For international women’s day, we’re spoke to the women at CoST about their motivations and work in driving gender equality. 

Driving gender equality through infrastructure and engineering is essential to many women in CoST for why they do the work that they do. Advancing gender equality has been an important part of CoST’s work – through members, through resources and through events. 

Olive Kabatwairwe, Africa Regional Manager and Learning Lead, told us “When women are excluded or underrepresented, we lose critical perspectives that improve design, accountability, and sustainability. From my work in infrastructure governance, I have seen that more inclusive processes lead to projects that better reflect community needs, especially those of women and vulnerable groups. I have seen how women’s voices can influence priorities such as access, safety, and service quality.”

Lauren Pemberton-Nelson, Communications Manager had similar sentiments, sharing “Infrastructure impacts all aspects of our lives – from the homes we live in, the buildings we work in, the education and healthcare we receive, and so much more. Considering women and marginalised genders is vital to driving gender equality.” 

Melina San Martin, Senior Programme Manager highlighted that “Engineers play a crucial role in shaping and designing solutions to the most pressing challenges affecting how we dwell as a community and how we grow as a society. Gender equality is key to building an inclusive engineering profession that inspires, attracts and retains people from diverse backgrounds, in support of collaborative creative processes to address local, national and global challenges.” 

Understanding the fundamental role of gender equality in infrastructure significantly contributed to women in CoST to work for the organisation. Lauren reflected on her motivational drive in working for CoST by sharing “Understanding the fundamental role of infrastructure really attracted me to working for CoST. Both professionally and personally, it’s been really inspiring to see how, from members across the globe, to the International Secretariat, to Board members, women are not only making important strides in this sector, but also approach things with a very important gendered lens.” 

Maria Prado, Lead Research and Policy Adviser, echoed this view by telling us “Making sure we are leaving no one behind – including girls and women – attracted me to the sector and made me move from a legal career to a policy one.”

Meanwhile, Olive shared the specific links to gender equality and CoST’s pillars of work. “I am driven by a strong passion to ensure that transparency, accountability, and inclusive infrastructure are prioritised in how governments implement inclusion in the delivery of infrastructure services. Over time, my work across diverse communities and countries strengthened this purpose, particularly as I observed persistent gender gaps within infrastructure and procurement.”

The link between CoST’s work and gender equality is also true for Melina, who said “From feeling invigorated by community meetings in rural villages, where local issues are discussed and collective action takes shape, to engaging with government representatives who believe in real, sustained and inclusive change, from energising brainstorming sessions where ideas flow and collaboration flourishes, to learning every day from women engineering professionals and students. Working in collaboration, learning from each other, connecting and supporting each other to succeed individually and as a collective.”

We appreciate the women at CoST for their dedication, and successful strides that they’ve had in ensuring gender equality.