Supporting economic empowerment of women

Gender equality is key to advancing sustainable growth in our countries of operations.

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Gender equality

We value gender equality as an integral part of EBRD's commitment to promoting sustainable and environmentally sound development across our investment and donor-funded activities. We therefore consider gender equality as crucial to promoting sound business management and advancing sustainable growth in the Bank's countries of operations.

The EBRD's Gender Action Plan (GAP), adopted in May 2009, seeks to promote gender equality and increase the economic participation of women in the private sector, including in decision-making roles, across sectors, projects and clients. 

Integrating gender components into EBRD's operations

We have launched several pilot projects in order to develop and strengthen areas of our investments with a strong potential for promoting gender equality and empowerment of women, such as equitable benefit distribution in municipal infrastructure projects. We have also sought to improve access to credit for women entrepreneurs through providing micro, small and medium sized loans and to introduce equal opportunities HR policies within our banking and corporate clients. 

Also, our ongoing grant based Women in Business Programme has provided extensive training for women starting their own businesses. Women have held a significant portion of board seats in companies in which the EBRD holds equity stakes; by 2008 around 40 per cent of seats were held by women nominee directors. 

We also continue to strengthen gender-related due diligence process under our Environmental and Social Policy in order to further take gender considerations into account in the mitigation of adverse impacts and promotion of good practice. We have been integrating gender issues into our country and sectoral strategies, such as Agribusiness and Financial Institutions strategies, and our operational policies.

These efforts have been complemented with extensive awareness raising and training on including gender components into our investment projects for banking staff and management.