Abstract
1. Reducing gender disparities in opportunities, outcomes, and decision-making roles raises economic growth and enhances macro-financial stability. There is growing evidence that a country’s economic growth rises with greater participation of women in the labor force. This happens when women face fewer legal barriers, participate more fully in the formal economy, and have more equal access to education, finance, infrastructure, assets, and technology. Closing these gender gaps can also help lower income inequality and increase economic diversification, which in turn contribute to economic growth and macroeconomic resilience.
Motivation
1. Reducing gender disparities in opportunities, outcomes, and decision-making roles raises economic growth and enhances macro-financial stability. There is growing evidence that a country’s economic growth rises with greater participation of women in the labor force. This happens when women face fewer legal barriers, participate more fully in the formal economy, and have more equal access to education, finance, infrastructure, assets, and technology. Closing these gender gaps can also help lower income inequality and increase economic diversification, which in turn contribute to economic growth and macroeconomic resilience.
2. This means that many gender gaps are relevant for member countries’ macroeconomic outcomes. The uneven playing field between women and men, and boys and girls disempowers half the world’s population, lowers productivity, and exacts large costs on the global economy. Macroeconomic and financial shocks (Ghosh, 2013) and policies (Ghosh, 2021; Portes and Reed, 2018), can exacerbate or narrow gender gaps.1 Hence, fiscal, monetary, financial, and structural policies that are designed with a deliberate gender focus can support stronger and more inclusive economic outcomes.
3. Addressing gender gaps is, therefore, macro-critical for many members and, where it is, it falls squarely within the Fund’s mandate. While the Fund is not an institution with a dedicated focus on gender, the Articles of Agreement provide the basis for integrating gender in the Fund’s core activities. Because gender outcomes can have significant implications for member countries’ economic and financial performance, these outcomes become relevant for the Fund’s exercise of its core functions of surveillance, lending, and capacity development. The integration of gender in the Fund's work also reflects the IMF adapting to new and growing challenges and opportunities for our members and their changing macroeconomic and financial policies—as is the case for inequality and social spending, climate, and digital money.
4. Gender topics began to systematically appear in the Fund’s work program a decade ago.2 IMF (2013a) pointed to evidence that closing gender gaps is essential to achieving higher employment and growth outcomes. IMF (2013b) discussed how issues relating to jobs and growth, including gender-related topics, should be covered in surveillance and program work. In 2015, the Fund committed to supporting member countries in pursuing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which included gender equality as one of the 17 goals (IMF, 2015a; IMF, 2015b).
5. A pilot initiative from 2015 to 2019 began operationalizing gender in country work. Substantial progress was made during the initiative: nearly 40 countries were covered in Article IV discussions. Research on gender and macroeconomics and finance increased, and staff began to deliver capacity development (CD) on gender budgeting. Around that time, the Fund started to collect gender-disaggregated financial sector data as part of the Financial Access Survey (FAS). A subsequent decline in coverage in country reports coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. This was partly due to the extension of some Article IV Consultation cycles and a refocusing on emergency assistance to many member countries.
6. The decline in coverage of gender occurred precisely when gender gaps, which were already large across several dimensions, began to worsen rapidly. The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report (2021), covering 156 countries, expects that it will now take more than 130 years to close gender gaps worldwide, up from about 100 years before the pandemic. Even before the pandemic, just 53 percent of women participated in the world’s labor force compared to 80 percent of men3 and they earned, on average, 75 percent of what men earn in comparable jobs with the same level of education and experience (Dabla-Norris and Kochhar, 2019 and Figure 1 below). In many developing economies, girls are more likely than boys to drop out of school during pandemics, potentially leading to a permanent loss of human capital (Fabrizio and others, 2021). Confinement and higher stress levels increase the risk of violence against women: nearly one in two women reported that they or a woman they know experienced violence during the pandemic (Ouedraogo and Stenzel, 2021; UN Women, 2021). Thus, both structural impediments and cyclical downswings need to be addressed.
The Broad Span of Gender Inequality
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
The Broad Span of Gender Inequality
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
The Broad Span of Gender Inequality
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
7. Increased fragility across the world in recent years and the food and energy price surge following the war in Ukraine are likely to exacerbate gender gaps.4 Women are particularly vulnerable to physical, economic, and food insecurity during conflicts across the world, such as in Afghanistan, Yemen, Myanmar, the Sahel, and Ukraine, among others. The risk of scarring from adverse shocks and their enduring effects on economic sustainability heightens the urgency of addressing gender gaps.
8. Recognizing the paramount importance of closing gender gaps, IMF staff were tasked with developing a strategy to incorporate gender in the Fund’s policy advice when such issues are macro-critical. In June 2020, staff took stock of existing work and prepared a plan to take the work forward. In May 2021, the position of Senior Advisor on Gender was created in the Office of the Managing Director (OMD) to develop and facilitate the implementation of a gender mainstreaming strategy.
9. The vision of the gender mainstreaming strategy is to integrate gender into the IMF’s core activities—surveillance, lending, and capacity development—in accordance with its mandate. This means enabling IMF staff to systematically assess the macroeconomic consequences of gender gaps where they are macro-critical, evaluate the gender-differentiated impact of shocks and policies, and provide granular and tailored macroeconomic and financial policy advice and CD support.
10. The strategy presented in this paper builds upon four key pillars. The first is to empower country teams with access to relevant data, training, and modeling tools to conduct analysis and provide tailored and granular policy advice to member countries. The second is to set up a robust governance framework and supportive internal organizational structure to ensure country coverage of macro-critical aspects of gender in country work as well as a consistent and evenhanded approach across members.5 The third is to establish modalities of collaboration with external partners to benefit from knowledge sharing and peer learning. The fourth is to efficiently utilize the resources allocated to gender by avoiding duplication of effort and realizing economies of scale.
11. This paper is organized as follows: Section II positions the Fund on gender in accordance with its mandate. Section III outlines the vision for mainstreaming gender at the Fund. Section IV lays out a comprehensive strategy. Section V provides a road map for successful mainstreaming. Section VI presents the next steps. The paper concludes with proposed issues for discussion. An accompanying Background Paper provides supportive evidence and additional details for mainstreaming gender.
Positioning the IMF
12. There are several channels through which gender gaps impact macroeconomic and financial outcomes (Figure 2 and Background Paper Section III). Closing gender gaps can stimulate economic growth, strengthen external and financial stability, support private and public sector performance, and reduce income inequality.6 In particular:
Links between Gender Gaps and Macroeconomic Outcomes
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Links between Gender Gaps and Macroeconomic Outcomes
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Links between Gender Gaps and Macroeconomic Outcomes
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Economic growth and stability. Reducing gender inequality enhances economic welfare and growth through female labor force participation, labor productivity, and financial inclusion.7
External competitiveness and balance of payments. Reducing gender gaps would improve the overall resilience of the economy to shocks and enhance prospective balance of payments stability by increasing competitiveness and the variety of goods countries produce and export.8
Financial stability. Greater inclusion of women as users, providers, and regulators of financial services fosters greater stability in the banking system. Women in leadership positions and gender diversity on boards of financial institutions are associated with lower non-performing loans and greater financial stability.9
Private and public sector performance. Greater representation of women in managerial positions and corporate boards is positively associated with improved firm performance, such as funding obtained, revenues, and profitability. Women’s political leadership is also associated with higher infrastructure spending and female educational attainment. Importantly, unequal representation in leadership positions both stem from and contribute to other drivers of gender disparities.10
Income inequality. Lower gender gaps are associated with lower income inequality, which improves social stability and economic growth. Gender wage gaps contribute directly to higher income inequality. Both men and women benefit from financial inclusion, but inequality falls more when women have greater access.11
13. There are several drivers of gender gaps (Figure 2).12 These include the following factors that reflect and lead to further unequal opportunities and outcomes: unequal access to education, health services, infrastructure, assets, and technology; unequal legal rights; violence against women; unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work between men and women; and cultural factors.13
14. Economic policies can be used to reduce gender inequality, with their effectiveness varying across countries. For instance, policies that focus on narrowing gender gaps in opportunities, such as investment in education, health, and infrastructure as well as on increasing financial inclusion and reducing legal barriers, can be particularly effective in developing countries. Policies such as addressing unpaid care work and child/elderly care, parental leave, flexible work arrangements, and tax disincentives for secondary earners can be impactful in both advanced economies and developing countries.14
15. The Fund can help its members address macro-critical gender gaps in the context of carrying out its core functions—surveillance, lending, and capacity development. The relevant standard for macro-critical coverage differs across these functions (further elaborated in Section III of the Background Paper):
In surveillance, where gender gaps are judged to significantly influence present or prospective BOP and domestic stability, these issues should be covered in Article IV Consultations. This assessment will need to be made on a case-by-case basis, reflecting country circumstances, and the coverage in surveillance will be limited to areas in which the IMF has expertise. Once macro-criticality has been established, in addition to fiscal, monetary/exchange rate, and financial sector policies that have an impact on gender outcomes, bilateral surveillance discussions should also cover other policies related to narrowing gender gaps and promoting women’s economic empowerment.15
In lending, if narrowing gender gaps and supporting women’s economic empowerment is considered by the IMF as critical to achieve the objectives of the relevant Fund-supported program or monitoring program implementation, then these issues can be addressed through program design and conditionality, to the extent that the measures are in the country’s control.
