As the International Finance Corporation (IFC) undertakes a review of its Sustainability Framework, it must take concrete steps to strengthen how project risks and benefits impact women across its Performance Standards. While the current framework references “disadvantaged or vulnerable groups,” it does not adequately recognize women as a group that may be disproportionately impacted by IFC-financed projects.
To close this gap, IFC should explicitly recognize women, in all their diversity, as a group that may face heightened risks and barriers. As IFC reviews its Performance Standards, it should prioritize the following reforms to specifically address the needs of and risks to women in its projects:
- Require intersectional gender analysis in social assessments: Social impact assessments should examine how gender intersects with age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, Indigenous status, and other characteristics that shape how individuals experience project risks and benefits. Clients should evaluate how these intersecting identities may compound exposure to harm or limit access to project benefits and design mitigation measures accordingly.
- Strengthen labor protections: Under the Labor and Working Conditions Standard, IFC should specifically reference women as project workers who may require additional measures of protection, assistance, or accommodation to carry out essential job functions safely and equitably. This includes addressing occupation segregation, unequal pay, harassment in the workplace, lack of safe sanitation facilities, pregnancy-related protections, and barriers facing LBTQI workers.
- Mandate SEA/H risk assessment and prevention: IFC must require clients to assess project-related risks of sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment (SEA/H) to both project workers and project-affected communities. Assessments should be mandatory, grounded in intersectional analyses, and include child-specific risks. Prevention and response measures must be in place before project implementation.
- Increase meaningful engagement throughout the project lifecycle: IFC should require safe, accessible, and continuous engagement with women throughout the project lifecycle.
This review presents a critical opportunity for IFC to strengthen its Sustainability Framework by explicitly addressing the impacts of its projects on women. Updating these standards now would close persistent gaps in protection and better align IFC’s practices with its stated commitments on gender equality and accountability.