Writing in TrustLaw’s The Word on Women blog, CIPE Global Program Officer Anna Nadgrodkiewicz makes a strong case for why gender equality matters for development. In addition to being a matter of basic equity, excluding women in the workplace and in government is bad for economic development, leading to lower output from workers, less productive agriculture, and less spending on the kinds of infrastructure and human capital investments that developing countries desperately need. “Therefore,” she writes, “the persistence of gender inequality must be viewed as negative not only in its own right but also as an economic and social loss that hinders a country’s long-term development prospects.”
But providing equal economic opportunities for women in the workplace may not be enough. Only when more women actively participate in the political and civil spheres can societies reach their full potential.
