Effective government policies for advancing equality for women and girls: international evidence review

Planning and service design

This section of the report highlights that the planning and design of infrastructures and services are not gender neutral. An illustration of this is given in Caroline Criado Perez’ 2019 book, “Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men”. In Chapter 1 she asks, “Can Snow-Clearing be sexist?” Ms Perez’ observation is that, yes, it can.

An example cited was from Sweden in 2011, when the town of Karlskoga trialled a snow-clearing policy prioritising pedestrian walkways rather than the "major traffic arteries” that carry car-driving commuters to work (predominantly men). Data on hospital admissions collected across northern Sweden since 1985 showed that pedestrians are three times more likely to be injured in icy conditions than motorists, and that the substantial majority of these are women. Women are more likely to be walking their children to school, or carrying shopping home from the markets, or accompanying elderly relatives to appointments. By prioritising pedestrians and public transport users, the Karlskoga councillors found that the change in policy not only led to a reduction in injuries in this population but also saved financially in terms of health care resources and work-related productivity (Perez 2019).^[13]

More recently, the OECD’s Governance of Infrastructure Toolkit provides countries with “practical guidance for infrastructure investment ... with emphasis on regional, social, gender, and environmental considerations”. Iceland is cited for its use of gender-disaggregated data for infrastructure strategic planning. For example, their Ministry of Infrastructure’s 2021 Transport and Equality: Status analysis found “significant differences” between men and women in their use of public transport and representation in the workforce.

Exemplars of where gender analysis and the promotion of gender equity are integrated into planning, and influencing of service and utility design, are described in EIGE’s 2024 Good practices on gender mainstreaming in the European Green Deal: Towards a more gender-equal and greener Europe.

Notable in terms of an over-arching national strategy is Spain: the 2020–2024 just transition strategy. Spain’s path to a gender equitable green transition. This report, also from the EIGE, refers to it as an “exemplary policy initiative aimed at combining ecological sustainability with gender equality principles.” One key objective of the strategy is to ensure that women have equal access to opportunities in the energy transition; there is a focus on visibility of women in the energy sector, support for (re)training, employment and leadership of women, production of sex-disaggregated data and gender-sensitive indicators and collaboration with institutions that promote gender equality through mutual learning and sharing good practice. The EIGE report goes on to suggest that a key strength of the just transition strategy lies in its comprehensive approach, including through engaging with women’s organisations and promoting training, entrepreneurship, employment and local social and cultural infrastructures that address the needs of women.

Gender aware planning

In relation to the above context, Alarcon-Garcia et al, researched into the impacts of infrastructure design, the results published in their 2022 paper: Infrastructure and Subjective Well-Being from a Gender Perspective. The study aimed to estimate the importance of basic infrastructures from a gender perspective. It highlighted that, while “all dimensions of infrastructure matter more for women’s wellbeing than for men’s”, the greatest differences relate to centres for the elderly and nursery schools for children up to 5 years. The authors go on to suggest that policymakers should consider gender differences in the allocation of resources for public infrastructures.

Example 14: Milan Gender Atlas – a manual for a more inclusive city in Italy 2023

The example is based primarily on information obtained from the following sources:

• Good practices on gender mainstreaming in the European Green Deal: Towards a more gender-equal and greener Europe, EIGE (2024)
• Milano Atlante di genere, Florencia Andreola and Azzurra Muzzonigro (2022)

This example was picked as it is evidence-based, using innovative methodologies and in partnership with local authorities and NGO, offering a clearly articulated “roadmap” to a research design process that can be transferred to other contexts and replicated

This project looked at the limitations and obstacles a city can present to women. Running from 2020 to 2022, it used data, interviews and questionnaires to identifying the specific needs of women, both inside and outside the home.

Staffed by the NGO, Sex and the City, the project’s objective was ‘to develop a nuanced methodology capable of analysing and observing the city through a gender-inclusive lens. The research led to a mapping of services that aimed to respond to the needs related to women's daily life, such as sites for safe breastfeeding, public toilets, lifts in subway stations, playgrounds, nurseries and open squares and to the investigation of differences in mobility between genders. Public space was also examined in its symbolic dimension, for instance how many streets, squares, parks, gardens, statues and civic buildings are named after women or gender minorities.

