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Developing engineers and technicians: Notes on giving guidance to engineers and technicians on how infrastructure can meet the needs of men and women

Author(s): Reed, Brian | Coates, Sue

Publisher: WEDC
Place of publication: Loughborough University, UK
Year: 2007

Collection(s): Equity and inclusion | WEDC Bookshop

Price: £24.95
ISBN: 9781843801108

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Engineers are increasingly being involved in social issues. These notes are designed to assist the managers and trainers of engineers in raising awareness of some of the issues with their staff. They are written in the form of training notes in 38 Units, together with 7 Checklists for use in meetings.

It accompanies the book (also available from WEDC) Infrastructure for All which has been produced to help engineers, technicians and project managers ensure that the facilities they design and build are beneficial to all members of society. Using many examples, especially examples related to water and sanitation, Infrastructure for All demonstrates that 'one size does not fit all'. It shows how women, men and children frequently have different needs and different priorities because they use infrastructure in different ways. It explains how the community that will use the infrastructure is generally structured by inequalities of various kinds. The engineer may intend that the facility should serve the needs of all; but if there is no analysis of social issues then this intention is not likely to be realized.

Infrastructure for All seeks to make gender analysis intelligible to engineers working at the project level; to enable them to co-operate with social scientists, and to increase their awareness of the need to work with women and men in the user community. The book emphasizes the practical ways in which taking account of gender relations will improve the design, implementation and use of infrastructure. With this in mind, it is focused on what civil engineers actually need to know to improve their projects, to give the 'civil' aspects of their work equal weight with the 'engineering' aspects.

This book, together with Infrastructure for All, will be of great interest to all engineers, technicians and project managers concerned with infrastructure development in low- and middle-income countries.

This book is one of the outputs from a Knowledge and Research project funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the British Government.