Capacity development (technical assistance and training) in areas of Fund expertise can also support members in addressing gender gaps to improve member’s macroeconomic outcomes and/or support economic and financial stability. This can be particularly impactful when provided to assist countries with implementation of reforms in the context of the IMF’s policy advice in surveillance, and program design and conditionality in Fund-supported programs.
16. As an international financial institution, the IMF is committed to supporting common global goals in accordance with its mandate. Achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which also intersects with most other SDGs. At the 2017 Taormina Summit, G7 leaders committed to mainstreaming gender equality in all their policies. More recently, in June 2021, the IMF Managing Director and several other leaders co-signed a letter to rebuild the global economy and improve the lives of all people, calling on governments to prioritize gender equality in their economic recovery strategies.16
17. The 2021 Comprehensive Surveillance Review (CSR) provides an opportunity for a systematic integration of macro-relevant gender aspects into surveillance. The CSR reiterates ensuring economic sustainability as a surveillance priority, highlights the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 crisis on women, and recognizes that the pandemic has exacerbated trends in inequality. Gender inequality and the lack of equal opportunities are among the factors affecting economic sustainability, which calls for a more systematic discussion of such macro-critical issues, depending on country circumstances (IMF, 2021a). To support further operationalization of gender and the development of related policy advice, the CSR suggests improving analytical frameworks and access to relevant gender-specific indicators, such as female labor force participation and gender disaggregated indicators of financial inclusion (IMF, 2021b). It also recommends exploring synergies of gender disparities with other emerging workstreams such as climate, digital money, and fragile and conflict-affected states.
18. The 2021 Independent Evaluation Report on Growth and Adjustment in IMF-supported Programs calls for a deeper and more thorough coverage of their social and distributional implications (IMF, 2021c). In this respect, program documents should provide more systematic coverage of the quality dimensions of growth, including the distributional consequences of adjustment and reform policies, such as how low-income and vulnerable groups are affected during the program period and how they would benefit from economic growth over time.
19. The Fund’s core expertise in advising member countries on macroeconomic and financial policies affords the opportunity to fill a gap in the global policy space linking gender and macroeconomics. External stakeholders confirm that there is a sizeable gap in this area. The Fund is also well placed to raise the profile of macro-critical gender issues with its direct counterparts—Ministers of Finance and Central Bank Governors—who make and implement national macroeconomic and financial policies. Ensuring ownership of policy advice by country authorities and other stakeholders will be important. This will also require deepening collaboration with international and regional partners that have a head start on gender-related issues and a greater presence on the ground.
Vision
Our vision is to bring a gender dimension to the Fund’s core work. This means that gender will be an integral part of surveillance, lending, and capacity development when gender gaps in member countries are assessed to be macro-critical.
The vision will rely on three main principles:
… adhere to the IMF mandate by focusing on closing gender gaps that are (i) macro-critical in surveillance; (ii) critical for Fund-supported program implementation and monitoring; and (iii) within the IMF’s areas of expertise for capacity development.
… provide thought leadership globally and granular and tailored macroeconomic policy advice to member countries.
… focus on maximizing impact on the ground, including through collaboration with partner institutions and engagement with other stakeholders.
This vision guides the remainder of this strategy paper.
20. The vision recognizes the fundamental diversity of lived human experience. It acknowledges the need to better understand how the different circumstances of women and men can lead to sub-optimal macroeconomic outcomes, and how policies can contribute to or diminish peoples’ well-being. As such, it offers a broader frame for conducting the core work of the Fund.
21. Mainstreaming gender therefore entails a shift in the mindset on how to conduct IMF core activities while remaining consistent with the institution’s mandate. This approach envisages integrating gender issues that are relevant for macroeconomic outcomes in exchange rate, monetary, fiscal, financial, and structural policy discussions with member countries. At the same time, staff policy advice must prioritize domestic and external stability. If recommended or implemented measures (for example, eliminating fuel subsidies, cutting other public expenditure, introducing a value-added tax) widen gender disparities or lead to other adverse distributional effects, a comprehensive policy package should include an assessment of the gender and distributional impacts of these policies and mitigating measures (such as social spending) targeting the most vulnerable. Box 1 provides examples on how gender can be mainstreamed at the Fund.
Examples of Gender Mainstreaming
The following examples offer insights into the relationship between gender inequality and macroeconomic policies and outcomes:
Personal income tax reforms could consider removing tax provisions that discriminate against secondary earners. This could positively impact female labor force participation, economic growth, income inequality, and poverty.
Where a disproportionate burden of macroeconomic adjustment falls on women, children's education could suffer as women tend to invest more than men in education for their children (Phipps and Burton, 1998; Doepke and Tertilt, 2019). These unintended effects may call for fiscal measures to increase affordable access to education and safeguard critical social spending in education and health.
Monetary policy interventions that are needed for macroeconomic and financial stabilization may nonetheless disproportionately affect women. For example, higher interest rates may translate into lower access to credit for women. Therefore, designing gender-responsive financial sector policies that mitigate the negative impact on women would need to be considered.
Allowing alternative sources of collateral and new ways of building credit histories can help mitigate barriers women face in inheritance and property rights and accessing financial services. Thus, providing greater financial access to women can raise household consumption, savings, and ultimately economic growth.
Poorly designed policies intended to support low-income households and women may have unintended negative fiscal and macroeconomic repercussions. For example, general fuel subsidies for cooking could be costly, inefficient, and spill over negatively on the economy and the environment. Instead, better targeted social spending is needed to directly support disadvantaged households and women.
22. The vision also recognizes that including women more equally in the economy and in decision-making makes gender mainstreaming overlap with—yet distinct from—the quest for inclusive growth. Including women more equally is necessary for inclusive growth. But specifically fostering women’s active participation in the economy and in decision-making17 is also critical, both for the inherent value of diversity in thought and action, including different attitudes toward risk and collaboration, and for its demonstrated socio-economic benefits.
23. Figure 3 presents the vision of where the IMF would want to go by core activity once gender has been fully mainstreamed, compared to where the IMF is currently.
Mainstreaming Gender: Closing Gender Gaps to Serve the Membership
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Mainstreaming Gender: Closing Gender Gaps to Serve the Membership
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Mainstreaming Gender: Closing Gender Gaps to Serve the Membership
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Surveillance: Go from coverage of gender as a mostly standalone topic and often with limited follow-up to a more systematic approach based on a consistent and evenhanded treatment of member countries based on the macro-criticality of gender gaps, and provision of granular and tailored advice that is integrated in core policy discussions.
Lending: Go from an approach to program conditionality on gender issues that had limitations in the selection criteria, policy coverage, and follow-up to a more systematic approach where program conditionality tailored to country specificities is used to narrow or close gender gaps where it is critical for achieving the objectives of the Fund-supported program.
Capacity development: Go from trainings and workshops with a fiscal focus toward training to member countries on the macroeconomics of gender gaps, and tailored CD across all macroeconomic and financial sector policies that is integrated with surveillance and programs, to support policy advice and conditionality.
24. While the vision is ambitious, its implementation needs to be balanced with available resources and expertise. Progress will be gradual, measured, and in line with resource availability. The speed of implementation also reflects the need to develop an adequate knowledge base and expertise among staff to engage meaningfully with members. While the approach builds on previous analytical and operational work on gender at the Fund and finds ways to increase staff effectiveness and efficiency, it will likely take years to fully implement the strategy outlined in this paper.
