World Development Report 2012: Gender equality and development

Since the 1970s, Gender in development has emerged as an issue of concern for development agencies, namely bilateral and multilateral non-government organizations (NGOs). Although initially slow in gaining momentum in the constitution of policies, commitment to a gendered dimension has gradually been adopted, institutionalized and represented by policy-makers as frameworks and instruments in the 1990s. Ironically, the accompanying increase in popularity of gender mainstreaming as a mechanism for achieving gender equality has in turn depoliticized and attenuated the importance of gender in development. However, in the last decade, there appears to be renewed attention towards ‘doing gender’. Examples are citied in United Nations Development Program (UNDP)'s emphasis on women's empowerment as paramount for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the recent proposal for the incorporation of women into the World Charter on the Right to the City that is developed by social movements and international civil organizations. It is in such a light that the 2012 World Development Report's (WDR 2012) dedication to the unifying theme of women and unifying objectives of addressing the enduring gender inequalities in development becomes increasingly significant. The WDR is the World Bank's annual flagship publication in both consolidating state-of-the-art knowledge on a particular topic while also outlining new pathways for the Bank's work. The report is, however, not limited to the Bank. It has a wide readership and influence upon development practitioners, academics, NGOs and civil society organizations alike. In lieu of this, I attempt to summarize and appraise the comprehensive 2012 report in this review