Postion Paper of U.S.A

Delegation of the United States of America

Gerneral Assembly

Promotion of Worldwide Gender Equality
The World Bank’s approach to promoting gender equality makes all staff responsible for ensuring that the Bank’s work is responsive to the differing needs, constraints and interests of males and females in client countries. To support this approach, a Bank-wide team consisting of designated staff in the regions, country offices, and network anchors take special responsibility for promoting gender mainstreaming and assisting colleagues with strategy implementation. World Bank attention to gender equality issues began in the 1970s, but the Bank’s emphasis on this issue has increased markedly since the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. Gender equality is now a core element of the Bank’s strategy to reduce poverty. There is a clear understanding that until women and men have equal capacities, opportunities and voice, the ambitious poverty-reduction agenda set out in the Millennium Declaration, and the specific goals attached to it, will be achieved.

Creating a new partnership for sub-Saharan Africa in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals

The World Bank is one of the largest sources of development assistance in the world today. As the largest shareholder at the World Bank, the United States is helping in the fight against poverty in the world. World Bank programs provide developing countries with loans that enable them to improve living conditions and foster economic growth. Further, World Bank programs fight corruption, pollution, and HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases—all issues that have no borders and are of great concern to Americans.
Established in 1944, during a conference in Bretton Woods (New Hampshire), the World Bank initially helped rebuild Europe after the war. Reconstruction has remained an important focus of the Bank’s work, given the natural disasters, humanitarian emergencies, and post-conflict rehabilitation needs that affect developing and transition economies. Today’s Bank, however, has sharpened its focus on poverty reduction as the overarching goal of all its work.
It once had a homogeneous staff of engineers and financial analysts, based solely at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Today, the Bank has a multidisciplinary and diverse staff including economists, public policy experts, sectoral experts, and social scientists: 40% of staff is now based in country offices.