 Thank you so much Malochale and it is a great pleasure to be here I feel quite humbled that on a at the end of a long day at five o'clock so many people people come to listen to this I don't want you to just listen please stop me ask any questions during the presentation I know it's late and I hope you will have many many questions why am I presenting this here first of all I want to say thank you to the wider for for putting this up we thought of this program we're very keen to tell everybody about a program that's going to run I have no research results but we have a new research program and we hope that that the researchers here will engage with that in one way or the other we hope that that UN organizations like like wider and others that care about gender equality people from other international organizations that may not be doing the research will will engage with us in my short career at IDRC this is this is a flagship program and and I was watching Barcelona last night beat I ox and I thought this this got this has to be the Barcelona program it has to come together and work very well so so for all those those reasons and not to keep you any longer this is why I'm very happy to be here and thank you all for for coming this is a new research program supported by DFID UK 8 it's managed by and financially supported by IDRC my organization and the third organization involved in this is the ULIT foundation and this this this is a phenomenally interesting mix IDRC many of you will know IDRC we support research in directly working with with researchers in the in the global south to support research and to support research capacity DFID has has probably the world's largest fund for development research and and in that emphasizes the highest quality of research I don't think that capacity building and high quality research are are mutually exclusive of course but to work together with an organization that focuses on top quality research particularly in a sensitive topic at okay at times sensitive topic like like gender is is for us an enormous bonus and then the ULIT foundation has a slightly different organization it's been wonderful to develop a proposal with them and they kept asking me all sorts of we we developed a program document for this for the approval of this program and they kept asking all sorts of question and finally I understood why they were asking this question instead of no no my question is why do you do research right and for somebody who sits in the research organization and the question was absolutely right I said like the ULIT foundation is inter like the development agent that like all the development agents they're not interested in research per se but they're interested in what research can do to improve improve well-being now I before I start or rather before I forget let me just you allow me I just want to show you a short video this was actually done for a similar launch that we that we did in in in Ottawa about a month ago where Ruth Levine tells told the attendants here the people there and I'd like to show that here as well why why the ULIT foundation was interested in this economic empowerment of women in the developing world is with so many of the development outcomes that we care about whether it's the health of the women her ability to control the timing and number of pregnancies the health of her children the welfare of her family her community and the society at large all of those things are positively related to the economic empowerment of women but there's so much that we don't know about what the drivers are of greater opportunities for women to be employed to engage in entrepreneurship and to control economic assets without that knowledge we cannot know which policies to promote and develop at the global regional and national levels for that reason we at the women for a ULIT foundation are delighted to be starting a new program of research we are colleagues at the international development research center with whom we've partnered many times before and also with colleagues at the UK department for international development together we are bringing together resources to support a new round of research on women's economic empowerment to learn together and to make a contribution to global knowledge about what the determinants and consequences are of greater empowerment for women all right so four things I want to talk about a little bit about why we're doing this not much left to say after that wonderful introduction by Ruth a little bit about the research themes and questions that we hope to cover how we're going to do that and and a little bit of a discussion around the point I raised earlier is this is not research but but but but how is this going to matter for policymaking for for for action and and and how and this is not a question I have an answer to either but but how does one organize research in a way that it's more likely to have the kind of impact on policy that that we're hoping for as my locally said I work for the international development research center within that I lead one of the programs that some of you know which is called supporting inclusive growth the emphasis we put in that program and that's that emphasis is very much at the core of the grow program as as well for us inclusive growth is not simply a question of redistribution growth but it's actually around the we support the research that promotes the opportunities for gainful employment and and life and and most of our work hands has focused on on researchers of issues of entrepreneurship across the global south and jobs people are interested in the program more and more broadly that's there of course under the IDRC website as well so why did we think that program on women's economic empowerment I keep saying women's economic empowerment for the longest time we had this wonderful ugly acronym called we and we cheated we wanted to find something something more attractive so that came became grow