Despite decades of progress, the global infrastructure gap is still significant: around 940m people live without electricity, 2.2bn lack safely managed water, 4.2bn lack safely managed sanitation facilities and 1bn live more than 2 km away from an all-season road.

This gap has a different meaning for women: infrastructure is not gender-neutral. The gaps in access to good infrastructure—and how it is designed, built and run—affects men and women differently.  For instance, it is well documented that women are responsible for obtaining water for domestic use in most countries, which has a big impact on how they spend their time. In Niger, the average time women and girls spend fetching water adds up to 13 days a year. Lack of access to electricity results in household drudgery for women, due to lack of lighting, electric water pumps and refrigeration. 

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