Specific elements of the approach used included:

• Developing a new research method to collect and analyse gender-specific quantitative and qualitative data. Their methodology was designed to be adaptable for similar city-focused atlases.
• Conducting awareness-raising activities, including workshops and discussions.

• Presenting the Milan Gender Atlas to Milan’s local government as comprehensive research highlighting gender inequalities and proposing solutions to enhance gender equality.

The EIGE report concluded that:

“The publication of the Milan Gender Atlas is an important step in advocating for gender-sensitive urban planning. By spotlighting the discrepancies in public representation, safety perceptions and access to healthcare, the atlas offers an incisive critique of Milan’s urban landscape. It also highlights the city’s potential to evolve into a space where gender equality is not an aspiration but a reality.”

Source: Good practices on gender mainstreaming in the European Green Deal: Towards a more gender-equal and greener Europe

Inequalities in access to green/blue spaces in urban areas

This theme’s inclusion was underpinned by increased and evidential focus on the impacts of unequal access to green and blue spaces as an emerging concern, with gender inequalities amongst those highlighted.

For example, the European Environment Agency briefing Who benefits from nature in cities? Social inequalities in access to urban green and blue spaces across Europe, reviews the evidence of socio-economic and demographic inequalities in access to the health and social benefits derived from urban green and blue spaces across Europe. This paper, as the sources cited above, notes that not everyone enjoys equal access to green space in cities. Infrequent users of greenspace tend to be women. They also tend to be older, in poor health, of lower socioeconomic status, from an ethnic minority and/or have a with a physical disability.

A Groundwork report, Out of Bounds: Equity in Access to Urban Nature - An overview of the evidence and what it means for the parks, green and blue spaces in our towns and cities (2021), included input from a consortium of bodies including Make Space for Girls and Girlguiding UK. The review identified barriers to accessing the benefits of greenspace in urban areas and found that girls and young women often report feeling unsafe in public spaces including parks and green spaces. It also referenced a survey conducted by Girlguiding which found that 41% of girls aged 11 to 16 feel unsafe when they go outside, rising to 49% of young women aged 17 to 21. The survey also found that measures were higher for girls and young women who identify as disabled or LGBQ.

The Groundwork report also highlighted the findings from a Make Space for Girls report (Everything you need to know in one (relatively) easy document, Walker & Clark, 2020) which notes that provision for young people in parks is often geared towards boys and young men, with investment in skate parks, multi-use games areas and BMX/pump tracks and that, dominated often by boys and young men, these environments can be less accessible, or perceived as less accessible, to girls and young women.

In terms of the positive impact that equal access to blue and green spaces can have, including for women and girls, in Ambient greenness, access to local green spaces, and subsequent mental health: a 10-year longitudinal dynamic panel study of 2·3 million adults in Wales, Geary et al (2023) showed that regular access impacts specifically in relation to mental health and wellbeing. Public Health England’s 2020 Improving access to greenspace review highlights that, in urban settings, people with caring responsibilities, predominantly still women, benefit from access to safe, clean, and serviced, greenspaces. As well as constituting a majority of single parents, women predominate in populations with poorer socio-economic status which have been evidenced to be more positively impacted by improved access.

In Sex and the city park: The role of gender and sex in psychological restoration in urban greenspaces (2024), Dr Anna Bornioli et al commented that:

“It's time to rethink our urban green spaces. While we often celebrate the mental health benefits of nature, not everyone might experience these benefits equally. Women and gender minorities, in particular, may face unique challenges when it comes to accessing and enjoying urban green spaces.”

Source: Sex and the city park: The role of gender and sex in psychological restoration in urban greenspaces, Dr Anna Bornioli et al, University of Surrey (2024)

Scottish context

In NPF4, blue-green infrastructure is defined as integrating natural and built water and green features into planning to provide ecosystem services, address climate change, enhance biodiversity, and improve public health and wellbeing. According to NPF4 Policy 20, green infrastructure should be protected, enhanced, and integrated early in development and urban design processes.

