Gender mainstreaming helps us to ensure that infrastructure is designed and built to maximize positive and equitable benefits – such as income generating opportunities and access – while mitigating risks and threats. Each stage of the infrastructure project must address the safety and accessibility needs of all users, including women, elderly, children, lesbian, gay, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI), people living with disabilities (PLWD), and other socially-excluded groups. Gender mainstreaming considers the diverse needs of women and other populations in various roles, including as active stakeholders, employees, entrepreneurs, contractors, decision-makers as well as the end-users of economic and retail infrastructure, whether they are vendors, factory workers, buyers or managers.
The design of economic and retail infrastructure must take into consideration how women, men, girls and boys access and use it, as well as what their needs are (e.g., Who uses this space? What for? Do they need special accommodation?). This practical guidance on gender mainstreaming in economic and retail infrastructure provides specific ‘how-to’ guidance together with checklists across the project lifespan in four subsectors (roads, non-motorized transport and pedestrian infrastructure, transport systems, and ports), with context-specific Asia and Pacific regional information and case studies to showcase what socially-inclusive and gender-equitable infrastructure designs look like on the ground.
