Mainstreaming gender & inclusion in urban programming
Infrastructure and cities programming provide critical opportunities to boost economic growth. However, infrastructure provision and urban development alone are not enough to ensure that economic growth benefits the poor and marginalised.
The design and implementation of programmes need to be conceived and put in place with purposeful planning for inclusive approaches.
DFID has a strong policy framework for ensuring that gender equality and inclusion of the most marginalised in society play a central role in achieving inclusive growth and have made global commitments on both.
The ICED facility has developed a strategy that reflects this framework and translates it into a concrete proposition for engaging with this important agenda.
DFID advisers can get support from ICED to embed G&I within infrastructure and cities programming, supporting DFID to achieve its Leave No One Behind and gender equality policy objectives in this space.
ICED Support for Gender and Inclusion Mainstreaming
The critical element of our offer is the Gender & Inclusion Framework, developed by Caroline Moser with SDDirect for the ICED facility, that maps out a continuum for mainstreaming gender and inclusion.
The framework starts with a minimum level of ambition addressing the basic needs of women and marginalised groups, progressing to interventions that will build individual assets, capabilities, and opportunities, and finally advances to the highest level of ambition focused on transformation.
The ICED G&I Framework is used to:
- Help raise the level of ambition of each programme that ICED supports
- Encourage proactive integration of gender and inclusion
- Support programmes that work towards transformative change
- Play a catalytic role in driving investments in infrastructure and cities that strive for transformation.
Priority G&I Entry points for Structural Transformation
In order to translate the principles in the G&I Framework into practice, ICED has developed seven priority gender and inclusion entry points. These seven entry points, which align with the New Urban Agenda as well as DFID Priority areas for infrastructure programming, are as follows:
The seven entry points above will be used by ICED:
- To identify initiatives that offer the greatest transformative potential
- To concentrate ICED resources to support those programmes to realise their potential
- To promote collective action as a key mechanism for transformative change that cuts across all seven entry points.
ICED Work on Gender and Inclusion
High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment: The ICED Facility was instrumental in ensuring the first ever report by the High Level Panel (HLP) on Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) report recognised the potential role of infrastructure as a game-changer.
VAWG Briefing paper: ICED’s series of briefing papers provide a framework for how to address violence against women and girls (VAWG) through infrastructure and cities programmes. They aim to support DFID advisors and programme managers to integrate VAWG in urban and infrastructure programming.
Disability Inclusion: ICED produced a Disability Inclusive Infrastructure and Cities Briefing Note to stimulate thinking on how DFID investments can be leveraged for greater Disability Inclusion impact. The briefing note includes good practice examples (see: Disability inclusive education in Pakistan, Disability inclusive design in Dar’s BRT, & Disability inclusive WASH in Sub Saharan Africa) of what good DI looks like across key sectors, including for programmes that go beyond minimum standards to a ‘transformative’ approach.
DFID Pakistan Urban Productivity Scoping Study: The ICED facility worked with DFID Pakistan to analyse and prioritise new interventions to tackle low urban productivity, and ensure G&I was integrated into economic development plans
Transport Briefing Note: This note provides guidance on how to accelerate Women’s Economic Empowerment through DFID’s investments in the transport sector. It sets out tangible opportunities for transport infrastructure to deliver positive impacts for women, presenting the integration of women’s economic empowerment as an important and integral consideration for all transport infrastructure programming.
DFID Asia Regional Team Development Capital Platform: The ICED facility supported DFID’s Asia Regional team to address the gaps in Business Case development related to unlocking additional impacts from DevCap investments for women and girls.
How do I get ICED support for Gender & Inclusion?
Infrastructure and Cities for Economic Development (ICED) is a new flexible facility designed to accelerate DFID’s infrastructure and cities initiatives across the world to contribute to poverty reduction and resilient, inclusive and transformative economic growth.
Country and regional offices and DFID programme design advisers can access a range of rapid technical assistance from a pool of sectoral experts as well as action research, policy briefings and consultations.
If you have a question about ICED or would like to know more about how we can help you, contact us on: connect@icedfacility.org. We have a team of advisers who will answer your questions, listen to your needs and explain how ICED might be able to help.
ICED is managed by a PwC-led Alliance that includes Arup, ASI, Engineers Against Poverty, the International Institute for Environment and Development, MDY Legal and Social Development Direct.
