Regional Workshop on

Gender and Labour Markets in Transition Countries

  held in Warsaw on 15-17 January 2001

Specific Recommendations for the Bank

Suggestions for Enhanced Partnerships

· The work undertaken in Russia on "Feminization of Poverty" considered good practice because it was inclusive, disseminated widely and Govt took action.

· In Slovakia, the Bank supported different NGOs through a Small Grants Program

· Bank assistance in Romania in the health sector reform was positive.

· Joint IFC-WB Program to develop Polish private entrepreneurs that was not gender aware, but resulted in assisting women significantly

· Bulgaria RM reflects good practice on consultation with NGOs., and Hungary RM reflects how gender sensitivity can be integrated into their operations.

· Late recognition of gender issues

· Invisibility of gender issues in Bank interventions when compared to other donors like USAID

· Provided a good entry point through consultative groups but members were not given access to information or documents on gender issues or their views not taken into consideration as in the restructuring the Mining sector in Poland

· Did not measure the gender impact of Bank interventions

· Many missed opportunities to enhance gender equality

Promote Engendered Bank Assistance & Good Governance Models by Including Gender Aware civil society agencies and stakeholders:

· In dialogue/discussions between Government and Bank

· In design and implementation of Bank assistance

· By conducting gender assessments

· By establishing consultative groups for gender at regional and individual country levels.

· By providing greater access to information on gender

· Develop indicators to measure gender impact

· Collect, analyze and use gender disaggregated data in policy formulation through country specific methods to collect statistics

· Support the engendering of government budgets

· Increase capacity of government to integrate gender considerations into development design and planning

· Establish standards for Governments to measure the gender sensitivity of their policies

· Support establishment of state machineries for women in all countries in the region

· Integrate into Bank policy the need to include state machineries in the discussion of country assistance strategies and in other dialogue with Govts.

· Disseminate findings and analysis by translate key reports to local languages & place workshop proceedings on Bank webpage

· Establish a dedicated gender team for the region, gender focal points in Bank country offices and ensure that they have adequate budgets to operate.

· Integrate gender monitoring indicators into all Bank supported activities

· Include gender as a criteria for measuring Bank performance in a country

· Include gender specialists in all social sector projects

· Increase women’s participation in labor markets and PSD interventions

· Undertake a research agenda consistent with country priorities and needs (needs of women in rural restructuring, gender issues in areas of accession to EU, and so on)

· Greater transparency in donor strategies to encourage greater collaboration

· Better coordination in provision of gender disaggregated data (currently donors put out inconsistent data)

· Enhance coordination in :

· Establish inter-donor working groups on gender in the region and in individual countries

· Increased co-financing of projects for gender