macroeconomic policies have an impact on gender equality through markets and state interventions which distribute key economic and financial resources and economic opportunities genderspecific impacts are mediated by the state s willingness and capacity to intervene on behalf of less powerful groups within society and by the voice and influence of women within the structures of governance at different levels in society while women s access to education and employment improved in recent decades the transformative potential of those changes has been curtailed by persisting inequalities in the gender distribution of resources