors, on how to improve
women's productivity and thereby relieve poverty and address other
development objectives. Some twenty-three such assessments are
now being prepared. As already noted, two, on Kenya and Pakistan,
were discussed with the respective governments and published
in 1989. Several others, including those on Bangladesh, India, and
Nigeria, have also been discussed with the governments, and the one
on Bangladesh is in the process of publication.



12                                     INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
The published reports-on countries with disparate cultures and
economic circumstances-focus on increasing women's productivity,
to help women but also to promote economic efficiency, reduce
poverty, improve children's health and learning, and bring down
birthrates. The reports note the "double burden" on women of pro-
duction and reproduction. They stress the necessity of education and
health care for girls, particularly where girls have far less opportunity
than boys. These reports also focus on the majority of women, who
work as farmers, entrepreneurs, and laborers, and they give less
attention to women in higher-paying occupations. (This is a strategic
decision that will be reconsidered periodically.) They call for changes
in policy and for investments to expand female access to education,
basic health and family planning services, and programs (such as
agricultural extension and credit) that will enable women, particu-
larly the poor, to produce and earn more. They also identify ways to
make these services more accessible and affordable. They suggest
bringing services physically closer to women and girls. This means
organizing service networks so that many distribution points offer at
least the basics (such as one-room schoolhouses, community health
posts, and outreach workers), rather than fewer, more centralized
distribution points offering more comprehensive services but requir-
ing more travel time. The studies suggest ways to involve communi-
ties in planning, delivering, and financing services. They recommend
including more women as providers of services and managers of
programs-for example, in teaching, family planning, extension, and
credit. They recommend strengthening women's groups and working
with them as contact points to receive services and provide advice on
women's needs. Such steps can be cost-effective not only in helping
women but also in addressing broader objectives.
Future Directions
In the near future, the Bank expects to give attention to women's
issues in the high-priority areas just identified: female education,
family planning and other reproductive health subjects, agricultural
extension, and credit for female farmers and small-scale entrepre-
neurs. It will also increase its attention to women's participation in
the labor force. Over the next year or so, particular emphasis will be
given to the following activities:



FUTURE DIRECTIONS                                       13
• expansion of policy work and research, with priority given to the
development of guidelines on cost-effective interventions in
specific fields, reflecting the best available operational experi-
ence
* setting an agenda for research to support policy formulation,
including efforts to collect data disaggregated by gender, to
strengthen the analytical foundation for efforts to improve
women's opportunities
* more explicit attention to women's issues in the policy dialogue
with governments
* implementation of the women in development assessments and
action plans with more attention to assessing government ac-
tions to address women's issues and actual results
* inclusion of specific efforts in the Bank's operations to test,
monitor, and evaluate promising programs for women, espe-
cially in the high-priority areas
* increased training of staff on the role of women in development.
In conclusion, policymakers need to do more to involve women in
the process of development in order to make more rapid progress in
improving economic performance, relieving poverty, and slowing
population growth. Such measures will also improve equity for the
population as a whole. The steps outlined in this report will enable
the World Bank to contribute more effectively to this effort.



2
Attention to Women
in Lending Operations
To determine how World Bank lending operations address women's
issues, Bank staff reviewed internal project documents-the staff ap-
praisal reports or president's reports for all new operations approved in
fiscal 1988 and 1989. Since most fiscal 1988 operations had been prepared
by the time the women in development initiative was effectively
launched, the initiative could have only a marginal effect on them, but
fiscal 1989 operations could take the initiative fully into account.
The review suggests that the women in development initiative has
begun to have some effect. One in five operations approved in fiscal
1989 included project-specific recommendations relating to women-
compared with only one in ten in fiscal 1988 and fewer in earlier years.
Six percent of the fiscal 1988 operations and 15 percent of the fiscal
1989 operations are judged to have the potential for substantial effect
on women's well-being.
Several points should be kept in mind when considering these
findings. First, staff appraisal reports and president's reports repre-
sent intentions-effort will be required to implement the projects
effectively. Second, not all operations in all sectors are equally impor-
tant for actions related to women. Operations in the area of human
resources-education and population, health, and nutrition-are of
prime importance. Operations to alleviate poverty and adjustment
lending are also important, as is lending in agriculture, the field in
which most women in the developing world are employed. It is
reasonable to expect many lending operations in these areas to ad-
dress women's issues.
Nonetheless, some operations in other fields may also have consider-
able effect on women-for example, in the development of entrepre-
neurship and credit opportunities and in the areas of water supply and
sanitation, household energy, rural transport, and urban development.
Some operations in these fields are already addressing women's needs.
14



