How Gender Can Help Drive SLCP Mitigation in the Transport Sector

10 September, 2024

14:00 - 15:00

(Paris)

Virtual

Understanding the importance of gender-responsive sustainable transport systems is a key component in promoting women’s economic empowerment and engagement. Globally, women hold less than 20% of jobs in the transport sector. Increasing women’s participation in the sector could improve global annual GDP up to 26% by 2025, or about $28 trillion (about $86,000 per person in the US), providing improved livelihoods to women across the world.

This webinar will focus on the importance of integrating a gender-responsive lens in transport planning and policymaking to reduce black carbon and PM2.5. There will be highlights on UNEP’s overall work and strategy on scaling up e-mobility as a driver for change towards gender transformation and just transition. In addition, WRI’s ongoing work and roadmap on gender mainstreaming in air quality management and transport sector will also be discussed. This will be followed by case studies in India and Colombia done by UNEP and WRI.

This webinar is part of CCAC’s webinar series on gender mainstreaming that aims to tackle SLCP sectors, break down key gender considerations and opportunities to develop better, more sustainable plans and policies in discussion with sector and gender experts, NGOs, and country partners.

Event Recording

Summary of Presentations

Dana Crawhull-Duk, CCAC Secretariat

Recognised that climate change and air pollution are not gender neutral, meaning gender dynamics play an important role in influencing the ways in which people experience the impacts of SLCPs.

Highlighted some of the key gender related milestones of the CCAC under implementation of the CCAC Gender Strategy, such as including gender mainstreaming across CCAC funding and achieving gender parity on the CCAC’s Scientific Advisory Panel.

Annika Berlin, UNEP

Elaborated UNEP’s commitment and strong leadership to gender-inclusive transport planning, emphasising the intersection between mobility, air quality, and climate.

Women encounter similar socio-economic, cultural, and institutional barriers in accessing e-mobility as they do with fossil-fuelled transport, along with added challenges like high EV costs and limited awareness. In addition, less than 8% of executives in the leading 20 automotive companies are women, and half of them have no women on their executive teams.

Highlighted the importance of UNEP's International Baseline Report on gender and e-mobility, which offers critical insights for policymakers aiming to enhance women's participation in transport. Noted that UNEP has six pilot countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Uganda, Kenya, Vietnam, and Indonesia) for gender transformation, where pilot projects are developed to target e-mobility due to the lack of information on gender and the transport sector.

Additionally, UNEP’s Global Electric Mobility Programme currently supports 60 country projects with more than USD 130 million in grants and over USD 250 million in loans from international organizations.

Azra Khan, WRI

Presented WRI’s work on gender-responsive mobility planning in Indian cities, with a focus on reducing air pollution and improving transport systems.

She outlined the avoid-shift-improve strategy to achieve low-emission mobility and described various projects that integrate gender inclusivity, including efforts in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk and Mumbai's metro systems.

‘Avoid’ unnecessary and non-sustainable trips through optimizing land use and moving towards communities that are Compact, Connected, and Coordinated (3Cs); ‘Shift’ users towards sustainable, non-motorized modes through improved design and better investments that enable safe, efficient, convenient, and reliable options; and ‘Improve’ the transport system through cleaner fuel technologies (EVs), stricter emission standards, and improved road safety design.

Highlighted the importance of understanding how women and marginalized groups experience transport, and the need for inclusive planning, including gender policy into clean air action.

Q&A Session moderated by Polash Das, UNEP

During the Q&A, participants inquired about the challenges of implementing gender-inclusive mobility in India and strategies for changing societal perceptions about women's roles. The importance of sensitizing government officials was underscored as it is one of the major challenges. Other questions touched on replicating gender-responsive solutions across various cities and sectors, and the proposed long-term solutions were to ensure that supportive infrastructure, like restrooms and childcare facilities, accompanies female employment in transport, as gender-inclusive planning needs to be a component of town planning as a whole.

Speaker bios

Azra Khan

Azra Khan is a Program Manager at WRI India, with over 10 years of experience in sustainable mobility solutions and gender-responsive mobility planning for cities. She has supported more than 15 cities in developing and implementing sustainable and inclusive transport solutions. In recent years, her work has increasingly focused on the intersection of air quality, transport, and gender, striving to create inclusive and equitable mobility systems.

Currently she leads the transport and gender initiatives for the Clean Air Catalyst Project in India and supports various other clean air initiatives by WRI India, where her work emphasizes the importance of designing clean air solutions that not only improve air quality but also address the unique needs of women and other marginalised communities.'

Annika Berlin

Annika Berlin works as a Programme Management Officer at the UN Environment Programme’s Sustainable Mobility Unit based in Nairobi, Kenya. She set up and leads UNEP’s Africa Support and Investment Platform which supports countries, cities, and companies in their efforts to transition to electric mobility, leads UNEP’s Global Working Group on Electric Two and Three Wheelers and manages the global gender and e-mobility project. She has over 14 years of experience working for bilateral and multilateral development financing institutions across Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

Polash Das

Polash is a Programme Management Officer with the Sustainable Mobility Unit at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He is based at UNEP’s headquarters in Nairobi. He is currently involved in global projects related to electric buses and is focused on implementing electric mobility projects in Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to joining UNEP, he was leading the electric mobility projects for the Indian Government, where he helped cities deploy electric buses for public transport.