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The World Bank Group announced on Thursday that its headquarters in Washington, DC, has taken an important step in achieving gender equality by obtaining the first level of EDGE certification, EDGE Assess.

Economic Dividends for Gender Equality (EDGE) Certification has been designed to help companies not only create an optimal workplace for women and men, but also benefit from it. The EDGE assessment methodology was developed by the EDGE Certified Foundation and launched at the World Economic Forum in 2011.  

The certification requires a rigorous external assessment of five key areas: equal pay for equivalent work; recruitment and promotion; leadership development training and mentoring; flexible working arrangements; and company culture.

According to the World Bank, its headquarters is the first location of an international financial institution to attain this certification. EDGE Assess recognizes that the World Bank Group headquarters has made a public commitment to strong gender balance and has identified the parameters of a concrete action plan to further its progress.

“Equal opportunity for women and men is a fundamental principle of human dignity and development. Promoting gender equality is both the right thing to do and critical to ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity,” said Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group. “EDGE certification is a key part of our strategy to make gender equality a core value of our operations and our work with developing countries. It provides a vital external benchmark for measuring our progress and is one more way we’re working to be the employer of choice in the development community.”

The World Bank Group headquarters began the process of achieving EDGE certification in March 2015. The organization expects to achieve certification of its country offices in the near future.

The Bank’s staff are drawn from more than 170 nationalities and it has a global footprint of 120-plus offices. Inclusion of people from different demographics, backgrounds and affinities, is a strategic priority for the Bank. The Bank released in December the new World Bank Group Gender Equality Strategy, 2016-2023.
 
“Leading organizations around the world are investing in gender equality because it is good for business,” said Aniela Unguresan, Co-Founder of the EDGE Certified Foundation. “The certification of the World Bank Group sends a powerful signal that gender equality is one of the key drivers to achieve sustainable economic growth and prosperity across countries and industries.”

The EDGE certification methodology has been extensively tested in more than 100 companies across more than 30 countries and five continents.