Gender and Transport

Transport is crucial to connect people to opportunities, jobs, and essential services. However, transport systems often fall short of serving everyone effectively, all the time. Despite increased investments in transport, particularly in rapidly expanding urban areas, not everyone reaps the benefits. Too often, systems are not built with the needs of everyone in mind and some people, particularly women, are left out.

High transportation costs, safety concerns, and limited access can prevent girls from going to school, women from seeking healthcare, and women from pursuing jobs far from home. These mobility barriers restrict women’s workforce participation and stifle economic growth. In contrast, achieving full women’s workforce participation could increase global gross domestic product by nearly 20 percent, helping to reduce poverty.

However, women constitute only 12 percent of the global transport and storage workforce, with limited presence in technical and leadership roles. Barriers exist throughout the employment lifecycle, and regulatory frameworks in some economies further restrict women's access to specific transport roles. Underrepresentation leads to transport systems that do not meet all users' needs, resulting in inefficiencies and talent misallocation.

Transport can also play a key role in supporting women entrepreneurs, who often face barriers such as limited access to business skills, networks, and financing. These challenges hinder their ability to compete for opportunities like public procurement and secure necessary credit.

The World Bank uses a multi-pronged approach, structured around three key pillars, to address inequalities between women and men in the transport sector.

Pillar 1: Producing knowledge

The World Bank produces knowledge to identify data gaps in the transport sector and to propose solutions,including "Closing Gender Gaps in Transport," which supports the 2024-2030 Gender Strategy, a technical note detailing how the transport sector globally addresses gaps between women and men in transport, and a knowledge synthesis examining mobility barriers faced differently by women and men. Some of these products have achieved several thousand external downloads, demonstrating significant interest and broad reach.

Pillar 2: Providing technical advice and capacity building

The World Bank provides technical advice and capacity building, with training certification courses and guidance that include the 2020 e-learning course "Gender Equality in Transportation," prepared jointly with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the 2024 course "Occupational Safety, Health, and Violence and Harassment: A Gender Perspective" prepared in collaboration with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), as well as the recently released 2025 “She Drives Change: A Toolkit for Redefining Opportunities for Women in Transport”, which provides users with a structured approach to identifying and addressing gaps between men and women in various transport subsectors. These two e-learning courses have been taken by over 1,000 learners. Additionally, training materials are included in the World Bank’s “Leaders in Urban Transport Planners” (LUTP) program, with the aim of building the capacity of urban transport specialists to address mobility barriers and inequalities.

Pillar 3: Promoting gender equality through lending and policy dialogue

Lastly, the World Bank promotes gender equality through lending and policy dialogue. Over the past six years (FY19-24), 94 percent of 159 transport projects approved during this period have addressed a wide range of constraints faced by women, from mobility barriers for women and girls, to increasing women’s participation in the transport workforce. These concerted efforts across the three pillars, cemented by critical partnerships, are bringing promising outcomes, as discussed below.

In 2025, the World Bank Group along with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Transport Forum (ITF) launched the Women in Transport (WiT) network.

The WiT network aims to empower women across all areas of the transport sector, with a particular focus on enhancing women’s participation in mid- and high-skilled technical and leadership roles.

Initially, the network will cover the Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa regions. The network is expected to gradually expand into a global initiative. More information about the WiT network can be found in the press release jointly released by the network’s founding partners, in the foundational report and in these WiT brochures available in three languages.

For any inquiries related to the WiT network, please contact wit@worldbank.org.