Promoting gender equality at work in Turkey

The participation of women in economic life is widely regarded as a means for a country to reach its full productive potential and gender equality is today recognized by the international community as a powerful engine of sustainable development and economic growth and the fight against poverty.

Turkey has a female participation rate in the Turkish labor market of 38% in 2018, which is significantly lower than the average of 65% for OECD countries. Even though the government aims to increase the rate to 41% by 2023, persistent pay gaps between women and men prove the inequalities in the labor market. 

This project aims to support Turkey in its path towards more inclusive development and economic activity, which respects professional equality between women and men. To achieve its objectives, the project aims to: 

• Encourage companies to assess the state of gender equality in their workplaces through the “Women’s Employment Management Tool”. The tool was initially developed by the French National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions in France (ANACT), adapted by AFD and TSKB to the Turkish context and improved after a first phase of implementation. 
• Promote women's access to the labor market and reduce inequalities between women and men in the workplace, through the implementation of defined action points to address the weaknesses identified in their evaluation.

The TSKB Development Bank will provide financing to companies that commit to concrete goals of increased gender mainstreaming because of this diagnostic.

The project will enable large and medium-sized enterprises that constitute TSKB's clientele and who wish to develop professional equality between women and men and invest in the participation of women in the workplace, including where appropriate among their sub-contractors, to receive incentive funding.