25. It is important to point out that many countries are already making substantial progress in implementing policies to reduce gender gaps.18 Examples relate to equal pay for equal work (e.g., Iceland, India), paid maternity or parental leave (e.g. Rwanda, United Arab Emirates), access to childcare and early childhood education (e.g., Canada, Norway), improved access to finance through digital platforms/identification and regulatory reforms (e.g., India, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru), constitutional guarantees of gender equity (e.g., Rwanda, Tunisia), protections against sexual harassment and discrimination (e.g., Philippines, Saudi Arabia), and measures to prevent domestic violence (e.g. Brazil). The number of countries implementing some form of gender-responsive budgeting has doubled from 40 in 2002 to 80 in 2017, and for OECD countries, from 12 in 2016 to 17 in 2018 (Alonso-Albarran and others, 2021).
26. The IMF is striving to lead by example through more gender-balanced teams and a rising proportion of women in leadership roles, although there is more to be done. The last two Managing Directors have been women, and two of four current Deputy Managing Directors are women. The share of managerial level positions held by women is 34 percent, as of February 2022. Nearly 40 percent of Heads of Department posts are held by women, and 50 percent of those were appointed since October 2019.
Strategy
A successful strategy to mainstream gender would build on progress achieved so far and develop four key pillars—data and analytics, governance, external collaboration, and resources.
A. Key Pillars
27. The strategy outlined in this section follows directly from the vision presented in the previous section. It has benefited from wide internal and external consultation:
The Executive Board provided guidance on essential elements of a mainstreaming gender strategy. Staff received this guidance during the informal Board meeting on inclusion and gender on July 12, 2021; the Budget Augmentation discussion on December 1, 2021; and the informal Board meeting on the gender strategy on February 9, 2022. During these meetings, the Board emphasized the need to: (i) ensure Fund’s engagement is focused on macro-critical gender issues, consistent with the IMF mandate; (ii) provide granular, country-specific macroeconomic policy advice based on solid analytical foundations; (iii) strengthen collaboration with international and regional partners; and (iv) rely on existing resources, with the recently approved augmentation by the Board.
Departments provided invaluable input during the review process. A Task Force on Gender Strategy led by the Senior Advisor on Gender prepared a note during the initial stages of the conceptualization of the strategy.19
External stakeholders (World Bank, UN Women, other multilateral development banks, academics, and civil society organizations) also provided comments on a concept note that was published online.
28. Based on the Board’s guidance, and input provided by departments and external stakeholders, this strategy proposes four key pillars to successfully mainstream gender (Figure 4):
Mainstreaming Gender: Key Pillars
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Mainstreaming Gender: Key Pillars
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Mainstreaming Gender: Key Pillars
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Data and analytics. The first pillar envisages creating a centralized data hub and deepening analytical and policy tools, building on the model-based work done in recent years, to enable staff to provide tailored and granular policy advice to countries. Dedicated staff would develop easy-to-apply templates, additional model-based tools, and macro-relevant databases in support of area department teams. Seminars and training would be offered to staff on the tools.
Governance. The second pillar would set up a robust governance framework and internal organizational structure to ensure prioritization based on the level of macro-criticality of gender, evenhanded and consistent treatment of members, support to country teams, and accountability of departments.
External collaboration. The third pillar would strengthen collaboration and establish modalities of engagement with other international institutions to benefit from knowledge sharing and peer learning, leverage complementarities, and maximize the impact on the ground.
Resources. The fourth pillar foresees a central unit to realize economies of scale and avoid duplication of efforts across departments. A central mechanism would ensure efficient knowledge sharing and learning across departments.
B. Data and Analytics
29. A centralized data hub is envisaged to be a one-stop shop that brings together macro-relevant gender-related data, drawing from existing data sources and surveys (Box 2). It will offer IMF economists user-friendly access to comparable, cross-country gender-related indicators on a modern data analytics platform. Since gender-disaggregated data lags far behind other economic data, collaborating with other international financial institutions (IFIs), regional institutions, and sectoral ministries could increase access to an array of data.20,21 Consideration could also be given to non-traditional data sources and big data analysis, which have proven instrumental in the IMF’s theoretical and empirical lines of research. Over time, the data hub could be expanded to an external data dashboard and accessed by member country authorities, if there is a business case. CD could be provided to support member countries’ data collection efforts.
Gender Data Hub
The internal Gender Data Hub will offer Fund staff user-friendly access to standardized and comparable gender-related data on a modern data analytics platform.1 The Hub will contain about 110 headline indicators classified into eight topics: (i) access to finance; (ii) composite gender indices; (iii) education; (iv) health; (v) labor and income; (vi) leadership and empowerment; (vii) legal rights; and (viii) social, demographic, and other. The data, which come from existing sources and surveys, will be presented on a Power BI data analytics platform with options for quick data visualizations. The data will also be linked to an Economic Outlook Suite (EcOS) database and eventually migrated to the new iData platform. This will enable a smooth integration of gender data into Fund operations. The Hub will also ensure that consistent data are used by different IMF country teams and researchers, which is critical to support evenhandedness in surveillance.
The key value added of developing a central data hub is to provide staff a curated set of data series collected from various sources and make macro-relevant data easily accessible. Several data portals offering a wide range of gender-related data sets (e.g., social, SDG, health, violence, labor etc.) are already in operation, developed and hosted by organizations including the World Bank, the OECD, and the UN Women. The IMF’s internal Gender Data Hub will pull together selected data series that are most relevant for analyzing gender-related issues from a macroeconomic perspective. The data sources include: (i) other international organizations (e.g., ILO, OECD, UN, World Bank, WHO, etc.);2 (ii) STA’s own surveys such as the Financial Access Survey (FAS); and (iii) data sets developed as part of Fund staff research projects. An important complementary initiative is the recently revamped World Bank Group’s Gender Data Portal, which provides a comprehensive source for gender statistics covering topics such as demography, education, health, access to economic opportunities, public life, and decision-making. IMF staff have engaged with World Bank counterparts and provided feedback on the Bank team’s work to revamp its gender portal. The Bank-Fund coordination in this area will continue to avoid overlap and maximize synergies.
The cost of developing the Gender Data Hub is relatively small. STA has already allocated one full-time equivalent (FTE) in total staff time to develop the Hub, leveraging in-house expertise in building and maintaining similar data products. STA is receiving contractual resources from the augmentation budget in FY23 to support the gender-related data hub.
Following the approach used to develop the Fund’s Climate Change Indicators Dashboard, STA and SPR collaborated with other departments to identify data needs. With these inputs, STA identified sources for these data series, collected metadata, and organized data sets into systematic categories. The Hub is expected to be launched in the early summer of 2022.
The Third-Party Indicators (TPI) Framework will apply to some indicators. The use of TPIs in Fund documents should be in line with the Guidance Note for the Use of Third-Party Indicators in Fund Reports. Some of the TPIs in the Gender Data Hub are already included in the Updated Third-Party Indicators Digest, which summarizes key information that staff should consider when using and presenting the corresponding indicator.
30. Building on previous work in the literature and by the Fund, staff have begun to develop some model-based tools. Early on, analytical work on gender gaps and macroeconomics centered on partial equilibrium empirical approaches. While general equilibrium models have been gaining prominence in the literature, the focus has been on advanced economies. Over the past five years, IMF staff have begun to develop life-cycle general equilibrium models with heterogeneous agents suited for a broader range of policy analyses for countries at different levels of development. These models allow users to identify winners and losers of shocks and changes in policy. Given their flexibility, they can be tailored and customized to capture a large variety of country features and policy experiments. The models would also support the design of reforms and gender-responsive policies to reduce gender gaps.
31. So far, these models have focused on fiscal policies and have been applied in a few countries. Examples include Argentina, where staff estimated how increasing childcare availability would impact female labor force participation and output (IMF Country Report No. 17/410). For Senegal, staff quantified the impact of increasing female secondary education on labor productivity (Malta and others, 2019). Other country applications include Iran (IMF Country Report No. 18/94), Lao P.D.R. (IMF Country Report No. 19/267), Nigeria (IMF Country Report No. 19/93), Sierra Leone (IMF Country Report No. 20/117), and the United States (Fabrizio and others, 2020).
32. Going forward, staff plan to expand the modeling work beyond fiscal policies to include monetary policy interventions, financial sector policies, and structural reforms. In line with the recommendations of the IEO Report on Growth and Adjustment in IMF-supported Programs (IMF, 2021c), staff will further build a toolkit of models and monitors that can analyze the adjustment-growth relationship. The modeling work will be extended to explore synergies with other emerging issues, such as climate change and fintech.