of course we slightly cheated I will still refer to it as women's economic empowerment there so what was the rationale for this this program we think that the date that shows us that there's been enormous well enormous there's been much probably not enough progress in many gender indicators but of course with enormous variations more importantly perhaps we we think that we've seen more progress on and knowledge of of course the knowledge that the knowledge of presumes it is presumed that we have the knowledge before we can make the first statement but we definitely think that there's been more research on the progress in in education and health and less on economic empowerment if you take data from the World Economic Forum that does a report on gender every three years one is coming out this fall actually you actually can with the indices they use that you can actually compare the progress quite easily compare the progress on the the different types of aspect of equality and that quite clearly shows and I don't think it comes as a surprise to to many people that that education and health has shown a positive tendency towards reducing gender disparities enrollment rates has been very very clear that has been less the case of economic empowerment and also actually perhaps even more on on political empowerment as well I'd recommend the World Economic Forum report on now on gender so if we go along by that idea that that more knowledge and comparatively speaking is needed on economic empowerment we came to the conclusion that that we need to know more about the various disparities within that things like the typing conditions of work access to business assets and finance wages and other returns and and care work care work I said earlier we focus on on on entrepreneurship and jobs in a workshop that we we had in in London with professor and I like to be one of the conclusive and very strongly that you that you cannot and it's a question to a research community that focus on say a labor market and how women participate in labor markets one might well imagine that that the typical day of a poor woman in many parts of the of the world consists of of dividing our time between something like entrepreneurship something like labor markets and definitely of course care and typically unpaid care care work so that brought us to the research program really needs to focus on the interaction between the two and one of the questions that we will have to people doing typical labor market analysis is how much that analysis will actually tell you about say the rationale or particularly of women that that that are forced to spend so much time on on other activities anyway in in general of course there we we not arguing that there's no research on those issues that take great disparities I can make I don't bet but if I bet is like you know typically whatever you go whether it's the Harvard Business School or poor women in the village in India women will not earn more than 75% of what men earn I mean that there's some you know generic facts that that that that are not going to not not much new is going to come up but but but the causes of those those inequalities the the different types of inequalities that that exist in in different regions and particularly how these manifest themselves in in the poorest countries we concluded was of crucial and one one more reason why we why we thought that that this this is a very good time for us with with the development community to to take up this research program what we do see is and this will also be part of our strategy of outreach with the research program that that that in the private sector there's globally there's an enormous interest in gender equality and we we hope we believe that there's a dynamic that that we can we can build on can can work with and and that I think is is nicely you read that in many reports the the chief economist of the one of the large bank Canada TD bank is is very concerned that women don't make it to the highest position in in their boards the reason for that is that she or he may be a feminist but also that the TD bank argument there is that that that if there if there is a discrimination against say half your population in that segment of the labor market obviously you may be losing out on on innovation what this graph shows this is straight from the World Economic Forum report is is that this is not a correlation there's this suggested correlation there's not a causation of course but that there's no trade-off between gender equality and competitiveness that overall countries that have better indicators in terms of gender equality also are more competitive I'm not saying this is true this for you to go and research and critique and all these are just some data and the point I was making here is is that that for a business community or for the community that's as the World Economic Forum articulates that there is this feeling we need to do more for not only because we care about equality for women but also for a broader public good we need to do more on on on issues of gender equality we have some definitions of economic empowerment these are not terribly important because this will be a research program we will be asking people to propose research and research team will have a slightly different definition but but we drew on on on two of course different as they were part of the one of the three main organizations the funding this initiative and and one from the OECD which and the importance there of course is it's when we talk about again inclusive growth that it's not only about you know thinking about the benefits of growth but really the participation in growth process in the research program we are we'll be looking at three teams there's slightly different modalities I come back to that a little later but but there are three areas that we thought were critically important and I'll go through this next the first one is a simple question but but very important