NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Something exciting, almost revolutionary, is happening at one of the most conservative of the world’s international institutions. The World Bank, which for decades has been criticized has overly focused on the construction of dams and other infrastructures as the cure for poverty, is turning its focus to the real engine of economic progress in the developing world: girls and women.

The shift from physical capital to human capital has been in the works for several years, but it has accelerated under the leadership of Jim Yong Kim, who became the Bank’s president on July 1, 2012. Kim, an anthropologist by training, understands that gender inequality is one of the biggest obstacles, if not the biggest, to improving economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries.

Two years ago, prior to Kim’s appointment, the World Bank’s annual “World Development Report” focused on the promotion of gender equality, describing it as “smart economics,” but doubts remained as to whether the Bank was really changing its bricks and mortar orientation. The jury is still out, but the Bank’s new concentration on girls and women is gaining critical momentum. And the World Bank Group’s Gender and Development team, led by Jeni Klugman, appears to the leading the charge.