33. Besides modeling, staff are developing new empirical and analytical work that will complement and lend further support to the findings from the modeling efforts. Since models are resource-intensive in calibration, staff will also pursue empirical approaches that could serve as “back of the envelope” calculations of macroeconomic and policy impacts where data are scarce and deep coverage is not feasible or too resource intensive.
Synergies with Other Emerging Workstreams
34. Over time, staff will also explore linkages and synergies across emerging workstreams. The scope for doing so is expected to take time, as data gaps are closed, new cross-cutting skills are acquired, and resource constraints are alleviated. Possible areas include:
Climate change: There is growing evidence that the poor and the vulnerable, including women, disproportionately suffer the consequences of climate change and related policies. An estimated 80 percent of people displaced by climate change are women (UNDP, 2016). Women's vulnerability and exposure to climate change arise from: (i) social inequalities and cultural norms that shape their responsibilities and constrain their response during natural disasters; (ii) economic inequalities that lead them to possess fewer economic assets and heighten their dependence on natural resources and agricultural livelihoods; (iii) greater food insecurity; and (iv) more limited access to finance, education, and healthcare. Gender-responsive policies could be considered in the context of mitigation and adaptation policies, helping to ensure that women support climate action and gender gaps are not exacerbated. There is also an opportunity to implement the green transition in a gender-neutral way.
Digital money: Women are underrepresented in their access to formal financial institutions and digital financial services. They are less likely to hold bank accounts, have access to credit, and be able to access mobile money systems. Gender discrimination, legal barriers, overall higher rates of poverty, lack of financial literacy, and the higher likelihood of being employed in the informal sector are just some of the barriers that women face when trying to gain access to financial services. Financial inclusion of women in digital services is essential for empowering women and increasing the productive capacity of economies. Policies to ensure that fintech narrows gender gaps could be potential areas of future work.
Fragile and Conflict-affected States (FCS): Gender inequality is a driving factor of fragility but can also be exacerbated by pre-existing inequality and vulnerabilities prevalent in FCS, including poor governance and institutions, underdeveloped infrastructure, and reduced access to education and health facilities. The number of female-headed households can increase significantly after war or conflict. Thus, targeting female labor force participation in FCS can strengthen countries' resilience during transitions following conflict and recoveries from crises. Recent IMF work quantifies the relationship between gender inequality and conflict. Ouedraogo and Ouedraogo (2019) show that an increase in female-to-male labor force participation ratio by 1 percentage point is correlated with a reduction of the probability of electoral violence across the African continent by around 4.2 percentage points.
C. Governance
Establish a Systematic Approach to Gender Mainstreaming
35. It is important that staff’s approach to gender equality be governed by strict adherence to the IMF’s mandate. Staff will develop a data hub and conduct benchmarking exercises that can help assess the level of macro-criticality and ensure evenhandedness. The aim is to determine the countries that could benefit from coverage.
Macro-criticality: In conducting surveillance, quantitative indicators of gender gaps and benchmarking exercises can inform decisions on country coverage in Article IV Consultations. The depth of coverage would vary across countries and over each country’s own Article IV Consultation cycle depending on the degree of macro-criticality and competing priorities. Country teams should focus on policies that can impact present or prospective balance of payments or domestic stability. As per the 2012 Integrated Surveillance Decision, coverage of policies usually comprises analysis, discussion, an assessment of policies and policy advice by staff, and, if offered, the authorities’ views on the issue. Whether an issue or policy meets the macro-criticality threshold can only be determined on a case-by-case basis, albeit following a common approach. In lending, gender-related structural benchmarks should be included if they are critically important to achieving program goals. Capacity development efforts can support the design and implementation of policies to improve gender outcomes.
Evenhandedness: Consistent with the guidance on surveillance, staff should ensure uniformity of treatment across member countries based on the IMF’s established principle of input-based evenhandedness while avoiding a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Countries in similar circumstances should be treated in a similar manner, considering domestic and cross-country risks, resource constraints, the availability of analytical tools and data, and coverage of different policy themes. In other words, evenhandedness does not necessarily imply uniform policies as it would depend on country-specific circumstances.
36. In the context of Article IV Consultations, coverage of gender in country work should be based on the principle of macro-criticality, as noted above. Whether an issue is macro-critical for surveillance, that is, whether it significantly influences present or prospective balance of payments or domestic stability, will depend on country-specific circumstances, and the assessment may vary over time (Figure 5).
Coverage of Gender in Country Work
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Source: 2022 Guidance Note for Surveillance under Article IV Consultations.Coverage of Gender in Country Work
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Source: 2022 Guidance Note for Surveillance under Article IV Consultations.Coverage of Gender in Country Work
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
Source: 2022 Guidance Note for Surveillance under Article IV Consultations.For issues that are macro-critical and where the Fund has expertise, staff analysis and policy advice are required.
For issues that are macro-critical but where the Fund does not have expertise, staff should analyze the issue, drawing on the expertise of, and in collaboration with, external partners as needed, but staff are not expected to provide specific policy advice.
For issues that are not macro-critical but for which the Fund has expertise, staff may provide analysis and policy advice if requested by the member.
For issues that are not macro-critical and where the Fund does not have expertise, analysis and policy advice should not be provided.
Once staff identify an issue as macro-critical, the Integrated Surveillance Decision requires it to be discussed in Article IV Consultations to the extent that the Fund has expertise; the authorities’ views on coverage should be reported, as needed. Depth of coverage will depend on factors such as relevance, severity, and urgency relative to other issues.
37. A systematic process is needed to guide coverage of gender in bilateral surveillance. For illustrative purposes, Figure 6 shows an index of gender inequality, created by the UNDP, that could serve as one of the inputs into the benchmarking of gender gaps. This index captures gender gaps in labor market participation, political representation, and health outcomes across countries (higher values indicate greater gender inequality). Other indices or variables should also be used instead or in tandem to support and corroborate evidence on macro-relevant gender disparities. The blue bars indicate countries that have had at least one Board-endorsed country report covering gender issues, while the countries in gold have not. A systematic approach in which country coverage is primarily determined based on the largest gender gaps should, broadly speaking, imply relatively more blue bars on the right. What emerges from the picture, however, is that so far there is no clear pattern of country selection based on the relative size of gender gaps.22
Gender Inequality and Coverage of Gender in IMF Reports
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Gender Inequality and Coverage of Gender in IMF Reports
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Gender Inequality and Coverage of Gender in IMF Reports
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
38. Under the strategy, country selection in Article IV Consultations will rely on a combination of a top-down and a bottom-up approach. It will be based on a data-driven approach to identify countries where gender gaps are largest and macro-critical. The central unit would select countries with the largest quantitative gaps based on available data, and area departments would determine which countries they intend to cover based on an assessment of macro-criticality as well as buy-in from country authorities. Strategic considerations on member engagement, led by area departments, including countries’ explicit requests to discuss gender issues during the Article IV Consultation, will also be considered in the country selection.
Accountability and Organizational Structure
39. The vision of integrating gender into the span of the Fund’s work could be articulated in the Fund’s agenda-setting documents and the departmental accountability frameworks. The former include the Managing Director’s Global Policy Agenda, the IMFC communiqué, and the Board’s Work Program. Departments’ Annual Accountability Frameworks should articulate the specific and concrete plans for mainstreaming gender. The semi-annual discussions with Management will allow for reporting and adaption as needed.
40. A supportive organizational structure would help departments deliver on their commitments.
A centralized gender and inclusion unit in SPR. The creation of a centralized unit would realize scale economies in learning and developing macro frameworks, tools, and data sets to support country teams. It would avoid duplication by multiple teams across the institution, which are pitfalls of a decentralized model. As the center of Fund strategy, policy, and review, SPR is the natural place for housing a central unit to ensure consistent and evenhanded treatment across member countries. This unit will develop guidance for staff and cover both gender and inclusion issues, drawing on synergies across the two workstreams.
A Gender Working Group. Since gender is a cross-cutting issue and does not reside in a single functional department, the implementation of the mainstreaming strategy must include all relevant departments. The existing interdepartmental advisory group on gender would be renamed Gender Working Group. Its tasks would be reconstituted to focus on the technical aspects of mainstreaming gender by brainstorming with the SPR unit to develop analytical tools and frameworks, discuss ongoing work, and foster peer learning.23
A Senior Gender and Inclusion Accountability Group. Similar to the FCS committee, a senior accountability group at the level of department heads, with regular reporting and interactions with Management, would be established. The Group would provide institutional thought leadership and meet periodically to monitor progress and proactively steer the Fund in advancing gender mainstreaming.
