Gender Equality and Macroeconomics Project

About this programme

The Gender Equality and Macroeconomics (GEM) project goal is to challenge the ways in which macroeconomic policies currently promoted by international financial institutions (IFIs), with a focus on the World Bank and the IMF, undermine gender equality and women’s rights.

The project 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.

Overall, the project activities are aimed at:

Challenging harmful IFI macroeconomic policies and structures: the project aims to challenge the ways in which macroeconomic policies currently promoted by the World Bank and IMF undermine gender equality and women’s rights.

Monitoring World Bank and IMF policies and practices: the project monitors, examines and exposes the harmful implications of current macroeconomic policy and structural barriers to equality upheld by international financial institutions.

Organising, advocating and amplifying voices: the project engages in direct advocacy with a range of actors, particularly focused on supporting Global South partners. It facilitates, and engages in, a wide range of civil society spaces and organisations towards building an enabling macroeconomic environment for women’s rights and gender equality.

The project, initiated in 2015, is coordinated by the Bretton Woods Project and is currently carried out in partnership with the Gender and Development Network and International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific, as well as previously the Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice.