With more than 11 900 sustainable investment projects in around 162 countries, the EIB is turning good intentions into reality, including delivering on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality.
As the EU bank, it is our duty to ensure that the projects that we finance protect all corners of our communities. Women, men, girls and boys must have the opportunity to benefit from their outcome equally and equitably. To improve the impact of its activities on women and girls, the EIB Group adopted a Strategy on Gender Equality and Women’s Economic Empowerment in 2016. This Strategy and related Action Plan will guide the Group to further contribute to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) to 'achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls' by 2030.
Last year, the EIB supported EUR 23bn investments outside the EU, in projects to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals: creating good jobs and fighting poverty, supporting young people, women and rural populations, preventing disease through access to clean water, supporting green energy and building vital transport links.
The EIB outside the EU 2017 report describes how the Bank is working to deliver results on issues such as the SDGs, gender equality, climate and migration, and the financial and technical contribution we are able to provide.
In Argentina’s Jujuy region, a new project - part of the Province’s Jujuy Verde Initiative - to manage waste sustainably and cut down greenhouse gases will bring new economic opportunities for women.
EIB projects in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have brought reliable renewable solar and wind energy to people and are empowering women – girls in their studies with the electricity to power computers and women with a more secured mobility at nighttime through street lighting.
M-Birr is the first mobile money service in Ethiopia. It enables social welfare payments to be made from any M-Birr agency.
d.light is a company which provides a range of off-grid, solar-powered lighting solutions across the developing world.
Discover more about the project and our operations in Kenya
Organised by the European Commission, the European Development Days (EDD) bring the development community together each year to share ideas and experiences in ways that inspire new partnerships and innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. Under the main thread of ‘Women and Girls at the Forefront of Sustainable Development: protect, empower, invest’, the 2018 EDD agenda will be framed by three major themes emerging as key priorities in today’s current context:
The theme of this twelfth EDD edition mirrors the three pillars of the EIB Group Strategy on Gender Equality and Women’s Economic Empowerment, 'Protect, Impact, Invest'. On its stand - stand 73 in the Global Village - the EU Bank will present some of its supported projects and initiatives aiming at improving women’s lives worldwide. Visitors will notably have the chance to meet the bank’s experts on gender and development, join our lab debates with leading experts and opinion makers and learn what the EIB can contribute to sustainable living for all. They will also have the opportunity to try the innovative solar-powered lanterns produced by one of the EIB project beneficiaries, d.light, which provides affordable solutions for women and men without access to reliable electricity.
session with EIB Vice President, Jonathan Taylor, EIB Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF) Senior Investment Manager, Aglaé Touchard Le Drian and Frontier Energy Operations and Maintenance Director Annicent Busingye session with EcoEnterprises C.E.O. and Managing Partner, Tammy Newmark, Indigenous Peoples Major Group for Sustainable Development Co-convenor and International Network of Indigenous Women Board member, Joan Carling and EIB Head of Environment, Climate and Social Policy, Monica Scatasta session with EIB Lead Social Development and Gender Specialist, Eleni Kyrou, UN Development Programme Director for Gender, Randi Davis and Women's World Banking Asset Management Principal Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager, Yrenilsa LopezFollowing a call from the European Council, the European Investment Bank is rolling-out the Economic Resilience Initiative. The initiative aims at rapidly mobilising additional financing in support of the capacity of economies in the Southern Neighbourhood and Western Balkans regions to absorb and respond to crises and shocks, such as the Syrian refugee crisis, while maintaining strong growth.
Gender equality is one of the founding values of the European Union, and a key objective of the Sustainable Development Goals.
It is also smart economics: empowering women is key to enhance business productivity and to catalyse economic growth, social cohesion and social justice.
Guided by EU policy, including commitments to the Paris Agreement on Climate Action and to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the EIB Group fosters sustainable growth within the EU and abroad. This approach drives all of our initiatives, products and activities.
playlist on EIB projects supporting women on every continent