Scotland’s People and Nature Survey 2023/24 - outdoor recreation report (2025) reported that while 61% of adults in Scotland visited the outdoors at least once a week for leisure or recreation, (21% took fewer than one visit per month, including some who take no visits at all. The report highlights that “People with poor health were less likely to visit the outdoors, with 15% of those rating their health as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ indicating that they never visited the outdoors. Residents of the most deprived SIMD areas were also less likely to visit than other groups”.

In Realising the Potential of Scotland's Natural Health Service in Practice - A Report on Piloting of Green Health Partnerships (2025), it is suggested that “the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on health and wellbeing…and the growing recognition of the health and wellbeing impacts of the climate emergency has further strengthened the case for action to realise the significant potential of the natural environment to contribute to a modern, sustainable health and social care system that supports a happier and healthier Scotland.”

Greenspace Scotland has been leading action on parks and greenspaces since 2002 and has a focus on creating high-quality, nature-rich, climate-friendly urban greenspaces. They offer tools to locate and engage with urban greenspaces, such as the Greenspace Map of Scotland, and also support community placemaking, volunteering programmes and educational projects. A range of other organisations and projects, such as the Urban Forestry Programme (Future Woodlands Scotland) and the Central Scotland Green Network also have a focus on the health and wellbeing aspects of access blue/green spaces.

Example 15 Highlights the social and health benefits of improving access to greenspace in England

The example is based primarily on information obtained from the following source:

• Improving access to greenspace – A new review for 2020 (Public Health England)

This was chosen as a clear, well-articulated review of policies on access to greenspace with the overall benefits in terms not just of health, but social cohesion.

Quality, design and maintenance are important factors in people’s perceptions of greenspace and may impact on the extent to which social benefits are realised. Studies show that well designed and maintained greenspace can help to reduce antisocial behaviour, while those that are poorly designed or not maintained tend to do the opposite. Evidence indicates that the health benefits of greenspace are dependent on people’s feelings of safety and the behaviour of other users. When aiming to maximise the potential for community and social ties within a greenspace, location, structure, activities, versatility, maintenance, facilities and access, all need to be considered.

The review presented several case studies highlighting a range of approaches, stakeholder involvement and demographics (located in Merseyside, Dorset, Camden and Islington, Birmingham, and Norfolk).

Example Study 4: “Naturally Birmingham” is led by Birmingham City Council with funding from National Lottery Heritage Fund, National Trust, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; run as an exemplar for cross-council working, with the broader health and wellbeing offer that parks can provide at its core.

“The programme is working in 4 neighbourhoods, focussing on 4 city council strategic themes – Children, Housing, Employment and Skills, and Public Health... includes how greenspace can support children through their early development ... in housing developments, connecting skills and employment programmes to environmental programmes, and embedding green interventions into the local social prescribing offer.”

Source: Improving access to greenspace – A new review for 2020

Gender aware planning and intersectional inequalities in access to green/blue spaces in urban areas - Study team observations

Through the work of Greenspace Scotland, and a range of other third and public sector organisations, it is clear that Scotland not only values its blue/greenspaces highly but appreciates how accessing those spaces can support positive health and wellbeing outcomes. Whilst there is already a clear focus on the urban context, it may be that there is potential in ensuring that issues relating to intersectional inequalities, including the needs of women and girls, are front and centre.

A gender aware planning approach, with a clear focus on researching the needs of women and girls - as exemplified by the approach in Milan (Example 14) - could help ensure that barriers to the use of blue/green space are identified. Given that infrequent users of greenspace tend to be female, older, in poor health, of lower socioeconomic status, from an ethnic minority and/or have a with a physical disability, a gendered approach would seem to offer very real potential.

Beyond this specific focus, looking closely at the limitations and obstacles a city can present to women would seem to be an approach from which a number of Scotland’s urban areas might reap considerable benefit.