Let’s not waste a useful resource!

The World Bank is calling for a Gender Action Plan to advance women’s economic empowerment;

"Women earn some 22 percent less in salaries than their male counterparts, and their access to credit is very small –in Africa, for instance, they just receive one percent of the total credit going to the agricultural sector."

The Economist comments;

“It is bad enough in America: according to the Census Bureau 14.1% of women live in poverty, compared with 11.1% of men. In the developing world, the situation is much worse. By some estimates 70% of the world's poor are women and the depth of their deprivation, which often involves subsisting on less than $2 a day, makes American poverty look positively benign...

But the World Bank may have cause and effect reversed. Does liberating women promote economic growth or does economic growth spur women's liberation? In an economy where adding economic value involves muscle power, women are bound to be paid less, and valued less, than men even before the effects of childbirth and childcare are taken into account. And in most societies, lower economic value translates into reduced social and political status.

The experience of developed countries certainly seems to indicate that economic growth is profoundly liberating for women. As the value of brute force falls opportunities in the labour market for women grow. Modern contraceptives, and labour-saving appliances, make it easier for them to take paid work. And with that comes economic and political power. There is a strong argument that women's liberation movement owes less to the “feminine mystique” than to the dishwashers and washing machines that reduced household drudgery. If so the bank would do better to concentrate on spurring economic growth rather than fretting about gender."