1. Safe and Inclusive Cities Exchange 2017

2. What is gender transformation?
Current popularity of the term ‘transformation’ in development work
Habitat III agenda, for instance, identifies as its objective, ‘transforming cities’
New Urban Agenda identifies ‘transformative commitments for sustainable urban development’
BUT No shared understanding of the term
Popularity means likely to become meaningless
Gender transformation here is defined very specifically as…
An inherently political act closely associated with structural change in gender power relations

3. What is the difference between gender empowerment and gender transformation?
Commonly associated with gender mainstreaming
Describes how individual women through their agency increase bargaining power in public and private spheres to participate fully in economic and political life.
Gender transformation
Describes an inherently political act.
It is closely associated with structural change in gender power relations, it emphasizes collective action, contestation and negotiation.

4. Gender transformation framework
Links gender transformation to the accumulation of assets
What is an Asset?
‘stock of financial, human, natural or social resources that can be acquired, developed, improved and transferred across generations. It generates flows or consumptions as well as additional stock’
Assets give people the capacity to be and to act (Bebbington 1999)
It creates agency and is linked to the empowerment of individuals and communities (Sen 1997).
Assets exist within social processes, structures, and power relationships
Asset accumulation not only empowers women but also can lead to transformation

5. Pathways to gendered asset accumulation, transformation and just cities

6. Examples of structural transformative interventions
Institutional Partners
Land titling for women
Land titles in Ponte de Maduro Plan, Recife
Huairuo Commission; Recife Planning Department
Incremental housing Upgrading: Women’s security in Zimbabwe
Slum Dwellers International (SDI);Local government
Legal rights for informal economy women:
SEWA India
WIEGO; Local government
Urban safety in public spaces as a right not a security issue: Jagori Women’s Resource Centre Delhi
Local government; public transport authority