PROJECTS IN HIGH-PRIORITY FIELDS                           15
Projects in High-Priority Fields
The influence of the women in development initiative is most evident
in education, in population, health, and nutrition, and in agriculture.
Education
Improving female education is crucial, and more projects now ad-
dress the particular constraints on increasing girls' enrollment. Five
of the eighteen education projects approved in fiscal 1988 and seven
of the sixteen in fiscal 1989 propose specific actions to help girls and
women. These include efforts to hire and train more female teachers,
provide flexible schedules and schools closer to home, offer separate
lavatories or housing for female students and faculty, improve text-
books by removing gender bias, establish special incentives to in-
crease female enrollment and reduce drop-out rates, and expand
vocational training for girls. Notable examples of such projects come
from some of the countries where culture, geography, and economic
conditions pose the greatest challenge (box 1).
Expanding female access to basic education is especially important,
and six of the fifteen operations in primary and secondary education
in fiscal 1988 and 1989 include specific actions to improve girls'
participation. Higher education and training can help women move
into the formal labor force; several projects include specific efforts to
improve women's access.
Population, Health, and Nutrition
In lending for population, health, and nutrition, the Bank mainly
supports primary health care. Women are the principal users of basic
health services, mainly because they seek help for their children.
Women are also the primary users of family planning services. It is
natural, therefore, to expect population, health, and nutrition opera-
tions to address women's issues. Six of the eight projects approved in
fiscal 1988 and ten of the eleven in fiscal 1989 do address such basic
matters as family planning, nutrition for mothers and children, and
maternal and child health care (box 2). The intent of most projects is
to bring about a greater variety and better quality of services. Many
also help to bring services closer to users. More women are being



16                                 ATTENTION TO WOMEN IN LENDING OPERATIONS
trained and employed as health care providers, especially at the local
level, where women can often work more effectively with female
clients. The few population, health, and nutrition projects that do not
specifically address women fall into such fields as malaria control or
the financing of health care systems-but even there some recent
projects identify and address women's needs.
Box 1. Education and Training for Women
Bhutan: Primary Education (fiscal 1988). Provision of more local schools and
"extended classrooms" will improve female access to schooling in the difficult
terrain of Bhutan. A study will examine the reasons for varying female enroll-
ment and retention rates and achievement; this will facilitate further improve-
ments in primary education under a follow-up project.
Morocco: Rural Primary Education (fiscal 1989). To increase rural girls'
school attendance, the project will provide more local schools, cheaper text-
books, and various incentives. Promotional campaigns will stress female educa-
tion. Earlier enrollment of girls (at age five or six) will be encouraged, and child
care for younger siblings will be provided. Girls will have priority for boarding
in lower secondary schools. Teaching materials will be improved to reflect the
circumstances of women in the community.
India:Vocational Training(fiscal 1989). The projectstrengthens the National
Vocational Training System by upgrading 400 industrial training institutes and
improving planning and management in the training system. Women's partici-
pation will receive particular attention. The project will increase by 9,000 a year
the number of women the system can train for twenty-two occupations in the
modern sector. Eighteen new training programs for trades in nontraditional
areas will be introduced. The project finances training for women instructors in
sixteen trades and provides four new women's regional vocational training
institutes.
Turkey: Second Industrial Training (fiscal 1988). The project supports the
development of a countrywide system of higher-level technicians' training for
occupations in industry and tourism. It will finance training programs in occu-
pations particularly attractive to women (the programs would have an estimated
80 percent female enrollment) such as commercial studies, administrative ser-
vices, financial administration, and tourism, to increase women's employment
in parts of the economy with greater potential for growth.
Nepal: Engineering Education (fiscal 1989). The project will strengthen the
Institute of Engineering of Tribhuvan University, where female enrollment has
been only about 6 percent. It provides for the construction of separate hostel
facilities for women. In particular, new advanced programs in architecture, elec-
tronics, and rural planning are expected to attract women. International and local
faculty fellowships will be provided, with preference given to female faculty.



PROJECTS IN HIGH-PRIORIY FIELDS                                       17
Box 2. Population, Health, and Nutrition for Women
China: Integrated Regional Health Development (fiscal 1989). The project
supports improvements in the quality of health service for 10 million to 12
million people. It includes a component for strengthening diagnosis and treat-
ment in the area of maternal and child health. Health education will be incorpo-
rated into maternal and child health care, and workers in this area will receive
feedback on the causes of infant and maternal deaths. The detection of high-risk
pregnancies will be improved, as will referral services, and mechanisms will be
developed to monitor growth of preschool- and school-age children. Extension
training will upgrade the skills of midwives and staff at village health centers;
health workers will be trained to assess pregnancy risks, and hospital staff who
attend mothers and children will learn to handle such problems as hemorrhage
and infection.
Ethiopia: Family Health (fiscal 1988). The project will improve access to
and the quality of health care in the Shewa region, with emphasis on women
and young children. Forty-five percent of the children will be immunized
against communicable disease, 45 percent of mothers will be taught to recog-
nize and treat dehydration, 50 percent of pregnant women will receive ante-
and postnatal care (including tetanus immunization and vitamin and mineral
supplements), and 17 percent of eligible women are expected to practice
contraception (as compared with the present 2 percent). Innovations to be
tested, and possibly replicated nationwide, include "maternity villages" for
women with high-risk pregnancies; delivery of basic services (including
contraception) by community health workers; and measures to improve re-
gional-level management.
India: Fifth (Bombay and Madras) Population (fiscal 1988). The project is
designed to deliver an affordable package of family planning services and other
high-priority welfare interventions in urban slums. It will also develop systems
for outreach, management, and supervision that could be replicated elsewhere.
It will directly benefit some 1.6 million women and 0.9 million children. High-
priority interventions will include better family planning, prenatal care, identi-
fication of and institutional delivery for all high-risk pregnancies, and
immunizations.
Kenya: Thiird Population (fiscal 1988). The project helps the National Council
for Population and Development to strengthen Kenya's population program,
promote demand for family planning services, and increase the supply of such
services. It mobilizes and coordinates the resources of the government and of
nongovernmental organizations, in which women play a leading role in
designing and delivering family planning services. The project supports organi-
zations such as KANU/Maendeleo ya Wanawake (the national women's organi-
zation), the Family Planning Association of Kenya, and the National Council of
Churches in delivering extensive family planning services and health care at the
community level, often through women's groups.