Internal and External Communication
41. Enhanced internal and external communications are needed to set expectations, build support and ownership, and foster peer learning.24 The gender and inclusion unit, the Communications Department (COM), and the Office of Innovation and Change (OIC) will jointly develop and implement a strategic plan that outlines key channels of communication to expand IMF engagement and reach targeted audiences. Efforts will focus on: (i) developing in-reach and outreach efforts to encourage uptake by staff and IMF membership; (ii) modernizing the IMF gender site on IMF.org; (iii) disseminating gender content through targeted stakeholder lists; (iv) creating blogs, videos, and podcasts to amplify teams’ analytical research; (v) expanding outreach through local resident representative offices; (vi) engaging with traditional and social media to broaden public awareness of the Fund’s work on gender and highlight success stories; and (vii) increasing Fund staff participation in conferences, workshops, and peer learning events. An important goal would be to deepen engagement in regions with higher gender inequality (e.g., the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa) and connect with new demographic groups, particularly the youth.
42. To facilitate knowledge sharing, a new Fund-wide Gender Seminar Series was launched in December 2021. Going forward, some sessions could be hosted jointly with the World Bank and other IFIs/MDBs. Seminars could include IMF staff, country authorities, academics, staff from other IFIs/MDBs, the private sector, and CSOs. Some of this work could feed into flagship events at the Annual and Spring Meetings and in high-level conferences and workshops.
D. External Collaboration
43. There is ample scope to leverage complementarities through collaboration with external partners.25 Extensive expertise and experience at the sectoral level reside in institutions such as the World Bank Group (WBG), UN Women, and regional development institutions. IMF engagement on gender from a macroeconomic and financial stability perspective would complement the substantial body of work at the micro-level being done by others. In addition, it would be useful to engage with external experts in gender and macroeconomics, including to strengthen the Fund’s analysis.
44. Collaboration provides an opportunity to collectively advocate for policies and reforms to reduce gender gaps, while adhering to institutional mandates. Knowledge sharing, peer learning, and amplified messaging are benefits from enhanced cooperation (Figure 7). However, since developing and sustaining relationships takes time and resources, the focus should be on deepening collaboration with those institutions where synergies are greatest. Initially, staff intend to rely on informal collaboration at the country and central levels. A formal agreement could be considered after learning from experience in working informally with them.
45. The World Bank Group is the IMF’s main and natural partner, and much groundwork has already been covered in identifying collaboration paths. Regarding analytical research, joint work with the WBG can help support the IMF’s efforts to develop new tools and frameworks (Figure 8). For example, staff from both institutions are exploring how current WBG modeling efforts could be integrated with IMF gender modeling work. Collaboration should also consider topics of common interest at the country level. Knowledge sharing opportunities could become more frequent and regular through co-hosting events and informal seminars. Relevant gender-disaggregated data collected by the WBG will be included in the proposed new centralized data hub. WBG staff have expressed interest in data created in-house by IMF staff on the financial and fintech sectors.26
Collaborating with the World Bank
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Collaborating with the World Bank
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Collaborating with the World Bank
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46. Bank-Fund collaboration on gender will be designed consistent with the Management Implementation Plan to strengthen collaboration on macro-structural issues. Building on best practices on collaboration, the 2021 Implementation Plan (IMF, 2021d) in response to the 2020 Evaluation Report on IMF collaboration with the World Bank on macro-structural issues (IMF, 2020) proposes concrete steps to: (i) develop frameworks that ensure effective collaboration on strategic macro-structural issues; (ii) improve internal incentives for collaboration with external partners; and (iii) enhance access to and exchange of information and knowledge between Bank and Fund staff. These steps will provide a concrete basis for future Bank-Fund collaboration on gender, including at the country team level.
47. Collaboration with UN Women, which began in 2015, can be strengthened. Joint IMF-UN Women peer learning events have been held, including in Rwanda (2017), Mauritius (2018), Tanzania (2018), Ethiopia (2019), Senegal (2020), Angola (2021), Cambodia (2021), Latin America (2021) and Eastern Europe (2018–22). A two-week course on gender and macroeconomics in January 2022 featured joint participation with UN Women staff. UN Women, UNDP and IMF staff co-authored a note on COVID-19 and gender equality. Staff from the two organizations have outlined plans to deepen the partnership on analytical research and CD at headquarters and in regions. These plans include: (i) scaling up the current UN Women work on fiscal and monetary impacts of COVID-19 stimulus packages; (ii) providing joint, tailored CD on gender budgeting; and (iii) expanding analytical research on costing exercises for unpaid care work.27
48. Staff from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and IMF have identified several avenues for collaboration. EBRD initiatives on deepening financing inclusion for women-led small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and CD could be complemented with IMF analytical research and CD. Joint policy work could analyze the gender responsiveness of countries’ investment climates, which would identify the cultural, regulatory, and legal barriers that women entrepreneurs face. The IMF’s recent work on legal barriers (Christopherson and others, 2022) could dovetail with the EBRD’s Gender-Responsive Regulatory Impact Assessments in developing, adopting, and monitoring gender-responsive legislation. Other lines of collaboration could include synergies between the climate and gender workstreams.
49. Collaborating with other IFIs and development partners on CD can be particularly beneficial. The Fund stands to benefit from the experiences of member countries and development partners that prioritize gender equality in their development assistance programs as an effective approach to poverty reduction. IMF Regional Technical Assistance Centers and Regional Training Centers should serve as essential resources in developing the authorities’ capacity, and resident representative offices can facilitate coordination among institutions on the ground.
50. Collaboration with external development partners can also help support CD. The Gates Foundation approved a one-year, $1.6 million grant in January 2022 for gender-related work.28 The project represents a collaborative effort among several departments in the IMF and is expected to leverage technical experts from IMF Regional Technical Assistance Centers in support of CD. Work on gender in low-income countries has been supported mainly by FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Office, United Kingdom).
51. IMF staff have begun to participate in periodic meetings of an MDB Working Group on Gender. The Group provides an efficient forum to promote dialogue, coordination, information exchange, and collaboration on gender equality among multilateral development banks. Members are staff leading the gender work in their respective institutions.29 As part of their exchange and dissemination of knowledge commitments, the Group organizes global summits to facilitate dialogue and exchange best practices. The IMF co-organized sessions on digitalization and fiscal policies for women’s financial and labor market inclusion, respectively, in the 2022 Summit in May.
52. External advisory networks on gender should be leveraged and, if warranted, strengthened and expanded. There are existing networks on gender, such as with parliamentarians and CSOs. Staff plan to set up periodic meetings with academics and experts on gender and macroeconomics who can advise on analytical work. Management would also engage, as needed, with the WBG and other partners to facilitate collaboration and coordination with IMF staff.
E. Resources
53. Limited resources heighten the importance of maximizing efficiency and implementing the strategy at a measured pace. As discussed earlier, centralizing dedicated resources in the gender and inclusion unit in SPR would achieve scale economies in developing the analytical firepower and governance framework while supporting a small set of country teams each year. Country coverage would initially be narrow and selective, with some deeper studies supported by the unit to serve as prototypes for the mainstreaming of gender across countries. Multilateral surveillance could complement bilateral surveillance in the initial years. Over time, country coverage would increase as tools and models are developed and country desk economists have greater access to gender toolkits and training.
Existing and Additional Resources
54. As of FY22, there are about 18 full-time equivalent staff (FTEs) across 13 departments working on gender (Table 1). Nearly two-thirds of these existing resources reside in functional departments and one-third in area departments. This is an increase compared to FY21, when about 11 FTEs were dedicated to gender. Most resources are dedicated to CD and other activities, including outreach, followed by analytical work and multilateral surveillance, and then country work. Within the baseline budget envelope, i.e., before augmentation resources, it was expected that 19.5 FTEs would be dedicated to gender in FY23, as gender work continues to be part of the regular rotation of topics in departments.
Current and Additional Resources Allocated to Gender Across Departments
Existing FTEs, excluding transitional resources.
Reflects updated totals provided in November 2021; the 0.5 FTEs under the augmentation framework for functional departments excluding SPR reflects resources allocated to ICD for the development of internal trainings related to gender and inclusion.
With allocations to be determined in future budget cycles, the same FTEs as in FY23 are assumed for all departments except SPR.
Cumulative.
