About:

The Islamic Development Bank’s efforts to promote women empowerment are led by the Resilience and Climate Action (RCA) Department, which serves as the central hub for shaping strategies, policies, and tools to embed gender equality across the Bank’s work.

RCA coordinates closely with global partners to align efforts on gender and resilience and actively forges new partnerships to (i) mobilize resources and (ii) strengthen knowledge sharing. These efforts help amplify impact, foster collaboration, and leverage lessons learned and best practices to drive meaningful progress in women empowerment.

A key mandate of RCA is to integrate women empowerment across the Bank’s policies, strategies, and operations. This includes embedding gender considerations into project design, implementation, and monitoring—ensuring that women’s needs, challenges, and contributions are fully reflected in development solutions. RCA also plays a vital role in shaping Member Country Partnership Strategies (MCPSs) by providing gender-focused socio-economic analysis that identifies barriers and unlocks opportunities for inclusive and equitable growth.

Policy & Operational Strategy

In February 2019, the Board of the IsDB approved the IsDB Women’s Empowerment Policy (the Policy).  The Policy is the first of its kind for the IsDB and defines the commitment of the IsDB to promote women’s empowerment as a means to reduce poverty and foster sustainable development and inclusive growth.

The approved Women’s Empowerment Policy calls for the Bank to develop a strategy to operationalize the Policy. The IsDB Women’s Empowerment Operational Strategy is ensuring the effective implementation of the Policy across the organization and outlining the ways in which it is implemented and the roles and responsibilities of the different IsDB units.

Women's Empowerment Operational Strategy & Action Plan

Programs & Projects

In pursuit of an inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development of the Member Countries, the IsDB funded innovative women's empowerment focused projects and programs to be implemented by NGOs and in collaboration with other entities of the IsDB Group, such as ITFC. In 2019, the Resilience and Social Development (RSD) Department supported six NGO grant operations benefitting women with a total amount of USD$ 1 million.

This includes grants to NGOs promoting girls' education in Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Togo for a total amount of USD$ 378,000. In support of entrepreneurship, microfinance and financial inclusion of women and youth, the WYE supported NGO projects in Azerbaijan, Indonesia, and Tajikistan with a total amount of USD$ 472,000.

In addition, collaboration and synergies among the Bank Group's entities were reinforced; WYE Division collaborated with ITFC under the She Trades program, with IsDB's contribution of USD$ 150,000, to support businesswomen in the food processing sector in Morocco to sustain and grow their businesses as well as connect women entrepreneurs with the global value chains.

HIGHLIGHTS OF WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMS

• The Business Resilience Assistance for Value Added Enterprises Program (BRAVE Women) focusing on women-owned and led enterprises in fragile situations through matching grant and capacity-building activities.

• The Empowering West African Women Small and Medium Enterprises in Rice Value Chains (EWASME) program in Guinea, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone aimed at supporting women owned and led very small, small and medium enterprises engaged in post-production activities in the rice value chain to expand and upgrade their businesses. The EWASME program is the second grant funding awarded to the Bank under the We-Fi initiative after the BRAVE Women.

• Women Techsters Initiative Nigeria is aimed at bridging the wide gender divide between men and women in the technology ecosystem as well as ensuring equal access to opportunities for all. The initiative aims to empower girls and women aged between 16 and 40 years across Africa with varying degree of digital, deep tech and soft skills required within the technology ecosystem.

• HOPE TUNISIA: Youth and Women MSMEs and Entrepreneurship Support Project (YWESP) aims to increase economic engagement and income-generating opportunities for youth and women in all of Tunisia through improving the capacity of Tunisia’s private and public sectors to generate new decent and sustainable jobs for young women and men. Along with enhancing the capacity of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) through financial support, technical assistance, and capacity building.

• Moving forward, the Bank will also aim to increase the priority it sets aside for helping to create positive conditions for women’s leadership, both at the individual and collective level through a variety of capacity development measures and supporting an enabling environment abroad.  

Knowledge Products & Publications

Gender Country Profiles

Women’s Empowerment Case studies:

 https://books.isdb.org/view/307179/

Islamic Microfinance for Women:

Celebrating Women’s Success: IsDB Prize for Women’s Contribution to Development

Winners of IsDB Prize for Women’s Contribution to Development 2016