18                          ATTENTION TO WOMEN IN LENDING OPERATIONS
Agriculture
Throughout the developing world, women play an important role in
agriculture-in crop production, livestock management, forestry,
fisheries, and processing and marketing. An increasing proportion of
the Bank's agricultural operations seeks explicitly to improve female
farmers' access to services and markets and to raise their productivity.
Of the fifty-three operations approved in fiscal 1989, twenty-two
(sixteen in Africa) included specific actions addressing women's is-
sues, an increase from the nine (out of fifty-six) projects approved in
fiscal 1988.
Measures to help women are found primarily in extension opera-
tions and in multicomponent agricultural services and rural develop-
ment operations (box 3). Various operations consider female farmers'
specific needs, work with women's groups in designing programs
and delivering extension services and credit, increase training and
deployment of women as extension agents and supervisors, and
provide more production and processing technology geared to female
farmers. Since women's lack of legal title to land or other assets that
could be used as collateral limits their access to institutional credit,
efforts are under way to employ group guarantees of repayment and
to allow the use of savings as collateral. Other operations seek to
encourage cooking methods that save time and reduce fuel consump-
tion and to change land tenure to protect the rights of women. Several
projects support research on production and processing technologies
that provide employment for women and increase their productivity
on the farm and in the home. In other areas of agriculture, some recent
projects demonstrate what can be done (box 4).
Progress in High-Priority Fields
Before 1988 Bank operations that specifically addressed women in
development were mostly in agriculture, education, and population,
health, and nutrition. To evaluate progress over a longer period in
these important areas, Bank staff compared seventy-three operations
approved in fiscal 1988 and 1989 with a paired set of seventy-three
similar projects in the same countries, approved between 1980 and
1987 (forty-seven project pairs in agriculture, eighteen in education,
and eight in population, health, and nutrition). This comparison



PROGRESS IN HIGH-PRIORITY FIELDS                                         19
Box 3. Agricultural Services for Women
China: Shandong Agricultural Development (fiscal 1989). The project seeks
to increase rural incomes through the development of irrigation systems, live-
stock production, and mariculture. One third of the project-the upgrading of
small livestock production and processing-is targeted mainly to women. Rear-
ing of small livestock is widespread and mainly a female occupation (almost
100,000 women in the target area maintain small animals), but levels of technol-
ogy and investment are low. The project will involve training and deploying 245
female extension workers and 20,000 female village technicians to improve
access to veterinary and extension services for women. About 3,200 women will
find jobs in new agricultural processing activities and about 3,800 in processing
maricultural products.
Guinea: National Agricultural Extension and Researcih (fiscal 1989). Using
the training and visit method of extension, the project gives special emphasis to
reaching female farmers. Women will be employed in key positions at headquar-
ters and in prefectures. Extension agents will meet with women's groups, discuss
the most important needs, provide custom-made messages, and support the
development of cooperatives.
Morocco: National Agricultural Credit (fiscal 1989). The project supports
private investment in agriculture and associated activities, with particular atten-
tion to areas in which women are active. The National Agricultural Credit Bank
has experience lending to women, and its female borrowers are good repayers.
The project will, among other things, provide credit to women and assist in
developing promising production and processing activities. Savings and loan
packages for rural women will be provided for activities with particular potential
for combining farm and nonfarm activities.
Nigeria: Multistate Agricultural Development Project 11 (fiscal 1989). The
project will provide agricultural services directly to women in three states, with
programs tailored to specific zones. As part of the regular extension service,
retrained experts in home economics will address the technical needs of female
farmers, and the number of female extension agents will be increased. Agricul-
tural processing will receive special attention, to increase value added, generate
income for women, improve nutrition, reduce drudgery, and free female labor
forother tasks. Improved tools and implements will be sold through government
outlets and retailers, and credit will be provided through the Cooperative
Financing Agencies.
Rwanda: Agricultural Services (fiscal 1989). To increase the number of
women receiving agricultural services, extension agents and husbands of female
farmers will be made more aware of female farmers' needs, women's groups will
serve as contact points, advice will be offered on areas of special interest to
women (such as horticulture, livestock, and nutrition), and women's coopera-
tives will be helped to obtain credit.



