Join Gender Action's Global Gender IFI Watcher Network!

International Financial Institutions (IFIs), like the World Bank, routinely undermine their commitment to empower women and promote gender equality through their policies and projects. Gender-insensitive IFI investments disproportionately harm women and girls.

Gender Action is the world's only organization that is dedicated to promoting women's rights and gender justice in all IFI investments. We invite you to join our new global network of Gender IFI Watchers, which will help you hold IFIs in your country accountable for their negative gender impacts.

As a Gender IFI Watcher, you will learn how to:
  • Locate vital information about IFI projects in your country;
  • Conduct gender analyses of IFI projects;
  • Collaborate with Gender Action and other network members in your region and around the world;
  • Use Gender Action publications, including the "Gender Toolkit for International Finance Watchers," to take action when IFI projects cause harm in your community or region;
  • Strengthen your voice for women's rights and gender justice.
Membership is FREE! To register, click here.

If you have already registered, access the tutorials by clicking here, or by selecting the Network from the Publications tab above.



Recent Press

On April 17, 2012, The Real News Network (TRNN) interviewed Elaine Zuckerman on the newly elected World Bank President. Watch here.

Elaine Zuckerman was interviewed on Al Jazeera's Inside Story on April 13th, 2012. She shared her perspective on the selection of a new World Bank president. Click here to see the show.

Hear Gender Action's Elaine Zuckerman discuss the World Bank President selection process on April 2, 2012, on NPR's WBEZ.

New Publications!

Gender Action Heralds International Women Day with Haiti GBV IFI Case!

To commemorate International Women's Day 2012, Gender Action prepared this IFIs and Gender Based Violence Case Study that analyzes the extent to which World Bank and IDB shelter, sanitation and electricity investments address GBV in Haiti, as these projects have significant implications for Haiti's GBV epidemic. It also highlights an IDB-funded survey of GBV in Haiti, which took place before the earthquake, but we could not find any post-earthquake follow-up. While Gender Action applauds the World Bank's most recent investment to address GBV, our analysis demonstrates that neither the World Bank nor the IDB adequately address GBV within other critical post-earthquake investments. The case study underscores the urgent need for these institutions to fully implement their gender policies and explicitly address GBV across all sectors.

Broken Promises: Gender Impacts of the World Bank-Financed West-African and Chad-Cameroon Pipelines

Based on fieldwork done with Friends of the Earth member groups in Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo and Ghana, Broken Promises reveals that the Chad-Cameroon and West African pipelines, financed by the World Bank, increased women's poverty and dependence on men; caused ecological degradation that destroyed women's livelihoods; discriminated against women in employment and compensation; excluded women in consultation processes; and led to increased prostitution.

Governing Climate Funds: What Will Work for Women?

As the international community mobilizes in response to global climate changes, climate change mechanisms must ensure the equitable and effective allocation of funds for the world's most vulnerable populations. Governing Climate Funds: What Will Work for Women? highlights women and girls' disproportionate vulnerability to negative climate change impacts in developing countries, and demonstrates how they have been largely excluded from climate change finance policies and programs.

Gender, IFIs and Gender Based Violence

Gender Action is excited to announce its newest series on Gender, IFIs and Gender Based Violence (GBV). Our GBV primer demonstrates that IFI policies and investments fail to address GBV as a human rights issue, ignore GBV among men and boys, and neglect to measure IFI impacts on GBV through investment monitoring and evaluation.

In addition, our latest Gender Action Link, IFIs and Gender Based Violence, summarizes Gender Action's analysis of the extent to which IFIs address GBV in their policies and investments, finding that very few current IFI operations address GBV and comprise only a tiny fraction of IFI spending.

Case Studies: Gender, IFIs and Gender Based Violence

Gender, IFIs and Food Insecurity

Check out the latest series on Gender, IFIs and Food Insecurity. These new publications highlight how IFI investments in agriculture, nutrition and rural development often exacerbate food insecurity in developing countries, and how women and girls disproportionately suffer harmful impacts.

Case Studies: Gender, IFIs and Food Insecurity

Join our World Development Report 2012 Discussion Forum

In 2012, the World Bank's World Development Report (WDR) will be devoted to gender for the first time. We encourage activists, campaigners, CSOs and researchers to join the discussion!

See our Newest Advocacy Tools

Gender Action has streamlined its qualitative indictors to form an "Essential Gender Analysis Checklist."

The checklist can be used to assess the quality of gender integration in International Finance Institution (IFI) investments, measuring critical issues such as the degree to which IFIs uphold gender rights, promote equal access to project benefits, and use gender disaggregated data. It also provides a gender analysis framework for civil society, government, and other entities' projects. Check it out!

Gender Action's Critique of the World Bank's Gender Road Map (2011-2013)

Gender Action's critique of the World Bank's "Applying Gender Action Plan Lessons: A Three Year Road Map for Gender Mainstreaming" (2011-2013) demonstrates how the Bank has continued to ignore civil society criticisms of its original Gender Action Plan (2007-2010). The "Road Map" fails to include a human rights framework, assumes a narrow approach to reproductive health and lacks robust, transparent gender-related data.

Gender Action's work in Haiti

As Haiti's devastation deepens nearly one year after its January 12, 2010 earthquake, the need for human rights-based gender interventions remains critical.

Haiti Gender Shadow Report: Ensuring Haitian Women's Participation and Leadership in All Stages of National Relief and Reconstruction

This final Haiti Gender Shadow Report (GSR), jointly prepared by many women's rights activists and edited by Gender Action, provides the crucial gender content that is missing from the Haitian government's World Bank-led Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), the operative blueprint for recovery that Haiti plans to implement.

