Albania Gender Equality in Access to Economic Opportunities DPF

Despite improvements in recent years, systemic constraints in Albania’s legal and regulatory framework, combined with implementation gaps, continue to inhibit women’s access to economic opportunities. For instance, married women are under-registered as joint owners of property, which curtails their rights of ownership and use. Likewise, Albania’s female labor force participation rate remains 16 percentage points lower than the male rate, and only 30 percent of firms have female owners or administrators. The labor market gender gap is widest among women of prime childbearing age, due in part to a lack of early childhood education and care facilities. Gender gaps in labor-force participation, employment, and wages are especially pronounced among ethnic minorities. Moreover, institutional capacity constraints undermine the ability of the government to conduct and monitor gender-informed policies across sectors. The proposed Development Policy Financing (the operation) supports policies to help women access greater opportunities and enable the government to better allocate resources to these policies. Building on Albania’s progress in strengthening legislation to support gender equality in recent years, policies supported by this operation aim at bringing the country’s legal framework closer to international standards and ensure its effective implementation.