‘Managing Gender Equality in Transportation’ course helps the industry respect the gender dimensions of transport

International Director and Gender Equality Expert Professor, Laurie Pickup, of recent SLR acquisition, Vectos, was co-author of the World Bank and UN Women e-learning training course: Managing Gender Equality in Transportation. He is delighted to see its successful role out to more than 500 professionals, and now urges more of the industry to take part.

The interactive training is free and was launched to coincide with International Women’s Day 2021. It is the first course of its kind. It examines the often-invisible gender issues surrounding both employment and mobility in the transport sector.

Six months has now passed since the course launch and Laurie would like to share the positive feedback received from participants with our peers, to encourage more to take part and to use this important initiative to benefit our industry and our communities.

“Gender equality in transport permeates all aspects of life, including the ability to use different transport modes to access urban services and opportunities, move around safely and engage and play equally in the transport sector. Thanks to the World Bank and UN Women for this course for increasing my knowledge about gender and transport.”

“Mobility barriers significantly influence the daily lives of billions of women and girls globally. Thanks to the World Bank and UN Women for this great course of which helps to increase our knowledge about these existing barriers and ways to improve women’s mobility.”

“Thanks for the invitation to this training. It was really well designed and with concrete tips that I’ll take into account on my future projects. I really recommend it.”

Laurie added: “The prevalence of barriers that cause female underrepresentation in the industry are undeniable, so we created this course to help solve that.

“The course looks at strategies we can use to address the difficulties women face in getting jobs and climbing the career ladder in transport, a sector dominated by a male workforce,”

“The course also encourages us to consider the mobility needs of its diverse range of users and specifically, women and girls.

“Gender is still a relatively new consideration for planners and local authorities. Historically cities, public realm, streets and transportation have been designed by men, which through predisposition and experience intrinsically means that they also serve men above women.

“Moving forward it is essential that policy and planning strategy fully respect the gender dimensions,” he said.

Pr Laurie Pickup co-authored the course with Nato Kurshitashvili (World Bank), Karla Gonzalez Carvajal (World Bank), Clemencia Munoz-Tamayo (UN Women), Lizzette, Soria Sotelo (UN Women) and Lucy Ferguson (UN Women).