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p. 2 of 8 BACK | NEXT Purpose of the checklist Why is gender important in urban development and housing projects? Key questions and action points in the project cycle Gender analysis Project design Policy dialogue Appendix: Terms of reference for gender specialist Selected references

Gender Checklist: Urban Development and Housing

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Why is gender important in urban development and housing projects?¹

Urban development and housing (UDH) encompasses the following subsectors: water supply, waste management, drainage, transportation, electrification, housing, land use planning, slum improvement, sanitation and hygiene, environmental management, and employment generation. UDH projects usually take place in socially complex and densely populated areas. Gender is only one of many aspects that need to be taken into account, but it is an extremely important one.

Some earlier experiences in ADB-funded and other donor-funded UDH projects have demonstrated the following lessons, which illustrate the centrality of gender:

Lesson 1. Women and men differ in their roles, needs, and perceptions regarding UDH. Conscious efforts to address their views lead to better project design and performance.

Women are the primary collectors, transporters, users, and managers of domestic water and promoters of home and community-based sanitation activities. Women also play a primary role in waste disposal and environmental management. As women bear a primary responsibility in household chores, new or improved housing designs, including lighting and ventilation, should reflect their needs.

Furthermore, in some areas, evidence shows that targeting women as individual customers could better increase the number of connections to water and sewage services than a nontargeted approach. This has major implications for the marketing strategy of service providers, be they public- or private-sector, that have financial viability problems.²

Yet, in many societies women’s views are not systematically represented in decision-making bodies. UDH projects provide major opportunities to close this gap.

Lesson 2. Focus on gender has multiplier effects.

Focusing on gender leads to benefits that go beyond good UDH project performance, as manifested in such aspects as better procurement, operation and maintenance (O&M), cost recovery, and hygiene awareness. Those other benefits include the following:

• Economic benefit: Better access to urban infrastructure and services provides better living conditions for women, improving their health and productivity. Also, reducing the time spent on water collection and sanitation management gives women more time for income-generating activities, the care of family members, or their own welfare and leisure. The economy, as a whole, therefore also benefits.

• Benefit to children: Freed from the drudgery of water collection and management, children, especially girls, can go to school. Their health will also improve. Hence, the impact can be expected to be intergenerational.

• Empowerment of women: Involvement in UDH projects empowers women, especially when project activities are linked to income-generating activities and productive resources such as credit (see box 2).

Lesson 3. Gender can be better addressed through an approach that is responsive to the needs of the poor and encourages stakeholder participation.

Whether it is a community-based approach or a bigger-scale private-sector approach, the focus on poverty reduction and the participation of beneficiaries are two other key determinants of the effectiveness and sustainability of UDH management. A UDH project must focus on the links between gender and poverty by identifying, for example, households headed by females and those households’ special needs. This is especially critical in slum development, since many households in slum areas are headed by women. A UDH project must also address the constraints on women’s participation in project design, construction, O&M), training, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E).

Lesson 4. Where a community-based approach is relevant, an adaptive, learning, and process-oriented approach should be taken; continuous dialogue between the project authority and the women and men beneficiaries is therefore important.

Project beneficiaries are likely to have a stronger sense of ownership when the project gives them enough time, design flexibility, and authority to take corrective action. In this way, they find it easier to incorporate their earlier learning and negotiate with project staff and service providers. This is especially so in a context where women’s participation is not the norm. Therefore, a mechanism must be built into the project to allow such two-way interactions between the beneficiaries and the service providers.

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