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The Action Plan relies on this policy framework; it is not designed to replace the gender mainstreaming strategy, but rather to advance its implementation.  The Plan defines a concrete four-year road map to intensify the implementation of the gender mainstreaming strategy in the economic sectors.  Execution of this roadmap would give gender issues more traction institutionally and would position the Bank to be a global leader on the issue of women's economic empowerment.

The different processes associated with globalisation have led to rising rates of paid work by women often in contexts where male employment is stagnant or declining. This paper explores how women and men are dealing with this feminisation of labour markets in the face of the widespread prevalence of male breadwinner ideologies and the apparent threat to male authority represented by women's earnings. Responses have varied across the world but there appears to be a remarkable resistance to changes in the domestic division of unpaid work within the household and a continuing failure on the part of policymakers to provide support for women's care responsibilities, despite the growing importance of their breadwinning roles. Many of the services previously provided on an unpaid basis are being transferred to the paid economy but most working women continue to bear a disproportionate burden of domestic responsibility. There is evidence that women may be using their newly acquired earning power to challenge the injustice of the double work burden in ways that pose a challenge to long-term processes of social reproduction.

Although women have historically played an essential role in politics, revolutionary struggles, and public life in Sub-Saharan Africa, since the early 1990s the number of women in African parliaments has increased significantly. This consolidated response discusses factors stimulating the advancement of women in politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some of the highlighted factors include gender quotas in politics, national women's movements, and the spillover effect of democratic values throughout the continent.