Current and Additional Resources Allocated to Gender Across Departments
| FY21 | FY222/ | FY232/ | FY243/ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area Departments | 4.2 | 6.3 | 8.1 | 8.1 | |
| Functional Departments ex. SPR | 4.9 | 9.4 | 9.9 | 9.9 | |
| Memo item: of which augmentation | 0.5 | 0.5 | |||
| SPR | 1.7 | 2.01/ | 4.0 | 6.0 | |
| Memo item: of which augmentation | 2.0 | 4.0 4/ | |||
| All Departments | 10.8 | 17.7 | 22.0 | 24.0 | |
| Memo item: without augmentation | 10.8 | 17.7 | 19.5 | 19.5 |
Existing FTEs, excluding transitional resources.
Reflects updated totals provided in November 2021; the 0.5 FTEs under the augmentation framework for functional departments excluding SPR reflects resources allocated to ICD for the development of internal trainings related to gender and inclusion.
With allocations to be determined in future budget cycles, the same FTEs as in FY23 are assumed for all departments except SPR.
Cumulative.
Current and Additional Resources Allocated to Gender Across Departments
| FY21 | FY222/ | FY232/ | FY243/ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area Departments | 4.2 | 6.3 | 8.1 | 8.1 | |
| Functional Departments ex. SPR | 4.9 | 9.4 | 9.9 | 9.9 | |
| Memo item: of which augmentation | 0.5 | 0.5 | |||
| SPR | 1.7 | 2.01/ | 4.0 | 6.0 | |
| Memo item: of which augmentation | 2.0 | 4.0 4/ | |||
| All Departments | 10.8 | 17.7 | 22.0 | 24.0 | |
| Memo item: without augmentation | 10.8 | 17.7 | 19.5 | 19.5 |
Existing FTEs, excluding transitional resources.
Reflects updated totals provided in November 2021; the 0.5 FTEs under the augmentation framework for functional departments excluding SPR reflects resources allocated to ICD for the development of internal trainings related to gender and inclusion.
With allocations to be determined in future budget cycles, the same FTEs as in FY23 are assumed for all departments except SPR.
Cumulative.
55. Under the December 1, 2021, Budget Augmentation Framework, SPR will receive 6 additional FTEs for gender and inclusion work over FY23–25.30 The framework reflects the Board’s decision that an incremental allocation of resources will better leverage the Fund’s work on gender and inclusion. As agreed with the inclusion workstream, 4 of these additional FTEs are expected to work on gender, 2 each to be hired in FY23 and FY24 (Table 1). Hiring of a limited number of contractuals funded by the Gates Foundation who will work on developing toolkits to strengthen the analytical capacity of IMF members in the context of TA/CD is also envisaged.
Central Unit
56. The additional FTEs would be centralized in the gender and inclusion unit. The unit, which would be fully functional in the first year (FY23) with staffing to be completed in FY24, is best placed to ensure evenhandedness, including through the review process. It would support the implementation of the gender strategy by:
Collaborating with other departments and external partners to develop the analytical framework,31 work with STA on data and designing scorecards to identify countries where gender gaps are large and macro-critical, and contribute to the design of CD activities;
Producing an initial guidance note on how to implement the gender mainstreaming strategy;
Supporting country teams to develop tailored, country-specific advice. This will include brainstorming sessions; selective, gender-focused reviews of country papers; and joining or backstopping area department missions;32
Serving as a focal point for internal and external collaboration;33 and
Supporting Management and the Senior Advisor on Gender in their in-reach and outreach activities, including running the new Gender Seminar Series and serving as the secretariat to the Gender Working Group and the Senior Gender and Inclusion Accountability Group.
57. Given the goal of mainstreaming, the unit should be staffed mostly by fungible macroeconomists. Most of these economists would not be “gender experts” per se. Rather, just as many fungible macroeconomists at the Fund develop expertise on macro-financial and macro-structural issues over the course of their careers, these economists would develop expertise on mainstreaming gender in policy analysis and advice. Working to mainstream gender should be seen as an innovative and agile activity on an issue of importance to the membership.
Resource Allocation by Activity
58. An initial concerted push to develop the analytical arsenal is needed. During the first two years, about three-quarters of the additional FTEs would be dedicated to cross-country activities to develop, with relevant departments, the policy and analytical firepower and the requisite datasets for analyzing gender. Newly developed tools and models and best practice examples of country coverage would be shared internally and, over time, with country authorities via CD.
59. Later, and in the steady state, as consistent policy and analytical frameworks are in place, more resources could be shifted to direct country engagement. Over time, country teams would have improved access to tools, models, and training, allowing for deeper direct country engagement. In the steady state, when gender is fully integrated in IMF core functions, most resources would be dedicated to direct support to country teams—both surveillance and lending— in area departments, and CD in functional departments. Figure 9 below shows the envisaged distribution of existing and additional resources in FY25.
Additional Resources by Output Area in FY25
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1/ Estimated gender allocation within the overall envelope for inclusion/gender approved under the augmentation framework. Includes 0.5 FTE allocated to ICD for capacity development related to gender and inclusion.Additional Resources by Output Area in FY25
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1/ Estimated gender allocation within the overall envelope for inclusion/gender approved under the augmentation framework. Includes 0.5 FTE allocated to ICD for capacity development related to gender and inclusion.Additional Resources by Output Area in FY25
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
1/ Estimated gender allocation within the overall envelope for inclusion/gender approved under the augmentation framework. Includes 0.5 FTE allocated to ICD for capacity development related to gender and inclusion.Country Coverage
60. There is a trade-off between depth and breadth of country coverage. The choice is between more in-depth coverage of a few countries initially, which is extended to others over time, or broader but shallower coverage initially that is deepened over time.34
The more in-depth coverage—termed “deep dives”—entails integrating gender into the fiscal, financial, and structural analyses and core policy discussions, as per the vision of mainstreaming gender. But deeper analyses require more intensive use of resources relative to mainstreamed topics, which benefit from already established frameworks and expertise. Therefore, coverage would only be for a small set of countries initially. As expertise is gained, teams will be able to engage more deeply and widely with the authorities, with fewer resources per country.
Alternatively, broader coverage envisages analysis of selected gender issues, typically related to one sector or topic—termed “light touch.” They are useful to start the conversation with the authorities on gender gaps and could be followed up with a deeper dive as warranted in subsequent Article IV Consultation discussions. A dialogue could also be started by including basic gender-related indicators (e.g., labor market participation by gender) in the Selected Economic Indicators Table of Staff Reports. Such exercises would help assess data gaps and help national authorities improve the collection and quality of gender disaggregated data.
61. Consistent with the aim of integrating gender more holistically into IMF’s core work, it is proposed to opt for greater depth of fewer countries initially. The policy analysis in such cases will serve as a prototype for mainstreaming gender, facilitate early progress in developing and tailoring frameworks, and have demonstration effects. They will, thus, steer the way toward full mainstreaming (Figure 10). Six staff reports to date have come closest to the concept of mainstreaming gender, but they were resource intensive: Argentina (2017), Iran (2018), Nigeria (2019), Lao P.D.R. (2019), Senegal (2019), and Sierra Leone (2020).35
62. Our baseline envisions a gradual increase in deep dives. Figure 11 provides illustrative calculations. The left chart shows the number of countries that could be covered in the baseline scenario where both deep dives and light touches are undertaken. Coverage expands from 11 countries in FY23 to 18 countries in FY25 as frameworks are established and expertise is gained.36 In the right chart, the blue bars show that, even in the extreme scenario of conducting light touches only (maximum breadth), country coverage would remain limited, increasing from 12 to 25 countries by the third year. If, on the other hand, only deep dives were executed (maximum depth), country coverage would be limited to only 6 to 8 countries in FY23–25.
Country Coverage in the Initial Years
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Source: Staff calculations. See Section VI of the Background Paper for relevant assumptions.Country Coverage in the Initial Years
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Source: Staff calculations. See Section VI of the Background Paper for relevant assumptions.Country Coverage in the Initial Years
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Source: Staff calculations. See Section VI of the Background Paper for relevant assumptions.63. Early engagement with country authorities and other stakeholders will be critical for buy-in. The central unit will help in connecting country teams to relevant organizations, think tanks, and CSOs. Teams will be expected to follow up on policy recommendations and report on progress in subsequent Article IV consultations, subject to continued assessment of macro-criticality. Resident Representative offices can help monitor progress and follow up on policy recommendations and CD.
