Improved access to:
• … electricity has been shown to raise female employment, by freeing time from home-production activities and enabling home-based micro-enterprises. 88
• … water and sanitation services can reduce time poverty, freeing time for paid work.89
• … safe, well-designed transport links in urban and rural areas can positively influence women's participation in the labor market.
• … ICT connections can open new job markets and possibilities.90
The process of developing and operating infrastructure can provide opportunities to promote women-owned business along the infrastructure value chain91 and expand economic opportunities for women.
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88 Dinkelman, Taryn, The effects of rural electrification on employment: New evidence from South Africa, American Economic Review, Vol. 101(7) ,pp. 3078-3108, December 2011, appendices.
89 A well-planned World Bank Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project in Morocco demonstrated this. After project completion, time spent fetching water by women and girls was reduced by 50 to 90 percent. With more time and better health, female primary-school attendance in the project area increased by 21 percent (ICR Review, World Bank, Report number: ICRR11535).
90 For a good example of this in practice, see: Kosovo: Women in Online Work Pilot (http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/kosovo/brief/kosovo-wow).
91 This could work particularly well for off-grid renewable-energy solutions, as seen in the example of "Solar Sisters," which works with a woman-centered direct-sales network to bring clean-energy technologies to remote communities in rural Africa. See more at https://www.solarsister.org/about.