The challenges that prevent men and women from achieving similar outcomes in the areas of human development, accessing jobs, control of assets, and voice and agency-the four key objectives of the World Bank's Gender Strategy-range from easily identifiable to harder to pinpoint.
• The easily identifiable challenges-such as those leading to human endowment gaps such as different educational outcomes for girls and boys at the secondary-school level-may have concrete solutions, such as building a school or improving water and sanitation in a community, which frees time for girls to go to school.
• The invisible challenges-the unspoken societal norms and stereotypes dictating men's and women's behaviors, such as whether a woman would offer her opinion in front of a man-are sometimes harder to recognize or identify. In such cases, however, infrastructure may offer solutions that are transformational at an individual or community level-for example, by employing women in non-traditional jobs such as road maintenance, which can both challenge pervasive social norms and give women the space to exercise their agency. Ample opportunities exist along the infrastructure project cycle to take the different realities of men and women into account, giving women opportunities to build their skills, ultimately leading to better-designed infrastructure and improved development outcomes.
It is worth noting that, although plentiful opportunities exist within a more inclusive infrastructure-project-development process to address gender gaps in outcomes, tackling these disparities at the project level will not eliminate some of the root causes of gender disparities. This will require systemic cultural and behavioral changes.
Annexes 1-4 contain more detailed discussions of the four gender equality gaps targeted by the World Bank Group 2016 Strategy and include discussion of how infrastructure can contribute to closing them. These findings are summarized in Table 1.
| Box 1: Definitions of Markets, Formal Institutions, and Informal Social Institutions Markets-a variety of arrangements that allow buyers and sellers to exchange any type of goods and services subject to a set of rules. Markets allow for any item that is exchanged to be evaluated and priced. Markets can be influenced and shaped by formal and informal institutions. Formal institutions-all aspects that pertain to the functioning of the state, including laws, regulatory frameworks, and mechanisms for the delivery of services that the state provides, such as judicial services, police services, basic infrastructure, health and education. Informal social institutions-the mechanisms, rules and procedures that shape social interactions but do not pertain to the functioning of the state. Gender roles provide guides to "standard" or normative behaviors for each sex within certain social contexts. Roles gain power as they are learned through socialization, elaborated in cultural products, and enacted in daily life. The repeated experience of performing gender roles affects widely shared beliefs about men's and women's attributions and one's own sense of identity. Social norms refer to patterns of behavior that flow from socially shared beliefs enforced by informal social sanctions. These can affect household bargaining in many ways: They set limits on what can be bargained about; they can be a determinant of or constraint to bargaining power; they can affect how bargaining is conducted; and they themselves can be subject to bargaining and can change. Social networks refer to the systems of social relationships and bonds of cooperation for mutual benefit that shape one's opportunities, information, social norms and perceptions. Source: The World Development Report 2012 (Box 4), based on Agarwal, 1994, 1997; Fehr, Fischbacher, and Gätcher, 2002; Kabeer, 1999; Sen, 1990. |
Table 1: Infrastructure's Role in Closing the Gender Gaps
| Gender Gaps to Close | Description | Infrastructure's Role in Closing these Gaps |
| Human endowment gaps-health, education, social protection gaps | Investments in health and education ensure people meet their potential. Progress has been made in health, yet worrying maternal mortality rates remain. Education gaps-between girls and boys-are closing, but not evenly. | Improved access to: • Transport and ICT technologies can facilitate access to health and education • Water, sanitation and electricity can improve health outcomes and reduce time poverty-freeing up time for education • Nearby health facilities and schools can help close these gaps Process for building infrastructure provides opportunities to: Deliver benefit schemes to local population-e.g., schools, health facilities; ensure that contractors take measures to prevent sexual harassment and gender-based violence (GBV) |
| Removing constraints for more and better jobs | Women's labor-force participation matters for economies, women's voices, and agency. Unfortunately, across countries, the rate of women in the labor force pales in comparison to that of men, due to: skills gaps, occupational sex segregation, lack of child/elder-care, mobility constraints, unpaid "drudge work," gender pay gaps, and legal and regulatory constraints. | Improved access to: • Electricity has been shown to reduce time poverty and enable entrepreneurial pursuits • Water and sanitation can reduce time poverty and free up time for work • Well-designed transport can improve women's labor-force participation • ICT can allow women access to online-based work and different economic opportunities Process for building infrastructure provides opportunities to: • Promote women-run businesses along the project-development cycle Encourage companies to provide equal opportunities for women and men in the workforce through codes of conduct; build skills, and provide jobs for both sexes |
| Removing barriers to women's ownership and control of assets | Owning assets helps people generate income, access capital and credit, and cope with shocks. Barriers for women include: no access to financial accounts or credit; and not having proper identification, which prevents women from getting mortgages or connections to services. | Improved access to: • ICT networks provides more opportunities for women to build a digital credit history Process for building infrastructure provides opportunities to: • Provide joint titling of land during resettlement Promote gender-sensitive procurement to build/run infrastructure projects/services |
| Enhancing women's voice and agency; engaging men & boys | Addressing voice and agency constraints requires engaging men and boys as change agents; changing unequitable social norms, discriminatory laws, and legal institutions; challenging gender stereotypes; and developing programs to promote economic opportunities in emerging high-growth sectors, social protections, and education, especially in STEM. | Improved access to: • Well-designed infrastructure can improve health outcomes, reduce time poverty, etc., giving women opportunities to improve their education and exercise agency • Safe transport services can promote personal security of women and girls Process for building infrastructure provides opportunities to: • Promote women's voices-especially through stakeholder consultations • Develop skills and leadership potential equitably for women and men Hold construction contractors and service providers to a Code of Conduct designed to prevent incidents of sexual harassment and GBV |