World Bank Document

citizen engagement. In order to ensure that all citizen have equal opportunities to have their voices 

heard, each citizen engagement intervention should take into consideration the specific constraints 

faced by women, such as lack of awareness about legal rights, mobility, family care responsibilities, 

social and cultural norms, power imbalances in communities, etc. This would be achieved through 

developing project-specific gender mainstreaming strategies, based on targeted social assessments: 

for example, a proposed higher education project would develop an information campaign to increase 

female enrollment in technical disciplines, while the horticulture project will introduce measures to 

facilitate rural women’s access to credit. For all relevant projects, gender indicators will be included 

in annual reports and discussed portfolio review meetings. An analysis of barriers to income 

generation and formal employment by rural women currently underway, will inform comprehensive 

interventions to improve their livelihoods and strengthen their participation in decision-making at the 

local level.