01/31/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 01/31/2025 02:07
A new report calls for a greater focus on women's employment in transport and proposes actionable steps to address barriers to women's education, employment, and promotion in the sector.
The report, titled Addressing Barriers to Women's Participation in Transport, was prepared jointly by the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Transport Forum (ITF). It covers global trends and provides in-depth analysis of the women's role in the transport sector in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Women are significantly underrepresented in the global transport sector workforce, comprising only 12% of transportation and storage workers worldwide. This underrepresentation limits diverse perspectives in service design and decision-making, negatively affects businesses and undermines economic growth. Increasing female participation and leadership in the sector can drive innovation, enhance team performance, and improve service delivery for diverse users, while boosting GDP and addressing critical labor shortages.
The report emphasizes that employing more women in transport is essential for advancing towards greener, safer, and more efficient transport systems. Achieving gender parity enhances the performance and decision-making capabilities of transport companies and yields substantial benefits for workers and service users.
The report identifies several critical barriers to women's participation in the transport sector, including unfavorable workplace policies and significant gender gaps in operational, technical and leadership roles.
To address these challenges, the report makes tailored recommendations for policymakers, public and private sector employers, educational institutions, civil society organizations, foundations, and other stakeholders. The recommendations are provided across the following pillars: attraction and recruitment, HR policies and practices, retention, career advancement, and leadership, legal and policy framework, data collection and research.
Launch of the Women in Transport (WiT) Network
The analysis and recommendations in this report have informed the creation of the Women in Transport (WiT) Network, which was also launched with participation from key stakeholders, including government officials, private and public sector industry leaders, and representatives from international organizations.
The WiT Network brings together transport stakeholders dedicated to empowering women across all facets and levels of the transport sector. It will serve as a forum for networking, recruitment, information exchange, training, and mentorship opportunities for women.
Quotes From the Founders of the Network:
Background information
About EIB Global
EIB Global is the EIB Group's specialised arm devoted to increasing the impact of international partnerships and development finance, and a key partner of Global Gateway. We aim to support €100 billion of investment by the end of 2027 - around one-third of the overall target of this EU initiative. Within Team Europe, EIB Global fosters strong, focused partnerships alongside fellow development finance institutions and civil society. EIB Global brings the EIB Group closer to people, companies and institutions through our offices across the world.
To enhance the positive impact of its activities on gender equality and empower women and girls, the EIB Group adopted a Strategy on Gender Equality and Women's Economic Empowerment and a Gender Action Plan, with the aim of embedding gender equality and in particular women's economic empowerment in the EIB's business model. It covers its lending, blending and advisory work within and outside the European Union.