by Kristalina Georgieva 
On Wed, 05/23/2018
I opened my first bank account as a new student at the London School of Economics in 1987. This seemingly small act meant that I could manage my own finances, spend my own money, and make my own financial decisions. It meant freedom to decide for myself.
Every day, 41,000 girls marry before they are 18 years old. That’s 15 million girls every year. While child marriage can happen to both boys and girls, in most places around the world, the practice mostly affects girls.
Girls like Nafissa* (not her real name), from Niger.
“I stopped (going to) school in order to marry,” says the young teen, “It was because of people’s mentality and their prejudices. I was married during a school break and, before I could return, I became pregnant. After that, I never returned.”
one of the keys to boosting economic growth.
In every country, women and men alike need access to finance so that they can invest in their families and businesses. But today, 42% of women worldwide – about 1.1 billion – remain outside of the formal financial system, without a bank account or other basic tools to manage their money.
Poor financial access makes it harder for these women to get ahead, but it also holds back development in many countries. This is because women tend to invest more of their money in education, health care and children’s welfare. These priorities not only strengthen their families but also underpin a society’s long-term strength.
Deadline: 12-Jul-2017 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time – Washington D.C.) 
Financial inclusion in Senegal is low, with only 12 percent of adults having a formal financial account. Women are especially excluded from accessing formal financial services. This has led low income people to adopt informal systems of saving, such as the tontinea type of rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA) that combines features of a lottery to determine the sequence of disbursing group funds among members. CGAP intends to procure technical services to structure and test a solution that digitizes the tontine process and works as a marketplace for financial services. The objective of the project is to identify relevant lessons and share them widely in an open access format. We expect this pilot to produce lessons on digitization of tontines and on the value proposition of bundling other financial services such as credit or insurance along with it.
2017 Spring Meetings Opening Press Conference: World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim
Follow the event on Twitter with #WBLiveDate: Thursday, April 20th, 2017
Time: 8:30 am – 9:30 am ET/ 12:30 – 13:30 GMT
Location: International Monetary Fund & Online
Unleashing Productivity – The Key to Sustaining Inclusive Growth
Follow the event on Twitter with #Productivity4GrowthDate: Thursday, April 20th, 2017
Time: 9:30 am – 11:00 am ET/ 13:30 – 15:00 GMT
Location: JB-1-080
Lets talk development blog by Klaus Deininger 
Land and property lie at the center of many of today’s pressing development challenges. Consider that at most 10% of land in rural Africa is reliably registered. At this week‘s annual Land and Poverty Conference here at the World Bank, we will hear how this vast gap in documentation of land gap blunts access to opportunities and key services for millions of the world’s poorest people, contributes to gender inequality, and undermines environmental sustainability.
Walk around a major city in Sub-Saharan Africa and you will quickly realize that women 
are a highly visible part of the economy, selling all manner of products and services. In some ways, women are powering the economies of the continent to a greater degree than anywhere else in the world; Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where women make up the majority of self-employed individuals.
Women are the backbone of the rural economy, especially in developing countries. They 
make up almost half of the world’s farmers, and over the last few decades, they have broadened their involvement in agriculture. The number of female-headed households has also increased as more men have migrated to cities. As the primary caregivers to families and communities, women provide food and nutrition; they are the human link between the farm and the table.
Capitalizing on IFCs experience, this project aims to substantiate the business case for improving working conditions and employment opportunities for women in agribusiness, and investigate where and how investments in improved working conditions for women can result in higher firm productivity.
Focused on developing countries 
and culminating in a research report focused on the agribusiness sector, this work would identify actionable firm policies and practices that are potentially transferable across countries, regions and sectors.
Netherlands for the World Bank 
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