Doing Business with the ladies: Gender, legal reform, and entrepreneurship in the international finance corporation

Since 2007 the World Bank's gender approach has moved away from the Wolfensohn-era emphasis on gender as central to social development concerns, towards a business case model that involves a far greater role for the private sector in efforts to reduce poverty and achieve gender equity. Using a case study of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and its project, 'Doing Business', to promote the ease of doing business across the world, I ask what this new direction entails for the Bank's gender and development efforts, and examine the new links being forged between gender empowerment and free market reform. The article focuses on three themes in this regard: first, how attention to gender within the 'Doing Business'project helps promote labour market deregulation; second, the contested way in which free markets, legal reform, and gender equality are linked together; and third, the regional reconfigurations of Gender and Development (GAD) evident in the project's report on Women in Africa, wherein women entrepreneurs are celebrated and new networks of GAD specialists are drawn together.