Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Infrastructure Projects: Asia Pacific Regional Meeting
Opening Remarks by
Rajat M. Nag
Managing Director General
Asian Development Bank
Sponsored by Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) Working Group on Gender, Co-organized by ADB and the World Bank
10 November 2008
ADB Headquarters, Mandaluyong City, Philippines
Colleagues. Ladies and gentlemen. Good morning to all of you.
It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you to the Asia Pacific Regional Meeting on Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Infrastructure Projects. Some of you have traveled a long way to Manila, and we appreciate your efforts and your interest. I hope you had a good rest.
Some of you may be new to the concept of gender mainstreaming in infrastructure sectors. Others may have worked on this issue for years. Regardless of your experience, there are a few fundamental questions worth considering: Why does gender matter in infrastructure? How can infrastructure investments benefit women and men equally? How can we design infrastructure projects to improve the quality of life for women and men - both economically and socially?
Let me offer some initial thoughts on these issues. First of all, good infrastructure and services such as water supply and sanitation, energy, and transport significantly contribute to releasing women from time-consuming and drudgery work. In most rural communities around the world, it is women who primarily collect fuel wood and water. Studies on firewood collection in India found that women travel roughly between 4 and 10 km in search of firewood, sometimes every day. The long hours women spend on water collection, transporting and treating are a major contributor to injuries and poor health among them. They are also among the major reasons girls stay out of school. And collection hours increase during times of environmental and economic crisis and distress.
Second, good transport and marketing infrastructure help women access markets for their products. This contributes to their income, self confidence, and economic and social empowerment - particularly where women's physical mobility is more limited than men's due to cultural or affordability reasons. Studies in Sub-Saharan Africa show that the income earned by women on a main road is significantly higher than that earned by women living away from the main road. Why? Because road-side women do not have to spend time and money transporting their products to markets. Instead, they can spend their time producing more marketable products.
Similarly, improved access to safe and affordable transport increases women's and girls' access to schools, hospitals, and social services. In Asia and the Pacific, and in other parts of the world, one of the major constraints to achieving gender parity in educational enrollment and attainment is distance to school. Parents are reluctant to send their daughters to schools far away due to safety concerns and the high cost of transportation.
Third, certain types of infrastructure development, such as rural water supply and sanitation, tertiary irrigation canals, and neighborhood roads and drainage, rely on communities to take charge of planning, construction, and managing fee collection and maintenance. When the community-led decision-making process allows men and women to jointly participate, women gain self-confidence and earn respect from the community. Women's increased participation in infrastructure planning and management often leads to economic empowerment as they acquire and improve their financial and life skills.
Finally, large-scale infrastructure investments may involve resettlement, economic and social dislocation and adverse impacts on community health, particularly among vulnerable groups.
Economic and social displacement can exacerbate gender disparities and women's vulnerability. Resettlement planning and income restoration programs must consider women's special role as family care takers, their special needs and vulnerability, their lack of landownership and their limited access to decision-making and income restoration process. Preventive activities against communicable diseases and HIV and AIDS need to consider epidemiological and behavioral differences between men and women. The MDBs, together with partner countries, have policies and measures in place to prevent, mitigate, and manage social risks associated with infrastructure development.
During the next two days, you will hear about a number of success stories in achieving gender equality results through infrastructure projects. We will also learn from each other how to apply useful tools such as project gender action plans and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms in infrastructure projects.
But our learning needs to be accelerated. We need to find innovative ways to scale up gender equality results in a range of infrastructure sectors. For example, the renewable energy sector seems to be still largely untapped. Emergency assistance related to flooding and earthquakes will need to pay more attention to gender concerns.
This two-day Asia Pacific meeting is the first of a series of three workshops organized by MDBs to shed light on these increasingly important issues. Two other meetings are planned for 2009, one for Latin America and Caribbean region, and one for the Africa region. I hope the experience here will be usefully employed in the next two meetings.
Let me close by thanking our partners in the multilateral development banks' Working Group on Gender - the African Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World Bank - for co-sponsoring this initiative. The Working Group aims to strengthen information sharing and collaboration among MDBs on gender equality in operations in client countries, as well as institutionally within each MDB. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development also participates as an observer. We at ADB are very pleased to chair and host this meeting, and hope it will provide a forum for new ideas and innovations.
I understand that at the end of the two-days, you will go home with your own 'gender and infrastructure' action plan to follow up in your own work areas. I would like to ask you in advance to please pick at least one thing you can do immediately and act on it.
I wish you a successful meeting. Thank you.
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