very important also because they are very different in different they may be very different in different contexts despite the fact that that that across the globe women probably are in 75% of what what men when men earn but in each context these are these are different we are going to look ask people to articulate research questions around the forms of employment and entrepreneurship that are empowering the constraint and choices on the different types of employment self-employment wage employment entrepreneurship very importantly the silos of of care work both paid and unpaid paid care work is actually an incredibly important area as well for example people were telling me that the large take the large new social protection programs in India that has created a huge almost like a labor market in itself or very poorly paid work and typically the typical gender stereotypes are reinforced in those in those jobs so so unpaid care work of course an important area but also the paid care work is a very important area of research and and also an area where productivity gains compared to the rest of the typically have been have been lower where innovation has been limited so more broadly the constraints to women's position in the household as well as the wider society in the economy and how that determines women's individual choices and and and agency and and of course with that so not all the research project need to exactly address that but behind that of course is the question on how these barriers can be can be addressed around issues around women's time fairness at work access to finance and and so on please don't tell anybody I showed you this data but this is this is well these are not my data this is this is actually what you get if you take the ILO data on labor force participation and basically that tells you one of three things one this data is completely crap but that's actually the most the most likely one if we believed any of the data what we then see is that there is an enormous variation of labor force participation particularly in low income countries then I come back to the first point that they will be completely crap of course and particularly for income in low income countries this may well be under it but the third thing then if we look at women's labor force participation and this is just what the ILO data tells you that variation is even larger now whether this is bad data whether this is under reporting whether it's reality for me it doesn't this is the global knowledge we have on this is what the international agencies in terms of what women do so you can't tell people I showed you but I blame somebody else for it and we've started to look at and this is just some some this really to illustrate on the the kind of things we're looking for if if we in this research program just to highlight this research program will focus on low income low income countries and we define that in the call for proposals it's quite precisely defined as low income countries defined by the World Bank but but I'm sure that you know we'll be cheating on that we won't stick exactly to the definition most importantly probably because it doesn't make a lot of sense to do research on on growth and and gender equality if you don't take into account countries that actually have have grown so so the focus is that of the program is the knowledge that is relevant for low income and but but we define that a little bit more we will implement that a little bit more broadly now we started to or a student of our university actually started to pull together some some data that we that we have around some of the key indicators on women's economic empowerment and I and I just hope that this is slightly better than what the ILO ILO and and then you see we divided in in within this category of maybe 40 50 low income countries five regional zones and then you get very interesting differences so this is a labor force participation rate for for men and women and then you see in particularly as South Asia how low that labor force actually these are unweighted figures if you if we're going to weight them this even more extreme because particularly India and even there's large disparities between India and Bangladesh for example where labor force participation rate the record of labor force participation rate in Bangladesh is much higher than Africa the differences there I don't know whether these are seen as large or small but but there's the first idea that we have that even you know within that group of low income that's quite large variations there's now I don't actually know the data very well others may notice better the World Bank or through the World Bank it's published on the World Development Indicators now information about access to financial formal financial institutions and then we see probably a predictable pattern of of that that's lowest in Central Africa and across that always you know seems to be so common like like women's access about three quarters of that of men and it's quite general the difference quite general across regions against South Asia probably stands out or there these are a little larger whether there's good data on wages disparities on a global skill we don't know we just found a number of number of country cases reported in ILO reports I I think there's actually actually more and and then you know that the differences here are quite striking these are true and then of course there will be something that that's a Stephen Durkin at the of course emphasizes of course that's a large heterogeneity in terms of gender biases and and there will be cases where women earn more than so that was the first question we just some some idea of the you know of the basically the areas that we're that we're looking at the second set of questions is around the impact of patterns of growth on women's economic empowerment and we think that and perhaps not not a huge surprise thank you that that is a huge variation not all economic