20                                AlTENTION TO WOMEN IN LENDING OPERATIONS
confirms that progress is being made. The share of operations with
project-specific actions addressed to women increased from 9 percent
in 1980-87 to 30 percent in fiscal 1988 and 1989 for agriculture opera-
tions and from 22 percent to 33 percent for education projects. The
share remained at 75 percent for population, health, and nutrition
operations. Moreover, some ongoing Bank projects have been modi-
fied to give greater attention to women's issues (box 5).
Box 4. Women in Agricultural Specialties
India:National Sericulture (fiscal 1989). Women provide about 60 percent of
the total labor input in mulberry cultivation, silkworm rearing, and raw silk
production, and they dominate two critical aspects of sericulture: silkworm
rearingand cocoon reeling. The project includes a varietyof measures to improve
women's working conditions, reduce health hazards, and improve their ability
to earn and control income from sericulture; it will affect women in some
5 million households. It emphasizes extension advice for women and provides
for more female subject matter specialists and extension agents. It promotes
women's access to cocoon markets, credit, advanced technology, and technical
training, and it will increase the employment of women in sericulture agencies.
The project also provides direct support to nongovernmental organizations and
women's groups promoting the participation of women and other underprivi-
leged groups in sericulture.
Nepal: Hill Community Forestry (fiscal 1989). The formation of forest user
groups will strengthen the management of forest resources at the community
level and improve local access to fuelwood and fodder, particularly for women.
Users' preferences, especially those of women who critically depend on forest
products, will be emphasized in planting and in planning for use of wood. A
study covering women's role in the use of forest products will be undertaken.
Cameroon: Livestock Sector Development (fiscal 1989). The project will
promote the participation of women through increased emphasis on livestock
and by taking into account women's multiple roles in livestock production. The
project will strengthen 250 producers' associations, with particular attention
paid to the remunerative activities of women. Loans for livestock production
and services will be made available to women, and a female project adviser will
be sent into the field.
Tanzania: Cashew and Coconut Tree Crop (fiscal 1989). The project will
support research on women in cashew production, with a full analysis of
incentives and constraints. It will provide extension services and recruit female
extension staff, use marketing advisers to train female traders, identify legal and
institutional constraints on women's access to trading credit, and improve
conditions and incentives so more women can engage in cashew processing,
including home processing of by-products.



ACTIVITY IN OTHER FIELDS                                           21
In general, experience from earlier projects suggests that projects
benefiting women usually had good sociological analysis during
planning, with gender-disaggregated data and key target groups
identified; well-defined objectives relating to women beneficiaries
and well-designed ways to reach these women; suitable institutional
mechanisms and strong commitment by management; and Bank staff
trained to oversee these aspects.
Activity in Other Fields
In other areas-such as industry, energy, transport, urban develop-
ment, and water and sanitation-women's specific role is less obvi-
ous. Still, women own and operate small industrial and trading
enterprises, work in industry, use urban services, need transport,
fetch and use water, and require access to sources of energy. Some
recent projects in these fields illustrate possibilities for addressing
women's needs (boxes 6 and 7). Examples are found in countries with
highly disparate social and economic circumstances, which suggests
that promising strategies can be developed as women's roles are
better understood.
Three of the twelve fiscal 1989 structural adjustment operations,
and two of eight in fiscal 1988, set some conditions or included some
actions to help women contribute to macroeconomic adjustment or to
Box 5. Projects Modified to Address Women's Concerns
Kenya: National Agricultural Extension (fiscal 1983). The project was ex-
tended and refocused in 1987 so that extension services would be delivered to
female farmers. Now more than half of all farmers regularly contacted by
extension workers are women, and women's groups are proving to be particu-
larly effective as contact points for extension messages.
Nigeria: Multistate Agricultural Development Project I (fiscal 1986). The
project has been modified during implementation to strengthen its impact. In
Imo State, almost 20 percent of extension workers are now women, home
economists have been upgraded to become subject matter specialists, and exten-
sion messages now cover crops usually managed by women and other farming
activities primarily of interest to women. About 40 percent of farmers contacted
in Imo State are women, and women's groups have become very effectivecontact
points for the delivery of extension services and agricultural inputs.



