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This paper delves into the critical role of women in the domains of architecture, engineering, construction and urban planning, particularly within the context of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the imperative of achieving gender parity. Concentrating on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, this paper explores the profound importance of women as essential contributors to urbanisation and sustainable development. It scrutinizes the existing gender disparities within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industries; evaluates prevailing women empowerment indices in diverse sectors; and presents a strategic framework for harnessing women’s engagement to cultivate inclusive and sustainable urban cultures in the GCC. This conceptual paper introduces an actionable framework that can serve as a guiding agenda for empowering women in the AEC sectors by incorporating their socio-cultural, economic and ecological contributions towards creating sustainable cities.

Centring its focus on Gulf Cities, this paper employs a comprehensive approach to examine the current gender disparities within the architecture, engineering and construction sectors. It probes potential barriers and advocates for leveraging women’s participation to foster inclusive and sustainable urban development in the GCC. The study introduces the Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI) for the Gulf AEC industry elucidating how these measures are translated into a tailored framework.

The paper presents a practical framework that provides actionable guidance for engaging various stakeholders, including governments, academia and industry players, to empower women within the AEC industries. An “Agenda for equitable AEC industries for sustainable urban development: Our Common Gulf Cities” is culminated in a Women Empowerment Index for the AEC Industry (WEI-AEC) designed to serve as a guidance tool to monitor progress within industry, governments and academia.

Future research endeavours could advance the framework by conducting institutional support analyses, multi-stakeholder collaboration studies and practical testing of the framework within real-world scenarios.

The findings of this study can guide and influence a diverse range of initiatives, including policy development, educational strategies, corporate endeavours, awareness campaigns, capacity-building programs, skill enhancement initiatives and knowledge exchange among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

This conceptual paper introduces a practical framework that can serve as a roadmap for implementing the study’s potential to shape policies, educational programs and corporate initiatives aimed at advancing both gender equality and the development of sustainable cities.

This paper offers a unique perspective on the urbanisation process in developing cities, with a particular focus on the region of the Gulf States. Beyond economic considerations, the analysis sheds light on the complex interplay of socio-cultural factors, gender dynamics and urban development. Based on the calls for human-centred approaches to rethinking urban design and management of cities require the integration of these cities’ inhabitants’ lived experiences, that impact residents’ daily lives. The focus is on the importance of women’s perspectives in the development process.

The paper uses a systematic literature review that builds on existing knowledge relating to urbanisation, modernisation, sustainable cities, gender and the Arabian Gulf. It uses Lefebvre’s 'right to the city' theory to understand the evolution of the Gulf Cities which is a novel approach. This adaptation offers a unique perspective on the transformations and challenges that these urban spaces face. Furthermore, it offers a firm foundation for developing advanced knowledge on the interdisciplinary nature of the topic discussed and assists in integrating empirical findings and perspectives from different resources.

The extreme levels of transformation in urbanisation in the Gulf States built cities that are no longer solely places for settlement, production and services but operate as significant influencers on the social, economic and political relations that produced design and cultural challenges. These cities became epicentres of power and politics that shaped the national visions and influenced policy. The process of inclusive and considerate urban development that the Arabian Gulf region is aiming to embark on is not a new exclusive strategy. But a process that has been implemented and tested in other urbanised areas globally.

Very little historical urban research on the Arabian Gulf countries exists, hence, the difficulty in researching the Gulf urbanisation process or providing historical encounters of the change.

This paper delves into the gendered aspects of urban planning, an aspect that is frequently overlooked. It contributes to the discourse on gender inclusivity in urban spaces by focussing on Khaleeji women’s experiences, offering insights that go beyond economic considerations. The use of Lefebvre’s “right to the city” theory to understand the evolution of the Gulf Cities is a unique approach. It investigates the interaction of various factors such as economic, cultural and political influences on Gulf urban development. This adaptation offers a distinctive perspective on the transformations and challenges that these urban spaces face.

This study aims to analyze the effect of female top management and female dominant owner on whether firms experience obstacles to obtaining external finance in 136 medium- and low-income countries during 2006–2019. The analysis controls for the role of corporate governance and other firm-specific characteristics, as well as for the impact of national institutions.

The analysis elucidates the economic and non-economic factors driving female corporate leadership. Further, in order to capture the causal effect, the analysis uses univariate tests, multivariate regression analysis, disaggregation testing, sensitivity and endogeneity analysis to confirm the quality of the estimates. The analysis controls for various additional country-level factors.

