We cannot end poverty on a livable planet without women¡¯s full participation. On International Women¡¯s Day 2025, we are highlighting that when women and girls can reach their full potential, they transform economies and societies¡ªcreating jobs, driving innovation, and fueling economic growth.
The progress toward women¡¯s full economic participation has been slow and uneven in many countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Eastern and Southern Africa, a women or girl is only 41% likely to be enrolled in secondary education, 20% likely to have a child as a teenager, and earns significantly less money than a male farmer, entrepreneur or wage worker. These numbers are further exacerbated in fragile settings where conflict, climate shocks, widespread gender-based violence, and high rates of child marriage and early pregnancies place an extreme burden on women and girls and, thus, on families and communities at large.
Investing in women¡¯s economic empowerment is a game-changer. Data shows that in the long-run Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita would be almost 20% higher around the world if gender employment gaps were closed. In Ethiopia, for example, in farming and in entrepreneurship could unlock $2.2 billion in GDP. Moreover, tackling gender-based violence on the continent can eliminate economic costs of up to 4% of GDP.
At the World Bank, we view barriers that prevent women from realizing their potential as an obstacle to realizing our vision of a world free of poverty. Our goal is to enable more women to access quality jobs, capital, and economic opportunities to lift up families, communities, and countries. Below is a sample of the many ways in which countries are working with World Bank support to achieve this goal in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Ensuring girls complete school
Married at the age of 13, Ana Ant¨®nio*, a girl from Northern Mozambique, left school, only to be abandoned by her husband with a baby who died within a year. Consumed with grief and illness, Ana did not go back to school. Ana¡¯s case is unfortunately far too common in many countries across the continent. In Mozambique, nearly half of the girls marry before age 18, despite a law prohibiting child marriage, and 46% of girls between 15 and 19 years of age are either mothers or already pregnant. More than half drop out by the fifth grade.
Through the , the Mozambique government launched ¡°Eu Sou Capaz¡± program, which helps young girls stay in school through incentives, such as providing school uniforms and bicycles to girls in selected primary and secondary grades. The program also helps girls who are out of school by providing life-skills training and mentoring in community safe spaces. To date, the program has assisted nearly half a million girls.
Through our Education Business Plan for Eastern and Southern Africa, we are working closely with governments to help accelerate economic transformations by improving education outcomes, including reducing the out-of-school adolescent girls by 50%.
Increasing women¡¯s livelihoods
Eastern and Southern Africa has a long tradition of providing social protection services to vulnerable populations. More than cash transfers, these services encompass a set of policies and programs designed to increase job skills, foster efficient labor markets, and promote entrepreneurship.
When Fitness Kalumbi in Zambia received a grant through t in 2020, she started a brick-making business and used the profit to build a house on her land. GEWEL focuses on increasing access to livelihood support for women, including starting their own business, and access to secondary education for disadvantaged adolescent girls in extremely poor households. The project has financed cash transfers to more than one million households and livelihood support to 139,000 women who saw a 45% increase in business profits.
The Kenya Youth Employment and Opportunities Project is another example. The project has helped secure wage employment or self-employment for more than 300,000 beneficiaries, 50% of them women. Nearly half of business support recipients created jobs for others.
