PPP Gender Toolkit
Gender-Responsive PPPs: A Toolkit for Impact and Bankability Unlock the potential of PPPs by integrating gender considerations throughout the project cycle. This step-by-step guide shows how inclusive gender responsive infrastructure enhances community impact while increasing project bankability; expanding user, boosting demand, and attracting private investment for more resilient, sustainable growth.
PPP Lifecycle
PPP STAGE 1
PPP identification and screening
The project identification stage involves finding projects addressing clearly identified socioeconomic objectives that are central to sector needs and that are aligned with national development plans.
PPP STAGE 2
PPP appraisal and structuring
The objective of the PPP appraisal is to assess the project’s technical, economic, legal, commercial, and financial viability, its VfM, and projected environmental and social impacts.
PPP STAGE 3
Transaction
The PPP transaction involves drafting the PPP contract and managing the PPP transaction to select a competent private party to deliver the project. The PPP contract is critical for making the project gender responsive as it defines what is expected from the private party and how the private party will get remunerated throughout the project duration.
PPP STAGE 4
Contract management
PPP contract management entails monitoring and enforcing the PPP contract requirements throughout the lifetime of the PPP agreement. Successful PPP contract management ensures that services are delivered.
PPP STAGE 5
Transparency and auditing
A governance framework that fosters transparency and accountability provides a mechanism for the public and auditing institutions to engage with the projects and hold the contracting authority and private party accountable for the project outcomes.
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More about the Gender Toolkit
Purpose of the toolkit:
The toolkit aims to guide practitioners in integrating gender considerations throughout the entire PPP project cycle—from planning and design to implementation and monitoring. It provides practical steps and tools to ensure that infrastructure and services delivered through PPPs are inclusive, accessible, and responsive to the needs of all users, particularly women and marginalized groups. The goal is to create gender-responsive infrastructure that promotes equity, enhances service delivery, and contributes to broader economic and social outcomes, as well as project bankability.
The Business case for mainstreaming gender:
Gender-responsive PPPs help expand the user base, improve service quality, and address the diverse needs of communities, driving higher demand and utilization rates. This inclusivity strengthens project bankability by enhancing revenue streams, reducing risks, and increasing project sustainability. Private investors and governments benefit from more resilient, widely accepted projects, while communities experience improved access and quality of services.
Target users of this toolkit:
This toolkit provides practical tools for decision-makers and advisors in government, PPP stakeholders, and project developers, investors, and financiers to strengthen gender-responsive PPP policies, legislation, and investment decisions.
Purpose of the toolkit
The purpose of this toolkit is to help governments and upstream advisors, PPP practitioners, multilateral development banks (MDBs), and private sector stakeholders mainstream gender considerations in infrastructure PPPs. In this toolkit, ‘gender’ is defined in a binary format (women and girls; men and boys) and does not consider all gender identities.
This toolkit focuses on how to make PPPs gender responsive at the different stages of the project cycle. Specifically, this toolkit aims to provide a practical, systematic way for stakeholders to make PPPs gender responsive, building upon existing useful resources; and to help governments wishing to incorporate gender considerations in their PPP frameworks to do so in a systematic way.
Gender responsive PPPs:
In the context of this toolkit, the term ‘gender responsive PPP’ refers to a PPP that incorporates design features, measures, and specific actions for reducing gender inequalities (or closing gender gaps) within the community stakeholders that the project affects directly or indirectly. Gender inequalities, or gender gaps, are differences between the way women and men are treated in society; between what they do and achieve; their decision-making power; and in their respective access to opportunities, resources, and services.
- Improving women’s human endowments (such as education and health outcomes)
- Providing more and better jobs for women
- Enabling women’s ownership and control of assets
- Enhancing women’s leadership, voice, and agency.
