State of Women in Cities 2012-2013, 2013. UN HABITAT.
Key Messages
Women need more equitable access to infrastructure, especially sanitation. Although over half (53 per cent) of the survey respondents thought that their cities were ‘committed’ in some form to promoting infrastructural development to fully engage women in urban development and productive work, only 22 per cent stated that they were ‘fully committed’ or ‘committed’, with a high of 39 per cent in Johannesburg. In turn, only 29.5 per cent of respondents felt that infrastructure was adequate, with lows of 15 per cent in Rio de Janeiro and 18.5 per cent in Kingston. The most problematic area was access to sanitation, especially in Bangalore and Rio de Janeiro. 50 per cent stated that sanitation and the burden of disease acted as barriers to the prosperity of women in cities.
Women residing in slums require special attention. Although women in slum and non-slum areas of cities experience a similar range of challenges in relation to gender inequalities, the greater concentration of poverty in slum settlements aggravated by overcrowding, insecurity, lack of access to security of tenure, water and sanitation, as well as lack of access to transport, and sexual and reproductive health services, often creates more difficult conditions for women in trying to achieve prosperity.
More attention to women in the informal economy needed. Only a little over one-third (35 per cent) of city dwellers thought that their cities had programmes that addressed the needs of women working in the informal economy. In cases where programmes existed, almost half (48 per cent) thought that these sought to legalise informal activities, while 44 percent aimed to move informal workers into the formal economy,with a further 42 per cent feeling that these programmes aimed to improve the quality of informal employment.
