The study suggests that gender inequality acts as a significant constraint to growth in sub-Saharan Africa, and that removing gender-based barriers to growth will make a substantial contribution to realizing Africa's economic potential. In particular we highlight gender gaps in education, related high fertility levels, gender gaps in formal sector employment, and gender gaps in access to assets and inputs in agricultural production as particular barriers reducing the ability of women to contribute to economic growth. By identifying some of the key factors that determine the ways in which men and women contribute to, and benefit (or lose) from, growth in Africa, we argue that looking at such issues through a gender lens is an essential step in identifying how policy can be shaped in a way that is explicitly gender-inclusive and …/
Newman and Canagarajah provide evidence thatWomen were more likely than men to combine women's nonfarm activities help reduce poverty in two agriculture and nonfarm activities. In Ghana it was economically and culturally different countries, Ghana nonfarm activities (for which income data are available) and Uganda.that provided the highest average incomes and the In both countries rural poverty rates were lowest -highest shares of income. and fell most rapidlyfor female heads of household Bivariate probit analysis of participation shows that in engaged in nonfarm activities.Uganda female heads of household and in Ghana women Participation in nonfarm activities increased more in general are significantly more likely than men to rapidly for women, especially married women and participate in nonfarm activities and less likely to female heads of household, than for men. participate in agriculture.This papera joint product of Rural Development, Development Research Group, and the Social Protection Team, Human Development Network-is part of a larger effort in the Bank to discuss gender, employment, and poverty linkages.
Various developing countries with weak public expenditure management systems are establishing virtual poverty funds (VPFs), drawing on the experience of Uganda's Poverty Action Fund. As a mechanism for tagging and tracking the performance of specific poverty‐reducing expenditures in the budget, a VPF can be useful. However, this article argues that such devices should be treated from the outset as transitional, and as part of wider processes of strengthening public expenditure management; otherwise, they can seriously distort public expenditure allocations and management systems, potentially undermining growth. Emphasis needs to be placed on identifying the right balance of expenditures in the entire budget; improving the effectiveness and efficiency of existing allocations; and developing better public‐sector policies for promoting pro‐poor private sector growth.
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