growth promotes gender equality some of the fastest-growing countries show least signs of of progress on gender equality I think China is is an example Chinese leaders probably will now look back at it and and probably realize that that's very important mistakes if it is through the China headlights degree of gender equality at the start of the reforms that that they that they made some some very serious mistakes in in terms of the the policies that were that were needed to support women to to go along with that economic transformation but in any case you know we see a huge change in the roles of women alongside China's very rapid growth and economic transformation we will be interested in research that looks at at exactly what what determined in in those patterns of growth what determined women's women's roles and responsibilities and empowerment including issues of competition liberalization technological change I think is incredibly important we a couple of days back we had a discussion and people were talking about where jobs were created and things like male and female jobs which which which I think is is yes there are things associated with men and women but but these are issues to be research I've seen you know across the world the same times of job in one part of the world being a typical male job other parts of the world being a typical female job and these change over over time and and and certainly in technological change often played a very important role in that so and then then with that of course a key question is is it is not about you know where the growth is good or bad or not but really from that analysis what can we conclude in terms of the kind of policies that that that that need to be put in place to make say say those those patterns of growth more pro-poor more more pro-gender equality in in the areas of of education child care and etc etc and these are the same data but in group by countries and to where again you see this is what do we do the formal financial institution there will come as no surprise that there's a group of countries where where gender equality is for to most people won't come as price gender equality is is is very very high that's you know the some good news perhaps the the trend is upwards countries that are richer on on average have more equality in terms of gender as there's some probably at a medic necessity in that anyway but but as important as the upward trend I would say the enormous disparities you get between countries in terms of gender disparity between countries in at the same level of GDP labor force participation again you know I hope that we're gonna make sure that that people will come up with a sensible story about that we see and that may be true that the women's labor for female labor force participation goes down as kind or is lower as compared to men in the in countries that are that are richer this may be just a structural transition in the sense of and your work might tell us a little bit about that if you because of the way that work is recorded in agriculture areas in urban areas that may some of it may be just the in effect of that but then again whatever exactly that line might may be again the disparities at low levels of income both the heterogeneity I would say over as countries go richer and the enormous disparities at the same levels of GDP is something like I don't know maybe I'm just missing a point here but we need to know much more about it we need the mic actually no sweat you are right that you have major measurement errors in the low-income countries because they don't the questions aren't asked right and so there are different definitions of work and people have different ideas about work and so that's a big problem with that data but in addition we see that richer countries the labor force participation rate falls because people stay longer in school especially girls in richer countries would stay longer in school right I think it's still holds if you it's still mass so in one thing that that that you know just imagine that we were sitting here and and talked about in the international development community you talked about health and education and you got a massive picture like that nobody would find that acceptable apparently on labor you know you know what the ILO has been doing for 30 sorry I know what the World Bank has been measuring this I don't know why you know why the international community as a whole hasn't hasn't paid more attention to it so one of the outcomes may well be suggestions for improvement of data the outcome of a research program like that sure yeah but there's none in here right doesn't suggest anyone yeah I think it's you still get a similar picture actually but but but anyway that the point is right we need to we need to do that I can't recall which one this was but yeah but I think we all agree it's still whatever you do it's still a mess anyway so the the third set of so it was the first two set of questions barriers for women and and patterns of growth and and and gender equality the third one is is the other way around and that's the question does women's economic empowerment promote growth and and in general there's a lot of evidence out now that that makes the instrumental argument basically for for gender equality that more equal economic participation for women also improves efficiency productivity and competitiveness and and and it's intuitive in a way right because if you restrict half your population from contributing to to all these improvements and of course it's it's it's less likely to to to lead to to better outcome but then of course the those links are are not as simple as as that and we definitely feel that that this needs further further investigate that that relationship that we really want to come with with with more credible evidence than we have now on that on that relationship and and then of course that also is is not a yes or no type of question but there will be certain