The Gender Equality and Macroeconomics (GEM) project is coordinated by the Bretton Woods Project and carried out in partnership with the Gender and Development Network, International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific and the Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice. It is aimed at challenging the ways in which macroeconomic policies currently promoted by international financial institutions (IFIs) undermine gender equality and women’s rights. To change this, the project, initiated in 2015, examines the implications of current macroeconomic policy approaches in relation to gender, engages in direct advocacy and works to support a wide range of civil society groups and organisations towards building an enabling macroeconomic environment for women’s rights and gender equality.
Advocacy briefings (BWP)
Learning lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic: The World Bank’s macroeconomic policies and women’s rights
September 2021
This briefing argues that the Bank’s current framework for analysing the impacts of its macroeconomic policy advice on gender equality are insufficient.
September 2021
This briefing argues that the Bank’s current framework for analysing the impacts of its macroeconomic policy advice on gender equality are insufficient.
The World Bank and Gender Equality: Development Policy Financing
August 2019
This briefing analyses the World Bank’s Development Policy Financing from a critical gender perspective.
(Available in English & Spanish)
August 2019
This briefing analyses the World Bank’s Development Policy Financing from a critical gender perspective.
(Available in English & Spanish)
The IMF and Gender Equality: Operationalising Change
February 2019
This briefing raises critical questions on the latest developments in the IMF’s approach to gender.
(Available in English & Spanish)
February 2019
This briefing raises critical questions on the latest developments in the IMF’s approach to gender.
(Available in English & Spanish)
The IMF and Gender Equality: A Compendium of Feminist Macroeconomic Critiques
October 2017
This edited volume focuses on the gendered impacts of some of the most commonly-prescribed macroeconomic policies of the IMF, covering tax, expenditure and labour policies.
(Available in English & Spanish)
October 2017
This edited volume focuses on the gendered impacts of some of the most commonly-prescribed macroeconomic policies of the IMF, covering tax, expenditure and labour policies.
(Available in English & Spanish)
The IMF and Gender Equality; A Critical Analysis
June 2016
This briefing questions the sustainability of the Fund’s new approach to gender equality and reveals that the Fund’s analysis so far is limited and inconsistent with the full achievement of women’s economic empowerment.
June 2016
This briefing questions the sustainability of the Fund’s new approach to gender equality and reveals that the Fund’s analysis so far is limited and inconsistent with the full achievement of women’s economic empowerment.
CSO guides and toolkits (BWP)
- Keeping the IMF accountable to women’s rights and gender equality at the national level – November 2019
- Gender Just-Macroeconomics; The World Bank’s privatisation push – March 2019
- Gender-Just Macroeconomics; Engaging the IMF and World Bank – October 2016
Briefings and toolkits (GEM Partners)
- GEM: A starter kit on Gender Equality and Macroconomics
- Warning: May contain austerity
- Push No One Behind: how current economic policy exacerbates gender inequality
- Can public-private partnerships deliver gender equality?
- How social protection, public services and infrastructure impact women’s rights
- Realising women’s rights: the role of public debt in Africa
- The impact of economic reforms and austerity measures on women’s HR
- Macroeconomic policy and women’s economic empowerment
- Making trade work for gender equality
- Sharing the load: Unpaid care work and women’s economic empowerment
- Breaking down the barriers: Macropolicies that promote women’s economic equality
- Making the case for macroeconomics in gender equality work
- Towards feminist advocacy on macro-level economics – workshop report
Observer Articles
- UN holds Pakistan to account for IMF programme impacts on women
- World Bank and IMF response to debt crisis undermines women’s rights
- IMF’s recognition of unpaid care work undermined by its own harmful policy advice
- Gender progress? The World Bank’s approach to new gender strategy criticised
- World Bank releases new gender strategy
- Gender equality at the IFIs: progress or PR?
- IMF on gender and income inequality: from research to implementation
- IMF Ukraine programme’s impact on women’s rights criticised at Human Rights Council
- The World Bank’s new Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative: Recycling a broken model?
- Will IMF’s response to UN report on women’s economic empowerment change its policies?
- The impacts of IMF-backed austerity on women’s rights in Brazil
- BWIs’ instrumental gender approach ignores structural elephant in the room
- The World Bank’s role in crafting a neoliberal hegemony with a feminist face
- We-Fi’s roll-out continues to ignore long-standing feminist concerns
- Civil society left unconvinced as World Bank promotes PPPs as tool for gender equality
- Debt and gender equality: How debt-servicing conditions harm women in Africa
- World Bank’s women entrepreneur initiatives just “smoke and mirrors”
- World Bank results: “box-ticking” on gender, weak monitoring and evaluation
Other
- Civil society letter to the IMF Board to call for open consultation on upcoming Gender Strategy – January 2022
- Letter to IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva on women’s rights and gender equality – February 2019
- An IMF that promotes gender equality? A long road ahead… – Oxfam Views and Voices blog
17 August 2016 - Bursting the macroeconomic policy bubble for gender equality – RightingFinance blog
30 November 2016 - The IMF is certainly no ally of women – The Guardian
5 March 2019 - Frau ist Geld – Die Tageszeitung (German)
24 October 2019
For all BWP’s articles relating to gender equality, please find our dedicated gender page here.
GEM Small Grants
- GEM small grants program summer 2022
- Small travel grants for Global South partners – Thank you! We have closed the small travel grants process now and might reopen it when more funds become available.
CONTACT US
Friederike Strub
Gender Equality & Macroeconomics Project Lead
fstrub[at]brettonwoodsproject.org
Amy McShane
Gender Equality & Macroeconomics Project Officer
amcshane[at]brettonwoodsproject.org