64. Limited coverage in bilateral surveillance could be supplemented by increased coverage in multilateral surveillance and select Board briefings. Expanding the analysis of gender disparities in flagships and IMF Regional Economic Outlook publications would increase external and internal visibility, showcase the Fund’s analytical advances on gender, and provide useful references for country teams. Gender issues could also be a topic for the newly instituted (post-CSR) country matters meetings, which provide an avenue to discuss cross-country developments on gender, while at the same time, seek feedback from the Board on policy advice in this area.
F. Risks and Challenges to Mainstreaming Gender
65. The above four-pillar strategy also addresses potential implementation risks and challenges. These relate to whether the Fund will develop sufficient capacity, expertise, data, information, and tools to engage meaningfully with the membership and provide granular and tailored advice. In other words, does the strategy underestimate the volume of work that integrating gender in the Fund’s macroeconomic framework might entail, not least because standard economic models thus far have had little to say about gender? These risks are minimized by a robust governance framework that ensures adherence to the Fund’s mandate, as well as investing in enhancing the analytical framework via a central unit. The latter will benefit from lessons learnt during the successful incorporation of income inequality in standard models. The envisaged collaboration with external partners will ensure staff benefit from knowledge sharing.
66. Undertaking more rigorous analytical work will take time, resources, deliberation, and an acknowledgement of successes and failures. Once models and tools are built, staff will need time to experiment with and refine them. Fund staff will also need training on gender analysis, including in identifying gaps, determining what is macro-critical, and ensuring evenhandedness. The benefits and overall success of different forms of engagement will likely depend on country circumstances but the work, to varying degrees, can begin now. In due course, a systematic survey of all 190-member country authorities and an external evaluation of the Fund’s work on gender could also be undertaken to enable staff to serve the membership better.
A Roadmap to Sequence Mainstreaming
A phased implementation of the strategy and associated deliverables over three stages of one to two years each would balance the ambition of the vision with staff resources and the need to build the necessary expertise among staff. The proposed timeline, work program, and resource allocation may vary over time depending on the progress made in implementing the strategy and the need to adjust to unanticipated circumstances and evolving external developments. In each phase, the SPR gender and inclusion unit and functional departments will help area departments apply a consistent framework, calibrating models and tools to country-specific circumstances.
67. Recognizing that it will take time to scale up country engagement, a phased implementation is envisaged. Implementation will be sequenced over three phases, with each phase spanning one to two years (Figure 12). The steady state—when gender is fully mainstreamed—will likely only be reached beyond the three-year timeframe of the medium-term budget framework. Progress will be assessed at each stage based on the deliverables envisioned for each phase.
Phasing of the Gender Strategy and Monitorable Targets
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1/ The table includes CD projects and missions at the design stage.2/ IET program also includes two gender clinics on “Gender Equality and Macroeconomics” during FY23 (ICD/SPR/FAD/LEG/MCM/STA).Phasing of the Gender Strategy and Monitorable Targets
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
1/ The table includes CD projects and missions at the design stage.2/ IET program also includes two gender clinics on “Gender Equality and Macroeconomics” during FY23 (ICD/SPR/FAD/LEG/MCM/STA).Phasing of the Gender Strategy and Monitorable Targets
Citation: Policy Papers 2022, 037; 10.5089/9798400216602.007.A001
1/ The table includes CD projects and missions at the design stage.2/ IET program also includes two gender clinics on “Gender Equality and Macroeconomics” during FY23 (ICD/SPR/FAD/LEG/MCM/STA).68. Upon Board endorsement, staff will start to implement the four pillars of the gender strategy. Following the approval by the Board of the budget augmentation for inclusion and gender in December 2021, a central unit in SPR will become functional in FY23.
69. Those elements of gender mainstreaming that are not resource-intensive can start immediately. Building on past work, including in areas such as removing legal barriers faced by women, increasing financial access of women, and introducing gender-responsive fiscal policy where a literature exists documenting gender gaps, teams could start engaging with country authorities. As Box 3 notes, there are several modes of engaging with country authorities on gender issues. In countries where gender gaps are especially large, initial efforts could yield significant results.
Examples of How Country Teams Can Engage on Gender Issues
Three levels of engagement are envisaged. They are not mutually exclusive. The choice of when and how to engage will vary by country circumstances, competing priorities, and staffing constraints.
Signaling role: Article IV, Financial Sector Stability Review (FSSR), and Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) teams could start by seeking to identify and understand the most relevant gender gaps in the country. Staff could discuss how the authorities prioritize closing macro-critical gaps, what actions they are taking or planning, and how the Fund could contribute. This is the most basic function, consistent with a signaling role of the Fund on the importance of the issue.
Catalytic or convening role: Teams could seek to play a convening or catalytic role, bringing together relevant stakeholders and catalyzing discussions on how macroeconomic and financial sector policies could be viewed through a gender lens. This could include domestic stakeholders, such as various line ministries (e.g., finance, economy, gender, labor, health, education, and social development), civil society organizations and private sector representatives. It could also include other international or regional organizations, particularly those that have a presence on the ground.
Intellectual leadership role in the macro-financial area: Staff could play an intellectual leadership role in macro-critical gender areas that would contribute to better macroeconomic outcomes in IMF member countries. As in other areas, this work could be done with the authorities or other organizations and should be presented to the authorities as an integral part of the core policy discussions. In engaging with authorities, teams will need to keep in mind cultural and societal norms, recognizing that change takes time.
70. In preparation for the strategy implementation, functional departments have already started some gender initiatives. A two-week course on gender and macroeconomics, developed by AFR and ICD with participation from FAD, SPR, and UN Women, took place in January 2022 at the Africa Training Institute. Another course delivery by ICD, in collaboration with AFR and SPR, followed at SARTTAC in February 2022. MCM started a gender-disaggregated data pilot for Financial Sector Stability Reviews. Other departments would continue their existing gender workstreams with a view to improving them (e.g., the FAS gender-disaggregated data collection and STA’s regional workshop on financial access data collection which includes gender components). The Tenth Review of the IMF Data Standards Initiatives encourages Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) and SDDS-plus countries—about 80 members—to publish data on labor force participation rates by gender on the IMF Data Standards Bulletin Board (a one-stop shop for all official data under the IMF Data Standards Initiatives).
71. The governance and analytical framework will be set up in Phase 1. The gender and inclusion unit will update the 2018 How-to-Note with the key pillars introduced by the strategy (a fully-fledged guidance note will be produced in Phase 3, see below). The proposed governance structure will be put in place, country selection would commence, and selected country teams would begin to engage with country authorities. This initial engagement will be complemented by the offering of external courses on gender and macroeconomics. Peer-learning workshops would also provide the opportunity for country teams and authorities to exchange views on good practices. Model development will progress, and internal training of staff will focus on knowledge-sharing and targeted gender clinics. Departments would start putting forward gender mainstreaming work plans in their Accountability Frameworks, spanning multilateral and bilateral country work and CD. Staff intend to brief the Board on the implementation status of the approved gender strategy, along with the progress made on other inclusion topics, in late FY23.
72. Phase 2 will see increased support to country teams, allowing for more in-depth analysis and policy advice. The focus will be on enhancing macroeconomic frameworks for country application. Some country teams will apply new frameworks and toolkits with deep dives. The feedback received from country teams will help enhance and revise the macroeconomic framework to tackle macro-critical gender gaps. Country coverage during this phase is expected to expand to around 13 countries. An internal competition for innovation could solicit ideas for bringing a gender dimension to Fund staff’s granular and tailored advice. Staff would start developing a full-fledged structured course on Gender and Macroeconomics, depending on resource availability. At the end of Phase 2, a technical briefing to the Board on the analytical work and the experience of collaboration with external partners could be considered.
73. In Phase 3, mainstreaming would advance, and a comprehensive stocktaking exercise would be conducted. As country coverage increases to around 18 countries, lessons learnt and demonstration effects can be expected to yield scale economies for other country teams seeking to replicate this work, while adapting it to country-specific circumstances. A review of the effectiveness of the new governance framework will be presented to Management. At the end of Phase 3, a full-fledged guidance note would be produced, and a stocktaking exercise would be conducted. Some resources would be expected to gradually shift from the central unit to area departments as gender is widely mainstreamed. Staff would report to the Board on the experience of mainstreaming gender and propose a way forward for the following years, including ways to refine the strategy itself.
74. Beyond Phase 3, the goal is to gradually but purposefully mainstream gender fully. Mainstreaming gender will take time, consistent prioritization, effort, and development of expertise. The proposed timeline, work program, and resource allocation may vary over time depending on the need to adjust to unanticipated circumstances and evolving external developments.
