The Last Frontier:

Women at the Economic Policy Table

Gender Equity Thematic Group Seminar

Yesim Elhan-Kayalar
29 January 2015
The views expressed in this presentation are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian
Development Bank (ADB), or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the
data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. The countries listed in this paper do not
imply any view on ADB's part as to sovereignty or independent status or necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.

Background
UN Women Asia-Pacific Regional
Expert Group Meeting on Gender and
Macroeconomics, 15-16 December
2014, Bangkok
How UN Women may better support
womens voices, choices, safety
How UN agencies can answer to women

Representing ADB, made two

presentations on ERD-led research and
operational experiences
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Background - II
Over 50 representatives from UN agencies
(FAO, ILO, UNCDF, UNEP, UNDP, UN
Women), academia, civil society
organizations
Broad coverage through discussion and
learning sessions
Growth, inclusiveness and womens economic
empowerment
The impact of macroeconomic policy on inclusiveness
Linkages between macroeconomic policies and
womens rights and gender equality in BAN, PHI, SOL
Programming issues at the regional and country
levels and partnerships
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Voices from the floor

Recognition of inequalities hasnt
gotten us far
Nobody listens to us [UN Women]
because we dont have funding,
access
Macroeconomics might as well be
Marsian
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Variations in FLFP

Source: Max Fisher, Washington Post, 13 Feb 2014, using World Bank Development Indicators.

0
Developed
Economies &
European Union

North Africa

Middle East

Sub-Saharan Africa

ADB DMCs: Average

Latin America & the

Caribbean

Regional Variations in FLFP

80

60

40

20

Male
Female

Key messages
In Asia, 0.001% of the population owns 30% of wealth
Call for development justice through macroeconomic
policies
Public expenditure on universal education and health
has transformative potential for redressing historical
exclusion
But does not necessarily translate to labor market
outcomes
Implications of shrinking public sector employment
on women
Changes in migration patterns, pressure on female
labor force participation (FLFP)
Not all work is equally empowering, working
conditions matter
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Key messages - II
Women mostly absent from or are poorly
represented in economic decision-making
Leveraging evidence-based advocacy
Influence policy
Generate actionable commitments

Important to remember women are not a

homogeneous group
Neither are development practitioners

Key messages - III

Institutional and internal challenges
Mapping the issues, all relevant issues
Buy-in
Capacity
Tools, access
Partnerships for
Complementarity
More comprehensive coverage
Access
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10

Operational experiences
Strong analytical foundation with flagship
publications by ADB and collaborations with ILO,
UN Women
Sector proliferation of gender mainstreaming work
While continuing to support:
Economic empowerment
Skilling and employment generation programs
Public sector reform and inclusive national
planning, gender-transformative budgeting
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Programming priorities & partnerships

Target incremental steps
Achievable, continuous, accumulative

Challenges and gaps

Data, evidence-based advocacy
Continued, multi-level commitment
Development support - enforcer, enabler,
sweetener?
Country context
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Programming priorities &

partnerships - II
Map stakeholders, interests, spheres
of influence, capacity, targets
Partnerships for results
Implementation as measure of
success
Joint reinforcement and results
monitoring
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For Further Attention

Entry points for development
agencies
Moving from articulated synergies to
coordinated action
ADBs potential role as facilitator and
catalyst in the evolving approach

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Thank you

For more information:

yelhan@adb.org

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