The status of America’s infrastructure is graded every four years by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and reports are provided on the various categories. In this book, prominent women engineers discuss many of the eighteen infrastructure categories from the 2021 ASCE Infrastructure Report Card providing background, analysis of the issues facing the category and projections for the future. Categories covered include aviation, bridges, dams, water and wastewater, energy, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, ports, public parks, rail, roads, solid waste, and transit. Case studies from the authors’ work are included throughout. These topics touch on many of the challenges facing the world today and these solutions by women researchers and practitioners are valuable for their technical excellence and their non-traditional perspective. As an important part of the Women in Engineering and Science book series, the work highlights the contribution of women leaders in many of the infrastructure categories, inspiring women and men, girls and boys to enter and apply themselves to secure our future infrastructure.

As part of the OECD Policy Dialogue on Women’s Economic Empowerment, this report focuses on identifying what works to address unpaid care work and sheds light on how governments, donors in the private sector and civil society actors – among others – can design policies to support both those who need care and those who provide care.

Building Smart, Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure in Developing Countries contains the papers presented at the International Conference on Development and Investment in Infrastructure (DII-2022). The contributions cover a wide range of topics related to infrastructure issues on the African continent: Sustainable Infrastructure Development Smart Infrastructure and Cities Quality and Resilient Infrastructure Education, Empowerment, Gender Equity, Wellness and Development Environmental and Waste Management/Facilities & Real-Estate Management Infrastructure, Investment and Finance- Trends and Forecasts Infrastructure: Shock Events, Procurement, Project Management, Health & Safety Infrastructure: Economic, Social/Environmental Sustainability Digital Innovation and transition in the built environment Building Smart, Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure in Developing Countries evaluates innovations, empowerment, growth and sustainable development of infrastructure development in Africa, and aims at administrators, academics, and professionals.

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2023 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Revelatory, superbly written, and pulsing with wisdom and humanity, How Infrastructure Works is a masterpiece.” —Ed Yong, author of An Immense World A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, and all around us Infrastructure is a marvel, meeting our basic needs and enabling lives of astounding ease and productivity that would have been unimaginable just a century ago. It is the physical manifestation of our social contract—of our ability to work collectively for the public good—and it consists of the most complex and vast technological systems ever created by humans. A soaring bridge is an obvious infrastructural feat, but so are the mostly hidden reservoirs, transformers, sewers, cables, and pipes that deliver water, energy, and information to wherever we need it. When these systems work well, they hide in plain sight. Engineer and materials scientist Deb Chachra takes readers on a fascinating tour of these essential utilities, revealing how they work, what it takes to keep them running, just how much we rely on them—but also whom they work well for, and who pays the costs. Across the U.S. and elsewhere, these systems are suffering from systemic neglect and the effects of climate change, becoming unavoidably visible when they break down. Communities that are already marginalized often bear the brunt of these failures. But Chachra maps out a path for transforming and rebuilding our shared infrastructure to be not just functional but also equitable, resilient, and sustainable. The cost of not being able to rely on these systems is unthinkably high. We need to learn how to see them—and fix them, together—before it’s too late.

This book presents research findings from across the global South that substantively improves our understanding of time-use, poverty and gender equalities, to shed light on why unpaid work is indispensable to economic analysis and effective policy making.

The OECD review of Gender Equality in Costa Rica: Towards a Better Sharing of Paid and Unpaid Work is the fourth in a collection of reports focusing on Latin American and the Caribbean countries, and part of the series Gender Equality at Work. The report compares gender gaps in labour and educational outcomes in Costa Rica with other countries. Particular attention is put on the uneven distribution of unpaid work, and the extra burden placed on women. It investigates how policies and programmes in Costa Rica can make this distribution more equitable. The first part of the report reviews the evidence on gender gaps and their causes, including the role played by social norms. The second part develops a comprehensive framework to address these challenges, presenting a broad range of options to reduce the unpaid work burden falling on women, and to increase women’s labour income. Earlier reviews in the same collection have looked at gender equality policies in Chile (2021), Peru (2022) and Colombia (2023).