Gender Mainstreaming, Employment and Youth - EBRD

Inclusive economic institutions are essential to ensure that market reforms are effective and the opportunities of the market economy are accessible to all. The EBRD’s countries of operations are facing pressing challenges, particularly in light of the growth in youth unemployment, the low participation of women in the workforce and the stark differences in regional economic performance within countries. To address these challenges, the EBRD promotes economic inclusion through its investments which enhance cross-border connectivity, foster trade, trade infrastructure and international expansion. Specific programmes include skills training and job-matching that promote efficient human resource allocation by not only reducing skills’ mismatches but also directly addressing firms’ productivity and competitiveness. Financing and advisory services for SMEs and women-led businesses also include support to engage in cross-border transactions and international integration.

The EBRD’s Strategy for the Promotion of Gender Equality 2016-2020 (SPGE) mandates the Bank to promote behaviours which contribute to building equitable and sustainable economies through its operations. The EBRD seeks to address barriers to women’s economic empowerment by strengthening equality of opportunities in projects by focusing on access to finance and business support for women-led businesses, access to employment and skills and access to services. The Bank’s Women in Business Programme can enhance women’s ability to trade by addressing a number of structural problems that women-led businesses find in accessing finance and operating their businesses: from addressing access to finance through credit enhancement and risk-sharing mechanisms to providing tailored business support. By supporting clients to deliver gender- responsive services, particularly in the municipal and environmental infrastructure and transport sectors, the Bank strengthens women’s access to labour markets, financial markets and markets for goods and services.

For more information: www.ebrd.com/gender

Furthermore, by working alongside its clients, the EBRD promotes efficient procurement approaches and strategies that allow women-led SMEs to compete equally mainly within the supply chain. On the supply side, the Bank supports women’s access to business opportunities, promoting improved equal opportunity standards for clients, their vendors, and suppliers, and helps strengthen linkages between education, employment, and entrepreneurship. The EBRD enhances the demand side and further addresses some of the key trade barriers for women-led businesses by training women-led SMEs on how to deal with supply chain opportunities and by promoting procurement standards that ensure prompt payment, transparent bidding, and increased accountability and decreased information asymmetry.

Addressing youth unemployment is a key priority for many of the EBRD’s countries of investment and in particular those in south-eastern Europe and the southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region. The EBRD takes particular account of these challenges through projects that aim to remove some of the systemic hurdles facing young people, such as the quality of training, or poor progression routes from training into employment. Current projects span broadly across manufacturing, infrastructure, retail, hospitality, and agribusiness. Such projects, backed by policy dialogue, help to raise the standard of vocational skills training in line with the requirements of employers.

For more information: http://www.ebrd.com/what-we-do/projects-and-sectors/economic-inclusion.html