forms of over empowerment that are more likely to contribute to growth than others there may be other forms of of of empowerment that that that does not have that potential that is not a reason not to not to promote that but it's important to distinguish those those arguments alright so these were the the three questions we have very quickly before you forget what the three were the first two questions that we now have the call for proposals out that's on our website you will know it I'll show it at the end and what we're aiming to do there on questions one and two is is to commission to award about 15 20 depending on on how large the proposed the proposed research funding is sorry we have a fixed set of amount of money but it depends on how large the proposals are so on we expect that we will commission about 15 mid-sized research projects and as I said before very much with a focus on low-income countries or at least the to make sure that the knowledge that is produced is relevant for low-income countries which may well be analysis of middle-income countries there was a question there I think but you need to use the mic just on that point is it prescriptive or not because you mentioned China a few times obviously not a low-income country but you seem to think that it has an important story to tell yes I know it the but but but there's also politics around it and so the very precise formulation there is is that we and it's partly be a balance of the research projects or 15 cannot be on China that that's obvious but also that each of the proposals there will have very clear lessons for low-income countries right and and it's logical in a way because how can you analyze growth if you don't look at countries that actually have grown so yes but please don't all come up with store proposals on middle-income countries because then we have a problem see one of the things that's really important in this in the in this program is is the is the difficulty of doing research in low-income countries there and if I look at the ARC and the and the wider analysis of poverty these are typically of countries that are coming quite close to middle-income country status and our middle income status and that and that's good news and I'll be the last to say we don't need to do research on anymore but what about the other 20 African countries that that typically don't have the data where it's harder to do the research and where there's fewer scholars that that locally that can undertake the research so so we we are seriously going to stick to you know with the provides yes we want to know more about China and I forget now Ghana's middle income country now we'll let Ghana in as well I'm sure it's very very very important but we will we will continue to focus on we we really want to make an investment in research in in in the other 20 countries if you if you like and just see how far we get the quality won't be the same the more money will be needed all that is true but but that's really something that's that that we want to focus on so that's the for the first two questions the third one is slightly different is that there's a lot of research out there and certainly at this stage what we will do is is commission a set of papers that co is coming out as well in about two three weeks commission a set of papers that that will systematically synthesize the evidence of the existing existing research at this stage at least we felt we shouldn't really commission any any new research on that aspect of it what kind of research as I said at the start the different donors the different funders of this program kind of kind of already highlight what we're interested in the different research strategy is very much on top quality research and that's going to that needs to be published in in peer-reviewed journals people like Stefan Durk and as the chief economist Chris with his chief scientific advisors really emphasize this point and and we know that not all that research will be of the perhaps of the highest standards but but we find it I absolutely agree with it somewhere like Chris with you says but that's just not good enough we need to work harder that in an area like this that that the quality of research need to be as high as as possible so so though I have many arguments with with with the kind of research that is often commissioned and and the the focus I think to put that pressure on that to focus on quality research is absolutely right at the same time and these are not trade-offs this is this is about balancing the the the funding and and the programming of research at the same time we as IDSE does we find a strengthening of local research capacity very very important we will explore various ways in which in the process of research we can make sure that that that that strengthened capacity primarily is going to take place in in the places where it matters matters most and the third one is the is the policy outreach or or research research research uptake and as I said the Ulud Foundation asked the question why the question is really why do you do research because it matters for for other things and we're going to pay a lot of attention at the program level as well as as in discussion with researchers IDSE does to really we're really going to quiz people on so how do you think that this research is going to make a make a difference every we know everybody and it's not because we don't believe that people are interested to do this there are 99% of the people we work with but there's techniques of doing this there's certain ways of of of articulating the research engaging with policy makers that are more likely to have an impact on policy than than than others and and we want to strengthen that component as well so the research approach multi-disciplinarity cross-country comparisons that's all great we we think cross-country compares I I find them interesting but the international organizations have a have a comparative advantage there we you