Planning experts examine how to make urban development an all inclusive process

Cities mean different things to different people. Where street-lighting is used, toilets are built and parks are located all affect those who live in an area, whether young, old, male or female, but affect them in different ways. Things that are crucial to one group will be unimportant to another, and men and women in particular can experience cities in quite different ways.

Despite the importance of taking account of these different needs, which range from transport to housing, the latest Commonwealth Secretariat Discussion Paper – ‘Gender in Planning and Urban Development’ - says there is still a lack of understanding about gender issues among urban planners.

“A gendered planning practice would be sensitive to gender differences in the way the city is used and therefore able to make more informed choices than by taking standardised approaches assumed to fit everyone,” the authors write.

Exception not the norm

Although the paper acknowledges there are examples of good practice in incorporating gender into certain development projects, these remain “the exception not the norm” as many projects ignore it altogether.

Amanda Williamson, a senior lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand’s School of Architecture and Planning in South Africa, believes this is the case because it is often seen as a cumbersome process with a number of hurdles which need to be overcome.

“Mainstreaming gender in a development project involves a wide range of people from government to civil society, many of whom have to overcome political, bureaucratic, institutional, organisational and other barriers,” she explains. “This is why it has been seen as an onerous and unnecessary luxury.”

Ms Williamson, who is one of the authors of the discussion paper, believes that mainstreaming gender in planning and other processes will only become routine through a multidimensional approach. This includes firm regional and national edicts as well as role models and gender experts playing a leading role in organisations, she argues.

Good practice in Kerala

For her, one recent example of a successful planning project was in India, where the Kerala State Planning Board gave women a direct role in shaping, rather than simply being passive beneficiaries of policies and projects.

“Because women hadn’t been involved to the same extent at any time in the past, they leapt at the opportunity and played key roles in ensuring that the needs of different sexes and castes were addressed,” Ms Williamson explains. By the time the project drew to a close some 100,000 people had been involved and encouraged to put forward their opinions and became actively involved in processes of gender-sensitive urban governance.

Advocacy

The discussion paper concludes that continued advocacy throughout the world is necessary if more projects are to be handled like the one in Kerala.

The authors go on to write that the Commonwealth is “well placed to take a lead on gender in planning because its commitment to gender equality is so strong.”

Professor Cliff Hague, another of the paper’s authors, who is Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Association of Planners, believes the Commonwealth is “a good platform” from which to promote gender mainstreaming in planning, because the association’s shared English language, legal traditions and institutional structures “all help countries work together to develop this issue”.

Key Links:

• Environmentally Sustainable Development

Related News:

• Commonwealth Association of Planners
• University of Witwatersrand