Episode Details

We are investing more than ever in educating girls, yet female labor force participation is declining in key regions. At the same time, our global measures of poverty and environmental wealth struggle to keep pace with rapid social and ecological changes.

In this episode, we join senior economists and directors from the World Bank Group to analyze the hidden barriers to equality and sustainability. We discuss how legal frameworks in over 180 countries restrict women's economic mobility, how household surveys are designed to monitor global poverty lines, and how innovative financial instruments like blue bonds can protect fragile coastal communities.

• Traditional labor statistics often ignore the heavy burden of unpaid domestic and care duties that keep women from entering the formal workforce.
• Gender-based violence generates significant macroeconomic costs, including firm-level turnover, high absenteeism, and negative intergenerational consequences.
• While consumption metrics capture physical needs like food and shelter, they frequently miss non-priced dimensions of poverty such as access to security and education.
• Timeliness remains a major hurdle for poverty alleviation, as national household surveys can take up to five years to be fully processed.
• The first-ever sovereign blue bond in the Seychelles demonstrates how developing nations can raise capital by proving their marine governance is sound.
• Parametric insurance mechanisms are being deployed to provide immediate financial payouts to fishers who lose their equipment during hurricanes.

This episode was recorded during the World Bank Group's Econothon, a 24-hour broadcast designed to share real-time development economics research directly with a global audience.

If we want to build a truly resilient society, how do we begin valuing public goods and informal labor that have no set market price?