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# ISSUES FOR ECONOMIC AND SECTOR WORK

1. Over the past two yea:s, as operational interest in "women in development" has grown, so have operation **1l** requests for practical advice on how to involve women in development more effectively. Ideally such advice would be based on years of accumulated wisdom from research and program experience. That is not possible as research and program experience (properly evaluated) are thin. We pln to work with staff in Operations to expand the base of research and experience. In the meantime, where we can we want also to meet requests for "interim guidance" -- ideas on "how to do WID" that reflect existing knowledge.

2. This paper offers some "highlights" on women in development and outlines promising approaches for improving oomen's opportunities that will contribute to economic performance, poverty reduction, and other development objectives. It is based primarily on the Women in Development Division's (PHRWD) work in the past two years, involving country WID strategies, literature reviews, earlystage policy work and research, and operational support. The paper treats an enormous variety of subjects, and its suggestions are highly condensed. The RaRer will be suRRIemgnted over the-nexst year or two by more detailed guidelines ort such subjects as basic education: health and family planning services: agricultural extension: forestry: and credit. Other divisions in the Bank are working on guidelines for water and household energy. Other fields, such as law and infrastructure, need to be explored.

# WGMEN'S ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION

3. Economists working to promote development naturally focus on the tools of their trade -- analysis and advice based on the core concepts of macro and microeconomics. The growing interest in women in development reflects our increasing realization that we must pay more attention to social or culcural aspects of development - how economic and social forces affect each other -- if we are to achieve maximum results from economic analysis and advice. It also reflects a shift in economic thinking.

4. Much of economic growth theory since the 1930s arises from the concept that individual economic agents operating with adequate information in competitive markets will -- by optimizing for themselves -- produce a generally efficient economy with "maximum welfare" in the Pareto optimal sense. (Welfare is maximized in the sense that no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off; nothing is assumed about the relative value of one person's welfare against another's.) Discussions of distributional issues or the dynamics of growth often stem from this starting point. The "agents" may, for various analytic purposes, be consumers, producers, firms, households, -- but they are assumed to be homogereous, with little capacity to influence each other. They are also assumed to be fully informed. This competitive paradigm inspired the advances in thinking that underlie much current economic analysis and advice.

5. Economists increasingly believe that this paradigm needs adjusting, for several reasons. Optimizing may be less usual than "satisficing" -- settling for an outcome that is "good enough". Markets are seldom competitive in the pure sense. The assumptions of homogeneity and perfect information commonly fail.