Infrastructure is the cornerstone of our social economy, providing such basic services as electricity, transport, water and sanitation, ICT and waste management, as well as social services including education and healthcare provided by schools and hospitals. It contributes to 92% of the 169 targets across all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
If done wrong, unsustainable infrastructure can be a major contributor to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste.
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Infrastructure design has traditionally failed to account for the distinct needs of men and women who often have different use patterns of infrastructure. This could lead to a widened gender gap, which will already take years to close worldwide based on current projections.
“Gender-neutral infrastructure doesn’t exist,” says Dr Nadine Puechguirbal, who has worked as a senior gender adviser for the United Nations. “Around the world, women and girls are still disproportionately affected by a lack of access to basic infrastructure services such as sanitation, clean water, safe public transport.”
Some gender inequality issues can be addressed simultaneously by improving basic universal infrastructure services. For example, with adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), or electricity infrastructure, women and girls will spend less time securing water and fuel for their families – which are otherwise often tasks undertaken by women in many countries – and will have more time for other productive activities or for education. Sometimes, gender equality and green economic goals are mutually reinforcing. For example, investments in sustainable energy infrastructure like renewables could add over 40 million jobs. Jobs in this sector are relatively more gender-balanced than those in traditional oil and gas industry, and create healthcare savings equivalent to eight times the cost of the investment when accounting for reduced health and environmental externalities.
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But in other cases, women’s needs are simply not reflected in infrastructure planning. For example, most European cities were designed after World War II by male planners with male-dominated thinking (based on assumptions of going between home and work at set times). There was limited accounting for childcare or shopping, carried out mostly by women, often covering short distances on foot or by public transport during off-peak hours.
Unsafe and low security transportation puts women at a disadvantage, as they are more affected by violence and this vulnerability affects their well-being and their labor force participation. For example, in Pakistan the level of harassment while travelling has discouraged many women from seeking employment or further education.
From a macro-economic perspective, applying a gender-lens to infrastructure development would increase the total GDP in OECD countries by 2.5% by 2050. Developing safe and quality infrastructure that is gender-responsive is therefore vital to an inclusive green economy. For instance, the traditional multi-purpose qanat system in Iran brings inclusive economic benefits to local communities even until today, including employment and local businesses, as women play an important role in all stages of qanat-based saffron production.
UNEP’s International Good Practice Principles for Sustainable Infrastructure sets out a specific principle on equity, inclusiveness and empowerment – where infrastructure development should be gender-responsive and provide men and women with equal access to jobs and services, as well as an equal voice in setting priorities for infrastructure design and operation.
Increasing the involvement of female infrastructure professionals, particularly in higher management, is one of the most pertinent measures required, as currently women comprise only 18% of personnel within infrastructure ministries worldwide.
Women’s voices and leadership are also vital for transparent and evidence-based decision-making processes to avoid inadvertently maintaining existing power imbalances. Malawi has developed innovative ways to strengthen public participation through community and virtual events to improve the participation of women and youth by making them accessible – for example by locating events close to residential areas. Female participation is also being monitored and targeted media training has focused on increasing the attendance of female journalists. Chile has also established specific participation mechanisms for infrastructure planning, paying due regard to gender.
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Gender mainstreaming activities should also be embedded throughout the infrastructure life cycle, from upstream planning and design to downstream financing, construction and operation. Austria has established measures for integrating gender perspectives into infrastructure budgeting using a gender needs assessment, baseline analyses, ex ante and ex post gender impact assessments, as well as gender-disaggregated incidence analysis.
While good practices and actions exist, many countries still face multi-faceted challenges, ranging from awareness and capacity to the enabling environment and budget. A recent UNEP study looked at the challenges and solutions in Côte d’Ivoire and Zambia.
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The Zambian government has placed gender equality and sustainable infrastructure as development priorities. However, the lack of access to infrastructure facilities and services still restricts women from participating in, and benefiting from, the infrastructure development outcomes. The infrastructure polices were not gender responsive and inclusive, and lacked sex-disaggregated data.
In Côte d’Ivoire, most government ministries and structures demonstrate a commitment to take gender into account, but there are a lack of specialized tools and dedicated human resources. Most infrastructure has been designed, planned and implemented without taking gender concerns into account. Access to key sustainable infrastructure systems is not generalized for the entire population, which penalizes growth and economic development and creates inequalities between men and women.
In both countries, schools – a form of social infrastructure – are underdeveloped in terms of both quantity and quality. In particular, inclusive WASH facilities such as safe, private, sex-segregated toilets for menstrual hygiene management are lacking, leading to girls dropping out of school. Côte d’Ivoire further identifies that there is also a lack of boarding facilities like girls’ high schools or girls-only dormitories to assure a favorable and safe environment in which girls can study and live.
To this end, both Côte d’Ivoire and Zambia have developed sectoral guidelines for gender-responsive infrastructure, targeting key stakeholders with differentiated responsibilities. For example, Zambia created a gender integration checklist to be applied across the infrastructure life cycle. Specific guiding principles include that education facilities must have water-borne toilets or improved pit latrines where boys and girls can separately take care of personal hygiene in privacy and safety.
(Participants and facilitators at the validation workshop of gender-responsive infrastructure guidelines in Lusaka, Zambia. 26 November 2022. Photo provided by Chengchen Qian.)
“Through the creation of the Guidelines, technocrats from diverse areas in Zambia are receiving the gender analysis and responsive skills required in the infrastructure development and implementation life cycle,” said Muchimba Muvombo, a senior planner with Zambia’s Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.
Though funding shortages are often one of the bottlenecks for immediate roll-out of gender-responsive infrastructure, transformative changes will require mainstreaming of gender-inclusiveness across ministries and across public and private sectors, and institutionalizing long-term education and training programmes to equip young people with gender-sensitive mindsets and skills.
Rethinking how infrastructure is planned, designed and managed as early as possible in its life cycle, with women’s participation in mind, offers a chance for alleviating these impacts and closing the gender gap.