This year’s International Women’s Day arrived amid geopolitical fragmentation, shrinking aid budgets, and growing skepticism about multilateralism. Yet important progress and a shift in one sphere is underway: middle powers are quietly shaping the next playbook for gender-equal growth. Their approach is pragmatic and coalition-minded, anchored in the conviction that gender-equal growth is not just a moral good—it is macro-critical to competitiveness, development, security, and resilience.
Available data still demonstrate the scale of the challenge ahead. The World Bank’s latest Women, Business and the Law (WBL) report finds that women globally hold only two-thirds of the legal rights that men enjoy when it comes to participating in their national economy. Meanwhile, the systems that implement those rights lag even further, with the average score on the supportive frameworks index sitting at just 47 out of 100 and the enforcement perceptions index at 53.
Yet the same data highlight a major growth opportunity that middle powers are already seizing: each one‑point improvement in the legal score is associated with a 0.6‑point increase in women’s labor force participation—a tangible growth multiplier for economies seeking to boost productivity and expand fiscal space. The evidence is clear: better rules, backed by institutions, deliver real empowerment dividends.
Read the rest of the article on the Atlantic Council website here.