Gender Equality and Economic Growth in the World Bank World Development Report 2006

This contribution examines how gender equality features in the World Bank's World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development, focusing on its conceptual framework, use of empirical evidence, and policy recommendations. It concludes that despite acknowledging that liberalization and privatization have been captured by elites for their own benefit, the report still clings to a neoclassical understanding of how markets and competition work. Moreover, although the report emphasizes gender inequality in opportunities as a trap that hinders economic growth, it shows no understanding of economic growth as a gendered process in which old forms of gender inequality are weakened but new forms of gender inequality emerge.