know we can fund cross-country research that that people in country can't do so so we think it's it's right for us to focus on that but single country studies will be will be equally eligible and that's what I said it's like we we asked for a lot that's why so we need we need Barcelona we need Barcelona to address all those those issues yes please one second in this context so what does it mean the market is pulling early because I have a different background and I'm attending here as an observer and we have I have a feeling that we don't have so much multi-disciplinarity in terms of my understanding so for you what does it mean market what is your discipline your discipline my discipline is a different display heritage culture okay all this kind of a discipline okay but I'm on your side I was trained as a social historian and this is a research program that we hope will attract mostly you know some of the very good economists that can do the quantitative analysis that is needed for that when I say multi-disciplinarity the driver behind this for me would be different disciplines have different parts of the story to tell so we need to bring them together how people do that that that is really up to you know I think single discipline quantitative analysis of one country absolutely fine if that answers part of the questions we're interested in and then we will look at the balance teams of people that said I'm going to combine anthropological evidence with household server analysis that's fine too the question about methodology for me is not exactly what method you use but what the best way is to answer the questions that you ask so did you have a question no so I'm almost there and I actually think that I started talking about it but just to emphasize that and this is not not this is something that I there see has experience in many of you have experience in but but we don't have you know we have quite good answers on how do you analyze cross-country data I mean I'm not saying they're right but they're fairly precise we don't have very precise answers to the question how do you make sure that that research is does become helpful for for policy and other forms of action one thing that we hope this program will do there there is of course an advocacy agenda behind this we think that promoting gender equality in this particular area is important we think that that a research program that is more than just the set of research projects where you have an interaction of national and global levels may help that advocacy at the global level of course the national experience are important but also that that that that researchers that work at national levels will benefit from an overall program that addresses similar similar questions as I said before it's the different donors and the different emphasis of those donors is very important for us in that and when the people who who are familiar with IDRC projects have I don't want to say I have suffered from this have benefited from this we will we will we we ask lots of we engage with researchers asking them very specific questions about how they think research is going to be made policy relevant to what kind of findings does one thing may have what implications for what kind of policy and what kind of action I added action to the policy very importantly for me this is not just just national policy policy making but but an engagement with the private sector obviously because that's that's where most of the activity and because of the energy that that that exists in addressing gender equality in the private sector is very very important we're going to ask and help people develop the the targeted audiences policy windows at what time do people articulate their research and and and of course what kind of strategy and means of communications do researchers develop and and again I think the program like this where we're going to bring once the grants are in place we're going to bring the researchers together will be extremely helpful because there'll be an enormous amount of peer learning in that respect so unless I've put you off completely right now so the fourth theme one and two that call is up many of you will already have have seen it these are the the web links it's still up for about a month and and we hope that's that people will have a look at that so thank you so much again for it for your attention we're not finishing you expect to finish the project in five years but I had a question about the length of three years three years so and openness of the sponsors well we said multi-disciplinarity we take that very very serious randomized controlled trials if they if they answer the type of question well there's not okay I know I don't know either I was just trying to formulate that what what I do think about now is that what Angus yeah well Angus Deaton says it this is this is a very handy instrument the problem is that it only answers nine a 10% of the kind of issues that we're interested in right so if it is for that is it for that that 10% so that's serious yes the answer is yes the second is they are very expensive and our our funding is limited of course and the third thing to say and we will be not quite coordinated we're working with the gender lab at the World Bank to see kind of in both ways they're looking to us so the research connections we the connections with researchers and networks that we have and and if there's a case where so this is a great proposal but but it doesn't get funded we can see so the answer is yeah go ahead I think the floor is already open for question so like for example I'm not thinking I don't really have anything I could imagine so somebody has an idea about a program that help women matched yep so that's very specific thing so something like that could be a couple of points when you when you go from Asia to Africa especially looking at the women's participation labor market as you have shown in the graph you see a big difference in South