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The World Bank Africa

Gender Innovation Lab

Clara Delavallade

January 16^th, 2026

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Figure out what works and what does not to improve gender equality and use it to shape policy

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Status and structure

Team of economists, social scientists, research uptake specialists

Core analytical team leads evaluation activities

Active partnerships with operational teams, governments, other development agencies, private companies, NGOs, and academics

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Influence: $1 shifts over $190 in development spending

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What does GIL do?

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Africa Regional Report: ��Pathways to Prosperity for Adolescent Girls in Africa

Kehinde Ajayi�Senior Fellow & Program Director, Center for Global Development

Estelle Koussoubé�Senior Economist, World Bank Group

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Africa’s Demographic Opportunity

Africa has the world’s youngest population

of Africa’s working age population tomorrow

Todays’ girls will be half

of the global total

2050

33%

(over)

216 million

adolescent

girls

145 million

adolescent girls

(ages 10-19)

20%

(over)

2023

of the global total

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The Reality

26%

27%

40%

9%

3%

12%

GIRLS

BOYS

out of school and not working

married and/or have children

out of school and not working or are married or have children

Adolescent (15-19)

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Proven solutions to set adolescent girls on a pathway to prosperity

Appropriately Designed Interventions Can Boost Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment

(a) Improving Human Capital Fundamentals

Employment opportunities for women	Engaging boys, parents, and community	Information on return to education or on training
Child marriage ban	Edutainment programs	Inheritance law reform
School construction

In-kind transfers for schooling	School fee reduction	School feeding
Health services	Sexual and reproductive health education	Cash transfers
Improving quality of instruction

Promising approaches

Proven approaches

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Proven solutions to set adolescent girls on a pathway to prosperity

Appropriately Designed Interventions Can Boost Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment

(b) Enhancing Economic Success

Employment opportunities for women	Engaging boys, parents, and community	Information on return to education or on training
School feeding	School fee �reduction

In-kind transfers for schooling	Comprehensive economic programs

Promising approaches

Proven approaches

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Scope of the review

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Typology of interventions

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Summary

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Childcare

Programs and policies to help support women and their families in accessing childcare could facilitate women’s engagement in economic activities and increase the benefits of cash transfers.

Some examples include:

Community-based centers. In the DRC and Ethiopia, GIL implemented a pilot which uses a hybrid model between informal system, in which groups of women band together and take turns as caretaker, and a formal system, in which a school or classroom is financed by the project, and children are provided with food, toys and activities.
Mobile creches. The Burkina Youth Employment and Skills Project developed mobile creches to encourage women’s participation in a public works program, while also allowing young mothers to have their children nearby.

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Crèches mobiles au Burkina Faso

Crèches communautaires en RDC

Contexte : projet pilote de crèches communautaires en milieu rural
Animatrices : selection communautaire, rémunérées par le projet
Localisation : centrale
Modèle économique : parents participant au financement des collations (contributions en nature)

Évaluation du GIL

Impacts positifs les résultats économiques :

sur l'engagement des femmes dans l'agriculture commerciale (cultures destinées à la vente), la transformation agricole, le travail salarié non agricole...
sur l'engagement des maris dans l'agriculture commerciale et le travail salarié non agricole
sur les rendements, en particulier sur les parcelles où les femmes contrôlent les revenus
sur le revenu du ménage.

Les femmes font état d'une plus grande concentration au travail, d'un sentiment de contrôle et de bien-être... et d'une réduction du temps consacré aux soins (et aux autres femmes adultes) et à l'exécution de tâches domestiques.
Les résultats en matière de développement de l'enfant augmentent, en particulier pour les plus jeunes.
Les services de garde d'enfants sont rentables : Augmentation du revenu du ménage de 38 $/mois contre un coût de 16 $/mois/enfant.

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Crèches mobiles au Burkina Faso

Contexte : THIMO du Projet Emploi des Jeunes et Développement des Compétences
Animatrices : Participantes des THIMO formées à la garde d’enfants et rémunérées par le projet
Localisation : mobile
Modèle économique : parents participant au financement des collations (contribution de 1,500-6,000 FCFA / mois)

Évaluation du GIL

Forte demande non satisfaite : l'utilisation des crèches pour les enfants âgés de 0 à 6 ans passe de 12 à 37 %.
Impacts positifs sur les résultats en matière d'emploi, de résilience financière et d'épargne
Impacts positifs sur la santé mentale des femmes.
Impacts positifs sur le développement des enfants (développement moteur)
Aucun impact sur la participation des femmes aux décisions du ménage, les attitudes de genre ou la division du travail au sein des ménages.

