Making Infrastructure Work for Women and Men

Abstract

This report provides a gender review of a decade and a half of World Bank infrastructure lending for 1,246 projects. The objective of this review is to assess the status of and trends in gender integration in the World Bank infrastructure portfolio, and to establish a baseline for monitoring and enhancing gender integration in line with commitments made for the 2006 gender action plan. The portfolio review reveals important progress on gender integration in infrastructure operations. While an average of 14 percent of infrastructure projects in 1995 applied some attention to gender concerns in 1995, this climbed to 36 percent by 2009. The global average, moreover, hides large strides made over time in four regions. In 2009, East Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Africa all included gender concerns in the design of at least 50 percent of their infrastructure projects. Hard work remains in consolidating and extending the gains in gender coverage across the infrastructure portfolio. This will require stronger management commitment, concerted efforts, a plan with targets to achieve sustainable results, resources, specialist staffing, and capacity enhancement of staff. The portfolio review repeatedly found that supporting gender equality and women's empowerment in infrastructure operations have large benefits for the communities; the actions not only increased women's opportunities but also enhanced project effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.