We need to value women and men equally for faster economic growth

Proposition Four: Better policies and bigger projects will not by themselves achieve gender parity; we also need cultural change.

Plenty of new laws and institutions have been put in place and billions of dollars spent across the developing world to ensure equal opportunities for women, especially in the past 10 years.

Most of it has been pretty successful. (For a top-of-the-line example, check what property titles did for Peruvian women living in the slums outside Lima.)

Some long-postponed or long-incomplete reforms are still necessary: we need to put a doctor at every birth, provide child care to poor mothers, pay for disadvantaged girls to finish high school, teach youngsters about reproductive health, make family planning free to all and see affirmative action through in politics, courts and unions.

But real change will come about only when gender becomes as integral and natural to development as, say, environmental protection or fiscal transparency.

Today, nobody would build a dam or a highway without thinking of its environmental impact.

And in most countries, crooked civil servants lose their jobs — and their freedom — if they are exposed.

But, only three decades ago, we rarely spoke about pollution or corruption. What changed? People did, especially young people.

A mix of social activism and public education campaigns convinced a new generation to do the right thing, and to vote accordingly.

Politicians and their technocrats listened. Think of Greenpeace in the 1980s reaching into kindergartens with its “Be Kind to Earth” message.

Those kids are now adults and would think twice before backing a party that stands for forest-cutting, whale-killing or SUV-driving.

The time has come for the same to happen to gender parity. Cultures will need to change, to value women and men equally. And once again, it will be our children who lead the way.

Marcelo Giugale is the World Bank Director for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management in Africa. Follow Marcelo Giugale on twitter: www.twitter.com/Marcelo_WB