Sites THIMO éligibles pour les crèches

36 sites

Sites THIMO recevant les crèches

18 sites

Sites THIMO ne recevant pas les crèches

18 sites

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Purpose of the work

Help researchers and policymakers make informed decisions on which socio-emotional skills to target

Socio-emotional skills potentially yield high economic returns, perhaps especially for vulnerable populations (including women)

Growing evidence that SES are linked with educational outcomes, labor market outcomes, risky behavior, violence and other outcomes, including psychosocial wellbeing.

Increased demand for jobs that are more intensive in skills that cannot be automated, such as SES, including in LMICs.

Still unclear:

Where policymakers should concentrate their efforts: which skills to target with interventions
How the effectiveness of training may vary with gender, goals, available opportunities, norms

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Evolve 2: Three pillars for unpacking which SES matter�

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Categorization & definition of SES

Intrapersonal	Interpersonal
Positive Self Concept: identifying and interpreting one’s own thoughts and behaviors and evaluating one’s strengths and weakness and knowing your preferences, values and biases Emotional Regulation: maintaining or changing one’s own emotions by controlling one’s thoughts and behavioral responses Perseverance: sustaining effort despite setbacks Personal Initiative: developing long-term goals and putting these goals into action under one’s own volition Problem Solving: approaching a problem by gathering information, generating a number of solutions and evaluating the consequences of these solutions before acting Self Control: focusing one’s attention, staying on task, breaking habits, restraining impulses and keeping good self-discipline	Empathy: understanding another’s viewpoint or thoughts and have emotional concern for another’s situation or experience Expressiveness: explaining ideas in a way that others will understand and openly express one’s opinion Interpersonal Relatedness: taking actions intended to build trust and benefit others, initiating and maintaining relationships and being respectful, encouraging and caring towards others Teamwork: taking other’s perspective, listen and communicate in groups of two or more people, identifying situations involving group problem-solving and decision-making, and organizing and coordinating team members to create shared plans and goals

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Gender Differences in Socio-Emotional Skills and Economic Outcomes: New Evidence from 17 African Countries (with Kehinde Ajayi, Smita Das, Tigist Assefa Ketema, Léa Rouanet)�

Motivation:

Socio-emotional skills potentially yield high economic returns, perhaps especially for vulnerable populations (including women)

Do men and women differ in their levels of socio-emotional skills?
How education relates to specific skills, and differently so for men and women?
What types of skills matter most for economic outcomes?

Data:

13 surveys: GIL baseline surveys with any data on Socio-Emotional Skills + STEP and Future of Business surveys
17 countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia
41,873 individuals (43% female)

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Advancing the frontier

GIL's new analysis with IPA on socio-emotional skills (SES) from 17 countries in Africa reveals that:

SES are associated with higher earnings for both men & women: interpersonal skills have especially high returns for women.
Men report higher levels of socio-emotional skills than women
Higher levels of education are associated with wider gender gaps in interpersonal skills --- so closing gender schooling gaps will not fully address the gender gap in SES

Socio-emotional skills

Ajayi et al. (2022)

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Example Measures�

Self Report Scale (Empathy: Cognitive & Affective)

Situational Judgement Tests (Emotional Regulation)

Perseverance:

Count Triangles over several rounds; choose easy v. difficult

I try to understand the perspective of others before making a decision that affects them.
When I’m upset at someone, I usually try to imagine myself in their situation to better understand them.
Before judging somebody, I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place.
I ask questions to understand the other person's position on a given issue.
I always try to understand the feelings of people I trust
If I see someone is hurt, I feel upset
I feel good when I help someone in need
If others are happy, I feel good
I can quickly sense when someone in the group is uncomfortable

You farm fish at home and sell them, with your ${relationb}'s help. Your ${relationb} accidentally fed the fish some old food, so half of your fish died. You are very upset.
How likely are you to: *Yell at your ${relationb}
*Talk to your ${relationb} immediately so they know how angry you are.
*Become so stressed that you get upset at others
*Take time to relax and calm down before you talk to your ${relationb}
*Discuss your anger with someone you trust
*Change how you think about the situation so you're less angry
How long are you likely to stay stressed or upset: Less than an hour, a few hours, the whole day, a few days, or longer

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Baseline Results

Female disadvantage in widely used self-reported SES measures, which disappears with behavioral measures.
Gender differences in self-reports are strongly correlated with social desirability and internalized gender norms.
There is a larger gap between self-reported and behavioral measures among men, also more strongly correlated with SD and regressive gender beliefs on women’s ability to problem-solve among men.
Suggests that men over-report their skills more than women underestimate theirs.