22                                 ATTENTION TO WOMEN IN LENDING OPERATIONS
Box 6. Women and Natural Resources
Mexico: Women, Water, andDevelopnient (fiscal 1989). Developed afterlocal
meetings with women, the project combines activity in the areas of water supply
and sanitation with support for women's economic activities. It will provide
water and sanitation services to 200 low-income communities in rural and
peri-urban areas to improve health and to free women from the chore of fetching
water. Credit will be extended to women to finance such activities as producing
greenhouse flowers, fish farming, sewing, and poultry raising.
Niger: Energy (fiscal 1988). The project's household energy component di-
rectly benefits women, notably through its emphasis on stoves fueled by wood,
kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas. Reductions in the tax on kerosene and
kerosene stoves will induce people to use less fuelwood. A national committee
on improved stoves and household energy, chaired by the national women's
association, has been established by the government to monitor activities.
Box 7. Credit and Entrepreneurship
The Gambia: Enterprise Development (fiscal 1989). Women account for
nearly half of the employment in the informal sector but are poorly represented
in formal small and medium-size enterprises. Limited access to business train-
ing, support services, and credit is a key constraint. To address some of these
difficulties, the project will provide training, some of it specifically for women
entrepreneurs, in business finance and project preparation and appraisal. Finan-
cial and logistical support will be given to the Gambian Women's Finance
Company, which manages a loan guarantee fund for female entrepreneurs, so
that it can provide technical assistance in finance and management. (This fund
is financed by contributions frombusinesses and matching funds from Women's
World Banking, an international nongovernmental organization that promotes
bankingservices forwomen.) A special line of creditis earmarked forthe projects
of female entrepreneurs. A survey will identify other assistance that could be
provided under this project or elsewhere.
Ghana: Private Small and Medium-Size Enterprise Development (fiscal
1989). The principal objective of the project is to support private small and
medium-size enterprise development. Among other things, the project will
channel.resources to Women's World Banking (Ghana) to provide more techni-
cal assistance and entrepreneurial training for female entrepreneurs and to
improve their access to institutional credit.



CONCLUSION                                                         23
Box 8. Macroeconomic Adjustment Operations
Venezuela: Structural Adjustment (fiscal 1989). The loan will support social
action, especially measures intended to meet the health and nutritional needs of
highly vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, infants, and preschoolers.
Bolivia: Second Emergency Social Fund (fiscal 1988). Against the backdrop
of economic depression and fiscal austerity measures, the Emergency Social
Fund supports small-scale employment and income-generating activities and
provides social assistance targeted to the rural poor, those dislocated by the
collapse of the mining industry, pregnant and nursing women, and preschool
children. The operation specifically addresses women's economic issues
through subprojects that link health and nutritional services with credit and
management training. Pilot operations will test ways to provide women with
working capital for production and retailing enterprises. Women's coopera-
tives are given special emphasis. Subprojects provide women with training in
construction and maintenance of housing and of water and sewerage systems.
High-priority assistance to pregnant and nursing women and infants includes
food supplements, education about nutrition, construction and operation of
day care centers and health posts, supplies for oral rehydration, and pharma-
ceuticals.
improve their future productivity. Measures supported include a
nutrition program for pregnant and nursing women, measures to
improve educational opportunities for girls in rural areas, and efforts
to increase the productivity of rural women. Two social sector adjust-
ment operations included actions specifically intended to help
women during adjustment, by improving health care for women and
children, training women in construction, encouraging contractors
not to discriminate against women in employment and pay, and
targeting credit to women (box 8).
Conclusion
The World Bank's lending operations are giving increased attention to
the role of women in development. It is too soon to judge results, but
there is evidence of progress in identifying women's issues and in
recommending specific actions, and in placing certain conditions on
loans. A larger proportion of fiscal 1989 operations addressed women's
concerns and included specific actions or conditions than ever before.



3
Attention to Women
in Economic and Sectoral Work
Economic and sectoral work reports provide the analytical basis
for an informed policy dialogue with borrowers and for the
Bank's lending and technical assistance. Some 254 economic and
sectoral reports prepared during fiscal 1988 and 1989 were re-
viewed for attention to women's issues in their analysis and in
their recommendations about policy. These included all 147
completed economic and sectoral work reports plus 107 in ad-
vanced draft stage.
Of the reports prepared during fiscal 1988 and 1989, 25 percent
addressed women's issues in some detail. In comparison, 19 percent
of reports in a sample covering the years 1980-87 addressed women's
issues. There was little change from fiscal 1988 to 1989 in the aggregate
performance.
Women's issues received attention primarily in reports on popula-
tion, health, and nutrition, education, and agriculture, and in country
economic memoranda and other macroeconomic reports that covered
these areas. Reports addressing women's concerns in an economic
context generally dealt with poverty or the creation of employment.
Ten of the thirteen reports on population, health, and nutrition
treated women's issues in detail. Seven of the fourteen reports
on education paid substantial attention to women's concerns. So
did seven of the eight reports dealing with a broad range of
social services, 28 percent of the macroeconomic reports and
country economic memoranda, and 30 percent of the reports on
agriculture.
Six reports treating women's issues in detail emerged from work in
fields other than these: four dealt with the administration and financ-
ing of development activities, one with rural water, health, and sani-
tation, and one with reconstruction.
24