The business case for gender mainstreaming in infrastructure
Gender equality in infrastructure also has both intrinsic and instrumental value. Integrating a gender perspective in infrastructure can promote more equitable access to social, economic, and political opportunities; reduce poverty; and catalyze social inclusion. Beyond these impacts at the wider community level, gender mainstreaming can also contribute to the effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of infrastructure projects themselves. This Table presents an overview of gender mainstreaming practices at various stages of the PPP lifecycle, and examples illustrating beneficial outcomes of such practices. Further practices, tools, and examples are presented throughout the toolkit.
| Stage of PPP lifecycle | Examples of gender mainstreaming opportunities | Examples of beneficial outcomes of gender mainstreaming |
|---|---|---|
| Identification and prioritization | Accounting for women’s and men’s needs and priorities when identifying and prioritizing infrastructure projects | In a poor community where women are responsible for fetching water and spend long periods of time traveling to do so, a water supply PPP that improves access to water sources in the community can reduce women’s and girls’ household workloads. The time women and girls can save due to improved access to water can be dedicated to education or income-generating activities. |
| Appraisal and structuring | Identify design features and activities to ensure infrastructure projects address women’s and men’s needs and priorities | Incorporating in a school PPP design requirements for bathrooms that address girls’ privacy, menstrual hygiene, and sanitation needs41 will minimize the risk of lower attendance of girls and women when menstruating. Increased attendance means that girls will be less likely to drop out of school. Potential impacts include increased literacy rates, and increased productivity and economic growth. |
| Transaction |
|
The Bogotá metro will be developed as a PPP on a design-finance-build- operate-maintain transfer contract. The implementing agency (Metro de Bogotá) has included contractual provisions that require the private party to implement the municipality’s protocol to prevent, respond to, and punish harassment of women in public transport. Additionally, the bidding documents require that the private party commit to employing at least 20 percent of women in the operations and maintenance of the metro infrastructure. |
| Contract management | Developing monitoring mechanisms and gender related indicators to track and ensure the appropriate delivery of the project’s gender responsive activities and outcomes | The World Bank is supporting Metro de Bogotá in developing the Bogotá Metro PPP. In this context, the World Bank has established gender indicators to monitor the fulfillment of the contract provisions that aim to increase women’s involvement in the project and access to the services. The Bogotá metro PPP will contribute to ensuring women’s safety and providing employment opportunities for women in the city. Together, these goals (if achieved) will improve women’s access to more and better jobs, thereby boosting economic growth and productivity. |
Target users of this toolkit
The table below provides more detailed information on the target users of this toolkit and the benefits they can gain from using it. Governments should consider developing awareness raising campaigns for PPP practitioners on the relevance of gender equality in infrastructure PPPs. Additionally, governments should align new or existing PPP frameworks with national gender policies. Box 0.1 below describes the features of gender responsive PPP legislation and describes the Philippines’ PPP legislation for identifying and appraising PPPs.
| Stakeholder category | Definition | Use and benefits of the toolkit |
|---|---|---|
| Upstream stakeholders | Decision- and policymaker representatives of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers, and their advisors for upstream purposes (for instance, advisors contracted through MDBs’ Development Policy Operations to provide direct support to governments for policy and institutional reforms aimed at achieving specific development results) | Strengthening the legal and regulatory framework around PPPs to ensure gender responsiveness can result in better project outcomes and greater alignment with Sustainable Development Goals |
| Midstream stakeholders | Stakeholders whose work specifically revolves around PPP projects, including (but not limited to): government PPP units; contracting authorities; agencies or line ministries responsible for implementing PPPs; and project-level advisors (including private consulting firms and MDBs’ PPP advisory units) | By better addressing the needs of citizens, gender responsive PPPs can have stronger economic and social impacts |
| Downstream stakeholders | Project developers, concessionaires, investors, and financiers (including public and private financiers, such as MDBs and Development Finance Institutions as well as commercial banks) | Considering gender in investment can allow downstream stakeholders to benefit from implementing more impactful projects that lead to innovation, better revenue, and corporate social responsibilities. |