BRAC Tanzania IE�Sample: 4800 NEET Youth

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Intervention Involvement:�Curriculum development with Alkimia to include all 14 skills, split along different lines�Emovis via Whatsapp to reinforce training in Nigeria

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Pillar 3: RCTs testing various SES trainings�1. BRAC Tanzania IE�Sample: 4800 NEET Youth

40 urban & peri-urban communities in Tanzania (Dar es Salam, Dodoma & Iringa)

2400 men & 2400 women (60 men & 60 women per street) aged 16-27

Not in full-time salaried employment, education or training

T1: Awareness training

27 hours

T2: Management training

27 hours

T3: Awareness and management training

54 hours

Control

Baseline, Follow-up 3 and 12 months after intervention: May 2021-Oct 2022

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Preliminary IE Results

Limited impacts on behavioral measures of SES but significantly positive impacts on most self-reported measures at ML, which are not sustained after one year.
Significantly positive impact on employment and income only for men seeking jobs at baseline.
No significant difference between the types of SES training (awareness, management, or both)
These results suggest that providing SES training alone may not be sufficient to improve young women’s employability and income.

BRAC Tanzania IE�Sample: 4800 NEET Youth

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2. Nigeria APPEALS IE: Intrapersonal v. Interpersonal skills

Baseline, Follow-up 2.5-3 years after intervention: Jan 2020-Summer 2024

Sample:

APPEALS (Agri-business training + grant) beneficiaries

Design:

Test whether SES help women deviate from constraining norms around gender roles (assertiveness, negotiation) Vs. social role theory

Application Submitted

Eligible Selected

Business and Technical Training

Interpersonal + Intrapersonal Training (4 days)

Interpersonal Training Only (4 days)

Control

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Intervention Design: 4 days of training, 6-7 hours/day�Example INTRApersonal exercises

In each sphere:

How am I feeling?

What are my strengths and needs?

Who can help?

Life difficulties can be overwhelming!

What are ways you can keep your emotional jug from spilling?

How would Stoffel get past these obstacles?

Get creative and brainstorm solutions!

Consider pros and cons of each solution!

Identify steps, skills, people who can help!

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Intervention Design: 4 days of training�Example INTERpersonal exercises

Know YOUR & THEIR Fallback position

Build your case

Look for Win-Win solutions

Stay Calm

Resolving Conflict

LISTEN at the level of the HEAD for facts and perspective,

and the HEART for feelings

Practice asking OPEN questions &

listening ACTIVELY

(upsetting action)

(accurate feeling)

(from their perspective - how they think and feel)

(what you would prefer them to do)

Communicate your perspective

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Conclusion

Different impacts of SES trainings for men and women

Women specialize in one business, hire more female workers, and increase profits by 50%+, but see no change in decision-making or empowerment.
Men diversify income sources, increase household income, and reduce spending on temptation goods.

Male employers hire fewer women, female employers hire more, redistributing female workers but reinforcing occupational segregation.

Gendered skill development reinforces social norms

Women gain interpersonal (communal) skills (e.g., collaboration, empathy).
Men develop intrapersonal (agentic) skills (e.g., decision-making, problem-solving).

Policy implications

Tailored training: Interpersonal skills benefit women most; combined training is more effective for men.
SES trainings improve skills and business outcomes, especially for women, but do not help them deviate from norms.
Structural barriers matter: Business success does not automatically increase women’s decision-making power — addressing gender norms is key.

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Website: www.poverty-action.org/ses

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Advancing the frontier

Care

What cost-effective measures can expand the supply and demand of care services to help women, men, and their children reap the welfare gains? [GIL Benin childcare study]

Engaging men

Can complementary measures to engage men amplify the impact of economic inclusion interventions on women? [GIL/Trinity TIME studies in Mauritania and Malawi]

To what extent can these interventions change norms and improve other dimensions of women’s empowerment?

Soft skills and mental health

How soft skills and mental health interact to boost or hamper WEE?

Norms

Can engaging community leaders and members through --- information, persuasion, edutainment --- shift norms around women and girls’ economic participation? [Niger ASP, GIL SWEDD study]; Can economic inclusion interventions alter norms around the acceptability of women’s work [GIL Nigeria FNLP study] and gender-based violence? What about updating misperception of norms? [GIL MozLand study]

Addressing intra-household barriers to women’s economic inclusion

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Advancing the frontier

Occupational segregation:

How best can women break out of sectoral productivity traps (info, mentoring, role models) and into higher-value livelihoods?

Growth capital for firms and farms:

Test innovative, scalable solutions to provide debt and equity to fill the “missing middle” financing gaps

Risk-reducing technologies and strategies for resilience:

How to mitigate risks (including climate risks) and enhance resilience for women farmers, entrepreneurs, and workers?

Gender-based violence (GBV):

What scalable inclusion measures (e.g., couples’ interventions, community-based approaches) are most effective for reducing GBV?

Other cross-cutting gender questions for economic inclusion interventions

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Questions? Comments?

Thank you !

For more, visit us at:

www.worldbank.org/africa/gil

cdelavallade@worldbank.org