INCORPORATING WOMEN'S CONCERNS                                      25
Incorporating Women's Concerns
Economic and sectoral reports that treat the subject of women in
development in some depth and offer policy recommendations fall
into three main categories:
* Those which consider women's issues solely in the context of
social services (education and population, health, and nutrition);
this includes most reports on social services and a number of
country economic memoranda.
* Those which also consider women's concerns in the context of
poverty or employment analysis, or both; several reports on
social services, country economic memoranda, and other macro-
economic reports are in this group, as are four reports on the
administration and financing of development.
* Those which consider women's issues in the context of the main
economic activities; this includes ten agriculture reports and a
few country economic memoranda.
Most reports on social services discuss women's issues in the
context of family planning, maternal and child health care, safe moth-
erhood, nutrition, and school enrollment. Several suggest specif-
ic steps to provide better access for women and girls (case studies 1
and 2).
The second category of reports paying specific attention to women
in development covers poverty and employment. The report on social
Case Study 1. Nigeria: Girls' Education
A 1989World Bank internal report analyzes genderdifferences in primary school
enrollment and theircauses (including school fees). The report notes that Nigeria
has created a Women's Education Unit and organized conferences on women's
participation in science, mathematics, and technology courses. Kaduna State
allows young married women one year's maternity leave from school. Most
states offer nonformal education for women. The Universal Primary Education
drive is changing attitudes toward female education. The share of female teach-
ers in primary schools is rising, and women make up half of the students in
teacher training colleges. The report recommends media campaigns and re-
search on education of women, nomads, and gifted children.



26                       ATrENTION TO WOMEN IN ECONOMIC AND SECTORAL WORK
Case Study 2. Ghana: Policy on Population, Health, and Nutrition
The HealthMinistry of Ghana should consider introducinga checklist to identify
pregnant women who should deliver under medical supervision, according to
a 1989 internal Bank review of the country's policy on population, health, and
nutrition. Women's secondary education being the most important factor in
contraceptive use, the report recommends that the Education Ministry draw up
action plans to have more girls complete primary school and enroll in secondary
school. Recommended medium-term reforms include new channels for the
delivery of services, such as private midwives and doctors, maternity homes,
missions, and major employers in the public and private sectors. Villages can be
reached by building on the social marketing program for contraceptives. Use of
the services of private midwives should be encouraged; most of Ghana's 282
private midwives currently practice in the principal urban areas, and they may
lack some equipment and facilities for tests. The report recommends that mid-
wives offer a wider range, of services in government facilities and that they assist
in prenatal clinics.
programs and poverty in Colombia, for instance, analyzes govern-
ment-run social programs that concern women; it discusses an inno-
vative community-based day care program that addresses child care,
nutritional needs, and health monitoring for preschoolers while giv-
ing poor mothers the opportunity to obtain employment or training
(case study 3). A project featuring an expansion of this day care
program has recently been appraised. The report on reconstruction in
Sri Lanka recommends measures to provide employment for women
in the reconstruction of housing. The 1989 country economic memo-
randum on India treats female poverty, illiteracy, and health and
recommends measures to help poor women find employment. The
review of Jamaica's social welfare program analyzes female poverty
and government programs to address it (case study 4). The report on
employment in Pakistan recommends ways to increase women's
income (case study 5). Many reports on strategies to alleviate poverty
emphasize the need to equip women to help their families escape
poverty (case studies 6 and 7).
The four reports that address the role of women in development in
the context of administration and financing are a diverse group. The
review of public expenditure in Bangladesh, which is concerned with



INCORPORATING WOMEN'S CONCERNS                                     27
Case Study 3. Colombia: Community-Based Day Care
The government's program of establishing children's welfare centers in local
homes, modeled on pilots run by nongovernmental organizations, provides
community-based day care, nutritional support, and health monitoring for about
400,000 preschoolers in poor urban areas. This lets the mothers work outside the
home, which is especially important for single mothers because female-headed
households are among the poorest. The 1988 Bank report further notes that
volunteer "community mothers," chosen by the community, provide the day
care in their homes. The agency implementing the program provides the com-
munity mothers with orientation, helps them obtain loans to upgrade their
homes, supplies essential furniture and equipment, and pays them a small fee.
The program seeks to meet 80 percent of the children's nutritional needs; food
is obtained at wholesale prices through community purchase, funded by the
program and a small parental contribution, and through the program's direct
allocations of a nutritional supplement.
Case Study 4. Jamaica: Women's Employment
About 36 percent of households in Jamaica are headed by women. Unemploy-
ment among these women is three times that of male heads of household, and
more than half of the poorest 30 percent of households are female-headed.
Shortages of child care and credit are significant problems. Teenage pregnancies
are a primary cause of dropping out of school. Human Employment and
Resource Training is a government program targeted to groups with high
unemployment. According to the 1988 Bank review of the program, women
predominate among its beneficiaries. It includes residential training for employ-
ment in hotels, commerce, construction, textiles, and data processing; on-the-job
training; a no-collateral small credit scheme and training for business ventures
in the informal sector; and a program for small farmers combining extension,
credit, and land reform.
the rural health care system, notes that to be cost-effective, public
programs must be targeted more at needy women and children (case
study 8). The report on public expenditure for social programs in
Brazil discusses using nongovernmental organizations to reach poor
mothers and female-headed households (case study 9). The review of
public expenditure in Zambia recommends better targeting of food



