News & Events

Join us on February 24 at 10:00 am EST for an evidence-driven dialogue on the global state of women's economic rights.

For the first time, the latest Women, Business and the Law report assesses not only the degree of equality in laws on the books, but also the extent to which those laws are enforced.

This event examines how evidence-based legal and policy reforms can strengthen access to justice, foster private sector growth, and expand women’s access to finance and economic opportunities.

Older women face different challenges than younger women, but their needs and voices are often missing from conversations about gender equality.

Learn about how the WBG and WBL data have driven legal reforms in Azerbaijan, Egypt, and Sierra Leone.

Watch a presentation and discussion on drivers of legal reform advancing women’s financial inclusion in Sierra Leone.

Watch a three-day workshop on WBL topics, including methodology, scoring, and the links between legal frameworks, supportive systems, and expert perception pillars.

Only 4% of women worldwide live in economies that offer near-full legal equality, the World Bank (WB) noted. This prevents economies from reaching their full potential for growth and job creation, according to the report "Women, Business, and the Law 2026”.

A World Bank report warned of a "shockingly large" gap between legislation promoting gender equality and its enforcement, with no country currently ensuring ‌all the legal rights required for women's full economic participation.

Closing the gender gap in labor force participation and management roles alone could add $7 trillion to global gross domestic product (GDP), with potential gains of $22-28 trillion if full equality is achieved. And yet the World Bank's newly released Women, Business and the Law 2026 report confirms that not a single economy in the world grants women equal economic opportunities.

Despite the ongoing struggle to ensure that men and women have equal rights, on average, worldwide, women have only two-thirds of the legal protections that men have.