Jeddah, KSA, 29 March 2026 – International Women’s Month marks IsDB’s continued commitment to women and girls. This year, the Bank reinforced it through an evidence-based dialogue on advancing women empowerment. Session host Ms. Amber Shahid opened by highlighting that women are central to development yet still face significant barriers. Balancing progress with existing gaps set the tone for a focused, evidence-based discussion on future action.

The session theme: "Accountability, Impact, and Direction: Transforming Women Empowerment at IsDB." signaled a clear focus on accountability and real impact. Mr. Mohameden Sidya, Director of the Independent Evaluation Department, emphasized that progress must be measured by tangible change in women’s lives, not just policy commitments.

“Transformative change is not only about what the Bank does to empower women, but how intentionally it designs and resources its interventions accordingly.” 

Welcoming participants, Mr. Syed Husain Quadri, Director of the Resilience and Climate Action Department, highlighted the session as a platform to connect evaluation evidence with operational decision-making and drive greater impact across the Group.

“Women empowerment is not a standalone agenda — it is one of the most powerful investments a development institution can make.”

Presenting findings from the Thematic Evaluation of the Women’s Empowerment Policy and Youth Development Strategy, Mr. Ehtisham Ul Hassan, Senior Evaluation Specialist at IEvD, provided an overview of the Bank’s progress between 2019 and 2024, confirming that the Policy has driven institutional change with significant growth in the share of projects integrating women and youth empowerment. At the same time, he noted gaps remain, with uneven effectiveness in translating gender analysis into project design, targets, and monitoring, alongside structural challenges including limited capacity, inconsistencies across the Bank, and a perception among some member countries that IsDB remains primarily an infrastructure institution.

The panel discussion, moderated by Ms. Hanadi Abdelrahman, Women Empowerment Specialist, brought together perspectives from across the IsDB Group to translate evaluation findings into forward-looking action. 

Mr. Ibrahima Dit Thierno Lo reframed the Bank’s ambition around “inclusivity into productivity,” emphasizing women as economic actors and the need for stronger country-led monitoring. Mr. Yahya Rehman of ISDBI highlighted the potential of Islamic social finance — including Zakat, Waqf, and Islamic microfinance — to reach financially excluded women, alongside the role of digital knowledge platforms in scaling impact.

Dr. Mohamed Alyami of ICD noted that women-focused interventions often seem incidental rather than intentional and proposed a dedicated women’s line of finance, while Sis. Dina Moussa shared plans to evolve the BRAVE Women Programme into BRAVE 2.0 with a Sharia-compliant credit guarantee facility.

Ms. Rafif Alam emphasized strengthening agency through qualitative indicators and targeted interventions, while Ms. Maria Teresa Dico-Young of the Lives and Livelihoods Fund called for mandatory gender integration across the full project cycle, supported by dedicated budgets and stronger data systems.

The discussion also reinforced the importance of scaling successful models — among them BRAVE Women, EWASME (Empowering West African Women Small and Medium Enterprises in Rice Value Chains), and the Khadija WE CODE initiative (an ecosystem focused program under We-Fi funding) — leveraging innovative financing mechanisms and strengthening partnerships across the development ecosystem to maximize reach and sustainability. 

Building on both the evaluation and panel discussion, the session coalesced around clear strategic priorities, including stronger institutional coordination across the IsDB Group to move from project-level wins to systemic impact, and clearer measurement frameworks to capture meaningful outcomes such as agency and leadership. The discussion also reinforced the importance of scaling successful models such as BRAVE Women, EWASME (Empowering West African Women Small and Medium Enterprises in Rice Value Chains), and the Khadija WE CODE initiative, while leveraging innovative financing and strengthening partnerships to maximize reach and sustainability.