Conclusion and Next Steps
75. This strategy paper proposes to bring a gender lens to the core activities of the Fund. This means integrating gender, where macro-critical, into surveillance, lending, and capacity development. Thus, gender would become embedded in core discussions on fiscal, financial, and structural policies to meet macroeconomic goals. Analytical and policy work across departments would support the development of gender-responsible policies.
76. Staff would provide tailored and granular policy advice to countries where gender gaps are large and deemed macro-critical. This would ensure that the Fund’s resources are spent in an area where the Fund has authority. Importantly, it would add value to the membership as it would fill a vacuum that currently exists among IFIs and development institutions.
77. The vision is ambitious but is tempered by the phased implementation of the gender strategy. The full realization of mainstreaming gender in the Fund’s core activities will likely materialize beyond the three-year timeframe of the medium-term budget framework, given limited resources and expertise.
78. Many issues are yet to be determined. These include how to measure gender gaps, assess the macro-criticality of gender issues, and provide evenhanded policy advice to address gender gaps, among others. Staff will develop objective and broad-based criteria to determine macro-criticality, leaving the final choice to country teams’ judgment. Staff will also set up a clear and robust approach to guide the application of evenhandedness, consistent with the principles established in the 2022 Comprehensive Surveillance Review Guidance Note.
79. Management and IMF staff will begin outreach and in-reach efforts to encourage buy- in and uptake with staff and country authorities. Continuous engagement with internal and external stakeholders, including institutions that have a head start in this area, will be key components of the strategy implementation. The implementation of this strategy, if approved, will be subject to monitoring. Looking forward, since outcomes will likely be slow moving and the impact of policy reforms will take time to realize, the effectiveness of the strategy and its impact on the membership could be assessed every five to ten years.
Issues for Discussion
Do Directors agree with the proposed strategy to help member countries close macro-critical gender gaps to enhance macroeconomic and financial resilience and promote inclusive economic growth?
Do Directors endorse the proposed collaboration with external partners to benefit from peer learning and knowledge sharing and, thereby, enhance the impact on the ground?
Do Directors agree with the timeline and sequencing of the strategy implementation?
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In this context, it is important to recognize that men can also be disproportionately impacted by shocks and policies or fall behind due to structural impediments. For example, men in the Icelandic tourism industry faced higher rates of job losses than women during the pandemic (IMF Country Report No. 21/106).
See Section I of the Background Paper for details on the analytical work on gender at the IMF and for coverage of gender issues in IMF surveillance, lending, and capacity development.
Data were accessed through the World Bank World Development Indicators database and are for 2019 labor force participation rates for women and men ages 15–64 based on the modeled ILO estimate.
See Section II of the Background Paper for additional details on the impact of COVID-19 on gender inequality.
While recognizing that intersectionality is an important aspect of defining an individual’s identity, it is not considered in this paper. The framework of intersectionality, much like a Venn diagram, demonstrates the various components of an individual’s identity that may lead to discrimination or lack of privilege, such as gender along with race, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, language, class, education, etc. Each of these components individually or in combination can be a source of discrimination or lack of privilege. This paper focuses squarely on what is possible under the IMF’s mandate: mainstreaming gender where gender gaps are macro-critical.
Elborgh-Woytek and others (2013); Gonzales and others (2015a); Kochhar and others (2017); Sahay and others (2015); Sahay and others (2018); Cihak and Sahay (2020).
Ostry and others (2018); Petersson and others (2017); Woetzel and others (2015); Caprioli (2005); Demeritt and others (2014); Cuberes and Teignier (2016, 2018); Bandara (2015); Gonzales and others (2015b); Hakura and others (2016); Hsieh and others (2019); Bertay and others (2020); Klasen (2002); Rock and Grant (2016); Cook (2019); Cook and others (2021); Sahay and others (2015); Khera and others (2021).
Kazandjian and others (2016); Seguino (2000, 2010); Blanton and Blanton (2015); Coleman (2010); Busse and Nunnenkamp (2009); Busse and Spielmann (2006); Seguino, Berik, and Rodgers (2009).
Olusegun (2017); Sahay and others (2018); Sahay and Čihák (2018); Khera and others (2022), forthcoming; Strøm and others (2014).
Christiansen and others (2016); Khera and others (2022), forthcoming; Sahay and others (2022), forthcoming; Duflo (2012).
See Section II of the Background Paper for additional information on gender gaps in human capital development, access to finance, labor market outcomes, and legal barriers. See also Section IV of the Background Paper for a discussion of the role of policies in addressing gender gaps and barriers.
World Bank (2015); Gonzales and others (2015a); Christopherson and others (2022); Ouedraogo and Stenzel (2021); Jayachandran (2021); Mitra and others (2020).
Women could also be differently impacted by policies based on not just gender but rural/urban location, age, income level, etc. See Section IV of the Background Paper for a detailed review of gender-responsive policies.
In general, while gender issues that are not considered macro-critical are not expected to be subject to Fund policy advice in bilateral surveillance, in some instances, those issues can be raised in Article IV Consultations at the authorities’ request.
Economists’ Letter on Gender Equality, June 2021, signed by Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund; Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank ; Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization; Minouche Shafik, Director of The London School of Economics and Political Science; and Vera Songwe, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa.
At present, there are fewer than 30 women heads of state, only 16 women finance ministers, and only 13 women central bank governors (Figure 1). Globally, women make up just 5 percent of CEOs in commercial banks and 23 percent of bank board members (Sahay and others, 2022, forthcoming).
See Section IV of the Background Paper.
The Task Force on Gender Strategy comprised: Rishi Goyal (WHD), Archana Kumar (COM), Victoria Perry (FAD), David Robinson (AFR), Miguel Savastano (MCM), and Zeine Zeidane (MCD), and several volunteers from an interdepartmental advisory group on gender, in particular: Stefania Fabrizio (SPR), Lisa Kolovich (SPR), Monique Newiak (AFR), and Anna Fruttero (World Bank).
In some cases, country teams have found sufficient data in sectoral ministries or other institutions for their analytical work. Interestingly, most of these cases appear to be low-income countries (e.g., Central African Republic, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone).
For example, the IMF is part of the Women’s Financial Inclusion Data Partnership (WFID), which aims at facilitating gender-disaggregated data collection for financial inclusion and harmonization of definitions across different institutions. WFID partners include the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank Group, the OECD, Data2X and others. WFID Steering Committee and technical meetings have allowed the IMF to take part in discussions on data needs and to share information reported in the IMF’s FAS.
This is not to suggest that countries with smaller gender gaps should be ignored. However, the initial focus could be on those countries where gender gaps are the largest. Indeed, in several countries with small overall gender gaps, large specific gaps, such as in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas, could exist.
Formal training seminars would be conducted by the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development (ICD).
See Section V of the Background Paper for additional details.
See Section V of the Background Paper for details on previous collaboration efforts with international organizations and other stakeholders, ongoing efforts, and plans.
Staff have also engaged with the IFC on gender-related data issues, including gender-disaggregated data on financing for small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).
See Section V of the Background Paper for further information on possible joint projects between UN Women and the IMF.
Over the course of this project, staff will (i) expand gender/macro modeling; (ii) host a high-level conference; and (iii) produce technical notes, working papers, and a book on fiscal policies and institutions.
Members of the group include representatives from the gender units of the following institutions: the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the World Bank (WB).
In addition to the resources allocated to SPR, ICD will receive 0.5 FTE for gender and inclusion in the FY23 budget round, mainly to develop internal training.
External hiring of a modeling expert is also ongoing to provide support in developing analytical tools and ascertaining macro-criticality.
It is not recommended that the unit systematically review all country documents as that would quickly overwhelm the fledgling unit and defeat the purpose of mainstreaming the review function across departments, including SPR.
For example, connecting staff across IFIs and regional institutions at the country level.
See Section VI of the Background Paper for additional details on scenarios for deep dives and light touches.
Boxes 1 and 2 in Section I of the Background Paper present recent examples of engagement on gender in bilateral surveillance and lending, respectively.
Given the need for follow-up discussions and analysis, including on new gender topical areas, these should be interpreted as the total number of countries that can be covered, given the assumptions, rather than new countries covered in each year. The FTE intensity for light touches and deep dives in the steady state is assumed to be 0.1 and 0.3 FTEs per country, respectively. Section VI of the Background Paper elaborates on the assumptions and calculations.