28                        A1TENTION TO WOMEN IN ECONOMIC AND SECTORAL WORK
Case Study 5. Pakistan: Women's Employment
Official female employment rates in Pakistan are implausibly low, according to
a 1989 internal Bank report. The largest unrecognized group of female workers
is rural women working at home and on family farms. Traditions limiting
women to work at home and rising demand for labor are driving up rural wages.
Women are an important target group for employment policy, on grounds of
equity and because constraining their access to the wage labor market creates
significant inefficiency in the economy. Training programs are urged for women,
youths, and the urban poor. The report notes that employing female instructors
to train women close to home will be important, as will effective gearing of
training to prospects for employment.
Case Study 6. Mexico: Rural Women's Employment
Some 87 percent of rural women work in agriculture, and 24 percent manage a
microenterprise, a 1989 internal study by the Bank found.Some 51 percent would
like to manage an enterprise, but only 11 percent have the start-up capital. Some
states have initiated programs to provide credit to women for small-scale
enterprises or assistance in improving agricultural production, and the Inte-
grated Rural Development Districts deploy social workers to assist women. The
report suggests increased emphasis on making extension services accessible to
women, expansion of women's activities in the Integrated Rural Development
Districts, employment of more female staff, identification of special activities in
which women would be encouraged to take the lead (such as water supply, small
enterprises, group enterprises, and agriculture), and targeting the health and
nutrition components of rural development programs specifically to women.
security programs to the most vulnerable, such as children and nurs-
ing mothers. The report on the role of communes in development in
Rwanda urges more emphasis on female farmers in the effort to attain
food security and recommends a range of measures to assist female
farmers (case study 10).
Examples of reports that discuss women in agriculture or private
enterprise are those on rural credit in Indonesia (case study 11),
agricultural cooperatives in Zimbabwe (case study 12), and agricul-
tural extension in India (case study 13). These reports recognize
women as economic agents and recommend specific measures to



INCORPORATING WOMEN'S CONCERNS                                       29
Case Study 7. Bangladesh: Women and Poverty
Women, who constitute many of the poor in Bangladesh, predominate among
the assetless and unemployed. Heavy floods have further reduced their income-
earning opportunities because of severe loss of livestock, housing, and vegetable
crops. The Bank's 1989 report recommends greater urgency in expanding pro-
grams to alleviate poverty. The system for distribution of food has already been
improved. The report recommends closer cooperation with nongovernmental
organizations that provide income-generating opportunities and services, in-
cluding training, health care, credit, and education, to poor women. Credit
programs that reach poor women should be expanded, and successful pilot
programs using innovative methods should be considered for replication. The
causes of low female school enrollment need comprehensive review.
Case Study 8. Bangladesh: Health Care and Public Expenditure
Supply-based management of rural health care is yielding diminishing returns,
a 1989 Bank review found, and effective demand needs to be increased. An
important step is to improve awareness of maternal and child health care. Only
16 percent of rural women receive any prenatal care, and only 5 percent of rural
children under the age of one year are immunized. Informational campaigns and
programs to involve communities, increased funding for drugs and supplies,
and donor support for new programs in the area of maternal and child health
are recommended. The report emphasizes the complementarity of programs in
family planning and maternal and child health care. Public programs will be
most effective if they are targeted to the truly needy, particularly poor women
and children.
overcome gender-based constraints on their productivity. The review
of Indonesia's rural credit system discusses women's demand for
credit and makes recommendations to improve their access to credit.
The study of cooperatives in Zimbabwe notes that women, who
predominate in the farming of food crops, face constrained access to
credit, technical support, facilities for marketing, and membership in
cooperatives, and it discusses measures to develop support services
for women. The report on agricultural extension in India devotes
considerable attention to ways of bringing extension messages to farm
women.



