Gender

Analysis

Keeping the IMF accountable to women’s rights and gender equality at the national level

18 November 2019 | Briefings

Feminist manifestation, 8 March 2018, Spain - Credit: Gaudencio Garcinuno

In 2018, the IMF published new guidance to its staff on operationalising gender in its country-level work, which included the explicit recognition that the IMF’s own policy advice can exacerbate gender inequality and the direction that staff should move away from such harmful policies.

This guidance should mark a point of no return for the IMF and must be the start of a significant and meaningful policy shift towards policies that create an enabling macroeconomic environment for women’s rights and gender equality. Yet, it will be up to women’s rights organisations and civil society more broadly to hold the IMF accountable to this new standard.

This graphic is part of the Gender Equality and Macroeconomics (GEM) Project and draws on the findings of the report The IMF and Gender Equality: Operationalising Change.