Asia for example it's labor force participation is low and we go to Africa it is very high in the country like Tanzania say for example almost everybody is in the labor force gap is only about five percent but it doesn't give a clear picture as to the gap itself if you look at the labor efficiency units then you see the difference meaning the people who are coming to the labor force with the skills then you see the gap and it might be much higher than even South Asia the second point I want to make is in South Asia say for example labor force participation is very low even in a country like Sri Lanka it is much lower than the average 35% in the recent data released by UN there are few reasons among others one is for example one million women is working outside when they go back they don't want to be in the labor force that is one thing secondly even the educated women after a while they out of the labor force because of the pressure on the education of children it is mostly the mother who take the children to the school tuition classes everything so if both are employed both parents are employed the mother opt out of the labor force that maybe one reason another reason for lower it's not the it's not discriminatory issues as such but maybe because of other social and economic pressures coming out of this well and no for that any discipline and I mean you know I would say yeah you need to you need anthropological research to figure out you know what kind of choices are made and you need the best statistical methods to identify what we see is discrimination in the sense you talk about and how that varies across across country so these are exactly the kind of questions that I think are important we have one question the back of it there and one on the side thank you for making reference to the World Economic Forum reports I work for the World Economic Forum I have a general question which is really more out of ignorance and not being a researcher and and I'll ask in two parts such an observation and one is that from a policy point of view with operations in particular or government the impact of human resource policy particularly women of childbearing age is that something that will come out through the research I think helpful environment actually shapes the decision the second one is which is the observation is back to a cultural considerations to be more true depending on the religious makeup of a country something that I'm also something that I observed in two instances in Tanzania it would be interesting to see whether there's evidence on this one is the impact of starting women's banks as well as starting Islamic banks in terms of moving people out of the informal sort of financial factor and in the formal financial and you know is that something that you also or you will encourage to move down one level the second was had a drive at the previous I used to work for the government and he asked for assistance with his wife who was running a shop called I distributed and I said no problem he was Muslim I said so I know the banking system find somebody who can explain they have you know options available and he said no no no I have to speak to the person and then I will do it on her behalf and so this aspect of taking consideration the cultural consideration for him it was inconceivable that his wife was actually one running the shop right which you know would sit with a banker and over the detail so right so as it follows directly from from the previous question that when we talk about constraint and choices as the important kind of questions these questions are exactly around that like where we see you know the disparities in a form of participation or access it's important to to understand that that that that may be religious but but but you'll find pretty large differences in different indicators between different types of Muslim countries right and and and that doesn't interest I don't think that that's relevant because I don't think it's our our our aspiration or job to to change that but then there are practices in those countries that are more or that that facilitate that or not right there what do banks do right with if if banks make sure that there are women that can help women then then that barrier is so so you know if we find stories where where those rather than you know of course it's not about whether a particular religion is worse or better for for for gender discrimination but to find aspects within that that facilitate facilitate women's economic empowerment comparison across countries there can be can be very can be very helpful and sometimes surprising as for your first question that's something I actually I before you go I want to talk to you about because it doesn't we don't see that much arising in in in the kind of research community but I think it's absolutely important it's absolutely important for two reasons one we we as I said that we want this program is to make a difference in policy we want to engage with the type with the communities that really make a difference and business is very important in that respect right it that's where the jobs where the jobs are are created so so for you know for our research outreach we we want to engage with the people working in that area and like I said in in I see it in North America we want to find out whether this the case in Africa there's a there's a there is an enormous interest in those issues it's a question like like supply diversity the number of very large corporations that promote gender equality it it is very interesting and we our research community hasn't touched that and we're very keen to but also the topic I think is is very very important because those companies okay so maybe the quantitative importance of those companies not very large because there's not that many working in that that doesn't make it less interesting but but quite restricted but but these examples may well be very important because if it is found that that major