30                        ATTENTION TO WOMEN IN ECONOMIC AND SECTORAL WORK
Case Study 9. Brazil: Public Spending on Health Care
Targeting of neighborhoods has worked in a nutrition project in northeast Brazil,
according to a 1988 Bank report. Other federal programs are designed to serve
pregnantand nursing mothers, children in day carecenters, and children in poor
families. Yet about three-fourths of public spending on health is for high-cost
hospital care, mainly in urban areas. The report recommends better targeting to
reach the poor, including mothers and female-headed households, and encour-
aging nongovernmental organizations to supplement the government's efforts.
It urges more decentralization and cost recovery to help fund programs for the
poor: 31 percent of births in private hospitals are caesarian and highly subsi-
dized, but 1.5 million women give birth annually without prenatal care.
Case Study 10. Rwanda: Women and Food Security
Although women do most of the work on farmland, they are not reached by
extension and technical staff. The Bank's 1987 report on the role of communes
in socioeconomic development recommends more emphasis on the role of
women in efforts to attain self-sufficiency in food. Specific recommendations
include developing and providing more technology appropriate to women's
needs (such as water tanks, grain mills, pulping equipment, and grain silos),
deploying more female extension staff, increasing female participation in train-
ing provided by the Commune Center for Development and Continuing Educa-
tion, and increasing support for women's associations.
Conclusion
More reports on economic and sectoral work in fiscal 1988 and 1989
discussed the role of women in development than in the preceding
eight-year period. Most did so in analyzing social services, and a
number included women's concerns in discussions of poverty or
employment.
Some reports emphasize the role of women as agents in the reduc-
tion of poverty or as actual or potential producers and discuss ways
to increase their productivity. Analyses of constraints on women's
productivity tend to focus on health, nutrition, and, to some extent,
literacy. A few reports examine ways of improving women's earning
power through potentially fast-working actions such as day care for



CONCLUSION                                                            31
Case Study 11. Indonesia: Women's Access to Credit
Indonesian women are active borrowers from rural financial institutions, but
various factors constrain their access to credit-notably targeted lending for specific
activities or crops, lack of collateral, the policy of granting one loan per household,
and complicated application forms. A 1988 Bank review of rural credit arrange-
ments suggests that nonfinancial assets commonly held by women (such as ani-
mals, jewelry, and batik) might also be used as collateral, thereby improving
women's access to institutional credit. Citing evidence showing that there may be
substantial independence between men's and women's income-earnig activities
in the household, the report recommends waiving the rule of one loan per house-
hold in such cases because it limits access to loans for creditworthy borrowers. And
the report notes that in some programs loan officers assist borrowers in completing
applications, and in others application forms are kept very simple, filled out by a
loan officer and only signed by the borrower.
Case Study 12. Zimbabwe: Female Farmers, Cooperatives,
and Support Services
Women predominate in crop production but are hampered by lack of access to
credit, marketing facilities, and membership in cooperatives. The Bank's 1989
review notes that the Central Organization of Agricultural Cooperatives has
urged all cooperatives to reserve seats for women on their management commit-
tees and is preparing a workshop to investigate the role of women in coopera-
tives. In response to women's concerns about late deliveries, lack of technical
support, and lack of transport for marketing produce, the Ministry of Commu-
nity Development, Cooperatives, and Women's Affairs intends to develop spe-
cial support services for women, including training, finance, technical inputs,
purchasing, and marketing.
children, changes in financial, regulatory, or legal barriers to credit,
and vocational training. A number of reports address the role of
women in agriculture. The role of women in development has not
been addressed as often in reports on small and cottage industries,
energy, urban development, or rural transport, all fields in which the
participation of women can be significant.
One serious constraint on analysis of women's issues in many
countries and sectors is the paucity of data on the economic and social



32                       ATrENTION TO WOMEN IN ECONOMIC AND SECTORAL WORK
Case Study 13. India: Agricultural Extension
Women's involvement in agriculture in India varies among and within regions
and depends on a rangeof socioeconomic factors. To date, most states' extension
services have not effectively reached farm women. A 1988 Bank review of Indian
agricultural extension recommends that the extension services ensure that agri-
cultural technology reach farm women and that extension messages be relevant
to their concerns. Studies should be initiated to ascertain women's involvement
in agriculture, develop the information needed to modify extension methodol-
ogies so they reach women, and determine the most effective gender composi-
tion and deployment of extension staff.
characteristics and status of women. This constraint needs to be
addressed in future economic and sectoral work, policy dialogue,
technical assistance, and lending operations. More effort should go
into information gathering through research institutions, women's
organizations, nongovernmental organizations working with
women, and so on. Sample surveys, carried out within the economic
and sectoral work program or as part of Bank-aided projects, can help
provide insights into women's socioeconomic situation.
More attention to women in development will be given in the
Bank's economic and sectoral work, as in its lending. No country can
afford to underequip and underutilize more than half of its human
resources. Alleviating poverty, ensuring food security, reducing pop-
ulation growth, improving the quality of a country's future labor
force, and properly using the natural resource base all depend sub-
stantially on women.






The World Bank
Headquarters
1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A.
Telephone: (202) 477-1234
Facsimile: (202) 477-6391
Telex: wui 64145 WORLDBANK
RCA 248423 WORLDBK
Cable Address: INTBAFRAD
WASHINGTONDC
European Office
66, avenue d'1ena
75116 Paris, France
Telephone: (1) 40.69.30.00
Facsimile: (1) 47.20.19.66
Telex: 842-620628
Tokyo Office
Kokusai Building
1-1 Marunouchi 3-chome
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100, Japan
Telephone: (3) 214-5001
Facsimile: (3) 214-3657
Telex: 781-26838
ISBN 0-8213-1623-0