Until we know how many women own businesses, we may under-invest in them as entrepreneurs and economic drivers.
We know we cannot achieve our twin goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity without ending poverty and creating equality for women and girls.
I have my own experience in Indonesia, of course. Sometimes in these transition situations, the new governments are still clumsy and awkward in responding to this new environment in which they operate. The only thing in their DNA is the old regime.
Over time, Europeans have come to rely on governments to protect them from the rougher facets of private enterprise and to look after them in old age.
Many emerging countries are facing the same issue of overheating and inflation because they have been vigorously expanding fiscal and monetary policy to counter the 2008 shock.
People feel they are not participating in the decision-making process. Decisions are exclusive to those at the very top. You have grown up with crony capitalism and it creates ever more resentment.
Women are often paid far less than men, while they also perform most of the world's unpaid care work.
While prosperity and longevity arrive together, they cannot be treated the same. With greater wealth, people in Asia may not have to work as many hours as they do now. But living longer means they will have to work more years, not fewer.
In the 1990s, I was among those Indonesians who demanded and celebrated the departure of our own autocrat, Suharto, and I joined the new government when he left.
Everyone with all those good intentions came to help Indonesia rebuild from the tsunami; but the co-ordination problem was very big, because they came with their own way of doing business; they came with the inflexibility of their own governance.
People now, especially with the Internet, are connected. They have an expectation of behaviour, of accountability, avoiding conflict and fair and just competition.
If women had better access to the financial system - even so much as a basic deposit account at a bank - it would be a major step in the direction of greater wealth and greater economic empowerment.
Women are emerging as a major force for change. Countries that have invested in girls' education and removed legal barriers that prevent women from achieving their potential are now seeing the benefits.
There's broad recognition that you really have to put the money where people are going to self-manage.
Changing much-cherished bank secrecy laws is worth the effort. Corruption, tax evasion, and the capture of natural resource revenues undermine the rule of law, weaken the social fabric, erode citizens' trust in institutions, fuel conflict and insecurity, and hamper job creation.
Infrastructure alone won't end poverty. The World Bank had to learn this lesson, too. While we believed too much in bricks and mortar in our early days, we now understand that bringing together funding, technical expertise, and tested knowledge goes much further.
If women had better access to the financial system - even so much as a basic deposit account at a bank - it would be a major step in the direction of greater wealth and greater economic empowerment.