Gender Action's new report on Gender, Agriculture and Rural Development Investments in post-earthquake Haiti

Gender Action's new report demonstrates that most World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) post-earthquake investments in Haiti represent lost opportunities to help Haiti's predominantly poor female farmers, prevent gender-based violence, and support gender-inclusive development efforts.

Letter to President Obama on IFIs, debt, and gender-based violence in Haiti

Gender Action recently sent a letter to President Obama to end gender-based violence and debt in Haiti through IFI intervention.
Within a month of sending our letter, the IMF cancelled most of Haiti's outstanding debt.

Gender and Debt Impacts of IFI Grants and Loans in Post-Earthquake Haiti

This factsheet summarizes findings from Gender Action's analysis of IFI post-earthquake assistance. It demonstrates first that IFI assistance fails to address Haiti's escalating gender-based violence, and second that although IFIs have cancelled most Haiti debt, IFI debt remains that impoverished Haiti cannot afford to repay. This factsheet is part of the Haiti Advocacy Working Group materials presented to Congress described below.

See more of our work on Haiti

Gender Action's IFI Watcher Toolbox!

Gender Toolkit for International Finance Watchers
Newly Updated February 2011

Gender Action provides a vital and user friendly toolkit for civil society groups to incorporate gender perspectives into their work on the IFIs or any other projects. All sections contain electronic hyperlinks to a vast array of available gender resources. Just click on an underlined word to be directed to the specific tool you need!
Disponible en Español.

Speaking up for Gender: A Step-by-Step Guide to Holding IFIs Accountable
Diana Arango & Nicole Zarafonetis
Speaking Up for Gender is a user-friendly Guide providing grassroots groups and others affected by IFI projects with information, tips and guidelines for submitting a gender discrimination complaint to an IFI accountability mechanism.
Disponible en Español.

NEW GENDER ACTION LINKS!
We are linking up gender justice groups and international finance-watchers! Gender Action Links are brief, reader-friendly resources that critically connect gender, international finance and other key development issues, and provide case examples, resources and partnership opportunities.


ABOUT GENDER ACTION

Gender Action is the only organization dedicated to promoting gender equality and women's rights in all International Financial Institution (IFI) investments such as those of the World Bank.

With partners from around the globe we
Track and analyze IFI investments
Do advocacy to ensure IFI investments empower women and eliminate violations against them

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Work with Gender Action

Gender Action Heralds International Women Day with Haiti GBV IFI Case!, (March 5, 2012)

Gender Action: World Bank Increase and Improve HIV Treatment and Prevention, (December 9, 2011)

World Bank-Financed Oil and Gas Pipelines Discriminate Against Women, (October 12, 2011)

Gender Action tracks how the World Bank and IMF affect women and children
(WBEZ Worldview, Chicago Public Radio, November 1, 2011)

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GENDER ACTION UPDATES

View our biannual Gender Action Updates which present our achievements and projects to ensure that big IFI investments promote and do not violate women’s rights.

View our latest update

Events_WorldAIDSDay This past World AIDS Day, Gender Action called upon International Finance Institutions (IFIs) to increase HIV funding, strengthen health systems, and improve IFI accountability. You can read more about our call to the IFIs here.

What Experts Are Saying About Gender Action

"Gender Action is a truly valued resource. Its unique in-depth International Financial Institution - IFI gender monitoring and detailed reports, based on economic expertise, illuminate often invisible information on IFI gender impacts on women and empower women's advocacy for gender inclusiveness in policy, investments, and leadership."  
Lois A. Herman, Coordinator WUNRN, Women's UN Report Network

"The striking thing about Gender Action, knowing the history of the organisation and the small number of staff, is its high quality outputs. The Gender Toolkit for International Finance Watchers, for instance, which was launched in 2008, has become the main resource for civil society on the issue. A quick google search using the words IFIs, gender, and impact will return hundreds, if not more, of entries all citing or carrying the Gender Toolkit. The list of Gender Action reports and publications shows high productivity, as well as high quality ." 
Imad Sabi, Oxfam Novib, The Hague, The Netherlands

"Congratulations and thank you for the tremendous progress Gender Action has made in terms of advocacy, research output and communications." 
Cynthia Howson, Instructor, Political Economy of African Development, University of Puget Sound, USA

"Bravo for Gender Action's super work!" 
Marguerite Mendell, Principal, School of Community and Public Affairs, Concordia University, Canada

"Gender Action and Elaine have worked tirelessly over the last few years to shine a spotlight on how IFI projects and policies have gender-differentiated impacts, with some of the worst impacts falling on women."
Liane Schalatek, Deputy Director, Heinrich Boell Foundation USA


"Gender Action is taking on the biggest and most complex players at the international level and getting them to change. If any organization will succeed in this challenge, it is Gender Action because of its strong leadership."
Bill Drayton, Gender Action seed funder, philanthropist and entrepreneur

"In my view, Gender Action has produced the most incisive and practical analysis of Poverty Reduction Strategies and gender to date. Combined with Elaine's extensive experience in lobbying the IFIs, Gender Action's work represents an exciting and substantial addition to advocacy in this area, and a big step forward in lobbying around gender and the IFIs."
Max Lawson, Oxfam Great Britain Policy Advisor

"Gender Action's work is becoming highly recognized and highly valued — both inside and outside the World Bank."
Roxanne Scott, Former Gender Expert, the World Bank

 

 

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