In two years the IDB’s Gender Policy achieves significant advances in direct investments in Gender Equality as well as in other Bank’s projects
IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno took stock today of the Operational Policy on Gender Equality in Development, two years after its implementation. During this period, the IDB tripled its loan volume to governments that have gender indicators, reaching 31 percent of the Bank’s total loans in 2012. For the period 2006-2010, only 9 percent of the loans included those indicators.
Part of this growth is due to the inclusion of gender indicators in projects from sectors like trade, infrastructure, and fiscal and municipal management, which previously did not include this factor. In 2010, only 6 percent of the projects for these sectors took into account gender indicators in their operations, compared with 20 percent in 2012. On the other hand, more than half (54 percent) of the IDB’s social projects already include gender indicators as part of the project, with growth that more than doubled versus 2010.
In addition to including gender indicators in all its operations, the IDB increased its loans and donations directed to projects that are specifically related to gender equality. Ciudad Mujer, one of its most significant projects, has established four women’s empowerment centers in El Salvador, with two more centers being built in upcoming months. There is also the beyondBanking program, a private sector window of the IDB that will provide up to $50 million in lines of credit to women-led small- and medium-size companies.
The IDB is the first multilateral financial institution to incorporate gender perspectives into its safeguarding processes, introducing mechanisms to ensure that the Bank’s operations do not have a negative impact on gender equality.
Looking toward the future, President Moreno emphasized that these two years of application of the Policy have served to identify good practices and improve the Bank’s projects. “We know that there have been outstanding accomplishments, but that is not enough for us. There is still a long way to go,” said Moreno, to highlight that over the next few years, the IDB will work to improve these indicators even more.