companies are are are changing those patterns for the benefit of women as well as for you know for in the end for the profit of the company these may well be you know far more important examples as kind of models that than any technical research we can do so if we if this program can help to articulate that like I said it's not usually what we do but if we can do that I would certainly it would come a little bit closer to becoming the Barcelona of the research programs hi yeah I had a very quick and naive question you say mid-sized proposals is there any definition of what you mean by mid-sized and also a comment I guess a lot of the the kind of examples you've been giving seemed to me to point towards quite descriptive research approaches potentially you know collecting some data on a small scale but you know cross-country descriptive or comparative case studies on the other hand there is also a focus clearly in this research program for potential high-quality stuff that could be published in top economics journals do you see a conflict between between the two and where do you think the balance lies thank you okay so the first one I answer that first because it's easy in you'll see it in the in the call for proposals is in the range of 300,000 to a million Canadian dollar the Canadian dollar is about the US dollar it's about the same the second one we'll find we'll find out no we want to if they sounded descriptive then then that's my mistake because we that's not what we are intending I mean the randomized control of yes probably too expensive probably others that are better better than one of the when it comes to it but it's slightly different issue isn't it and in terms of the top the top journals now one of the very interesting articles that I just this wonderful because because I learned so much from from developing this was was in feminist economics and some of the analyzed citation patterns there and it shows that feminist economist defined by the people that publish in feminist economists I don't take any you know this quotes those top journals but not vice versa the people who publish in publishing Cambridge journals whatever do not quote the feminist the feminist visas and we think this is a this is a problem and there's a there's a barrier there that that that whatever we can do we want to we want to break to break through that we want to make sure that you know if it is the case that that kind of that the type of reason to get published in those top journals are important for for for making a difference then we do you know we're gonna put a lot of effort into to you know whatever we can do to support people publishing in those journals as well but but of course that's you know that's that's that's a very high target we have a lock frame and for the longest time I was I was headed in my mind I'm gonna be really ambitious and say you more from you know that there will be a clear result in terms of more cross citation between feminist economists what would probably be publishable in in some of the top journals is answers to very narrow questions which can be cleanly identified yeah okay but that's that's the point whereas some of the stuff you were talking about a very big and important questions but you can't get the kind of identification that these top journals like that that's all I was getting okay no if there are people here that that wonder whether they should apply the answer is absolutely yes because we do want to we do want to support that at the same time and then bring the very important in the program forget the citation for a moment but but but but is to bring people together to get a better understanding and I say multi-disciplinarities about bringing people together a better understanding of what those those more advanced methods imply what they say what they don't say yes thank you for that yes question I think I think I have a question my question is more of a matter of practice practicability you you you have put a lot of emphasis that you want research from low-income countries and that's taking it to account the earlier question about data limitation for those who do research on gender that's a big a big a big of of of stacker so are you planning to give those researchers who comes with the projects funding as of a data collection or they found a funding that you will provide will include the a data collection too right so so in the answer is that that this is this is very important that we're going to you know look for a balance of kind of high quality analysis that that use existing data typically not not a lot of that not not in the poorest countries or it would leave out a lot of countries with with research projects that are are going to step outside that and then going to to to look into more difficult situations where the data is not available our budget of course is limited how much we can support primary data collection has to be seen on a case-by-case basis because primary data collection is is is expensive but it's it's definitely in and and then you know the other thing about data collection is that that's kind of a large investment in a one-off exercise if it's not likely to be be carried forward we would look at the sustainability of that as well is this likely you know to be taken up by others and and repeated over time so that it really you know that the investment is really worth it in terms of supporting the the local capacity so so the answer is is is yes within our you know the limited means I guess but if you you know Congo I mean if you absolutely I mean if you if you have ideas no seriously if you have ideas to do that like you know when when even even in the wider I mean I'm very happy that that the Congo now appears in in the wider research programs but it's been a long time coming right we definitely do need to need to know more about it questions any other questions I guess if there are no question I should close the discussion the session thank you so much