The Gender Equality Dividend: Investing in Women’s Economic Prosperity Through Family Law Reform

Name: The Gender Equality Dividend: Investing in Women’s Economic Prosperity Through Family Law Reform
Start: 2026-09-16T14:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-09-16T15:30:00-04:00
Location: APCO Office

Join the Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law (GCEFL), Equality Now, TrustLaw, and the World Bank Group for a conversation on the sidelines of UNGA on one of the most under-resourced, highest-leverage investments in global development: gender equality legal reform.

This event marks the launch of a landmark World Bank Group and Equality Now joint brief, Unlocking Women’s Economic Rights through Family Law Reform: Lessons from Case Studies across Five Regions, presenting new evidence on how discriminatory family, marital, and inheritance laws hold back women’s economic participation, and what changes when those laws are reformed. This brief builds on insights from the World Bank’s Women, Business, and the Law report, Changing Laws, Changing Lives: Family Law Reform as a Catalyst for Economic Prosperity, which will also be shared at the event. Guests will also hear about the GCEFL’s forthcoming research on marital and inheritance rights, facilitated by TrustLaw.

A moderated panel will bring together World Bank Group economic development experts, Equality Now legal reform experts, and a national partner from Chile to make the funding case directly: why has legal reform historically been treated as a policy issue rather than an economic one, what does the data show about the cost of exclusion, and what becomes possible for societies, economies, and women and girls when this work is fully prioritized?

This gathering directly advances GCEFL’s advocacy and Equality Now’s 2026–2030 Strategic Plan priority to centre economic justice, targeting 20 laws or policies reformed and an estimated 100 million women and girls benefiting from stronger legal protection and economic agency.

This event is proudly hosted at APCO’s New York offices, with generous support from TrustLaw, the global pro bono service of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Space is limited. Please join us for the program and a networking reception immediately following.