Gender equality for smarter cities : challenges and progress

Promoting gender equality and empowering women is the third of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) agreed by the world community in 2000 to tackle the most daunting development challenges in this early 21st century. As populations become increasingly urban around the world, this third goal is also vital to the sustainable expansion of towns and cities.
We have, collectively, reached tipping point: 50.6 per cent of the world’s people now live in towns and cities. Developing countries account for 95 per cent of current urban growth. Over the next 40 years, urbanisation is expected to expand further in all major areas of the developing world. The number of urban dwellers is expected to triple in Africa and double in Asia. In many cities of the developing world, though, advancement and affluence for some are offset by dehumanising poverty and exclusion for many others. [authors abstract]