The results show that female top management and female ownership are broadly significant determinants of firms' access to external finance, especially in relatively larger and more developed countries. The role of controlling shareholders is significant and mediates the gender effect. The latter appears more pronounced in smaller and medium-size firms, operating in the manufacturing and services sectors as well as in the countries with higher levels of development. This also varies with the countries' macroeconomic conditions and institutions governing gender development and equality as well as institutional governance effectiveness.

The results suggest that firms wishing to improve the firms' access to external finance should consider the role of gender in both top management and corporate ownership coupled with the effect of the specific characteristics of firms and the conditioning role of national institutions.

The study examines the gender effects of top management and dominant ownership for the external financing decisions of firms in low- and middle-income countries, which are underresearched. These gender effects are mitigated in various ways by the specific characteristics of firms and especially on national institutions.

The purpose of this study was to show how pro-gender public policies in the agricultural sectors can contribute to the reduction of gender inequalities in the labour market and the diversification of the Congolese economy.

Computable general equilibrium model that has been adapted to the Congolese economy from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)'s SAM.

The results reveal that policies of increasing women's land allocation and government cash transfers to rural female households contribute to the reduction of inequalities in the labour market. However, only the policy of increasing women’s land allocation improves economic diversification.

The implementation of the policy of government cash transfers to rural women's households comes at a cost to the government. Future studies to look at the most effective mode of financing for this policy. Moreover, the policy of increasing women's land allocation is feasible in the DRC as there is a lot of unused arable land available.

In Pillar 1 of the National Strategic Development Plan (PNSD) on Economic Diversification and Transformation, the policy of increasing land allocation to women could be added to the objectives related to strengthening the contribution of agriculture to economic growth and employment creation. In Pillar 3 of the PNSD on Social Development and Human Resource Development, the policy of increasing land allocation to women as well as the policy of increasing government transfers to female rural households could be added to the objectives related to the promotion of employment of youth, women and vulnerable groups.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind for the DRC, which highlights the impact of pro-gender policies on women's employment, particularly in the agricultural sectors and in the diversification of the Congolese economy. This study contributes to policy orientation in DRC. The two policies (increasing land allocation to women and cash transfers to rural women) analysed in this study were chosen in light of the DRC's National Strategic Plan, the first phase of which focuses on promoting employment for vulnerable groups and economic diversification through the development of agricultural sectors.

Sustainability is viewed as an encompassing perspective, as endorsed by the international policy context, driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We aim to examine how women entrepreneurs transform capitals to pursue sustainability, and to generate policy insights for sustainability actions through tourism entrepreneurship.

Applying qualitative approach, we have generated empirical evidence drawing on 37 qualitative interviews carried out in Turkey, whereby boundaries between traditional patriarchal forces and progressive movements in gender relations are blurred.

We have generated insights into how women entrepreneurs develop their sustainability practice by transforming their available economic, cultural, social and symbolic capitals in interpreting the macro-field and by developing navigation strategies to pursue sustainability. This transformative process demonstrates how gender roles were performed and negotiated in serving for sustainability pillars.

In this paper, we demonstrate the nature and instrumentality of sustainable tourism entrepreneurship through a gender lens in addressing some of these SDG-driven challenges.

We advance the scholarly and policy debates by bringing gender issues to the forefront, discussing sustainable tourism initiatives from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs and various members of local community and stakeholder in a developing country context where women’s solidarity becomes crucial.

This study examines the role of universities in the social entrepreneurship ecosystems (SEEs) in Latin America from the perspective of female academic staff, administrators and outreach workers of universities in the region.

Using a qualitative approach, the study scrutinises in-depth interviews conducted with 24 women from eight Latin American universities.

The findings underscore the pivotal role of universities in promoting social entrepreneurship through knowledge generation, entrepreneur training, network enhancement and the promotion of equity. They also highlight the importance of incorporating a gender perspective into university programmes and practices.

The qualitative nature and small, diverse sample of this research inherently limit its scope. However, these limitations arise from the exploratory approach adopted, which was confined to eight Latin American countries. Further comparative studies in different contexts are needed to deepen the understanding of the dynamics involved.

Universities should offer more tangible support and training in social entrepreneurship with a gender focus. Governments can create incentives for universities to prioritise their contribution in this area.

The study emphasises the potential of women-led social entrepreneurship initiatives to generate positive impact, underscoring the need for inclusive supportive environments.

By providing insights on the role of Latin American universities in SEEs from a gender perspective, this study contributes to limited literature on the intersection of social entrepreneurship, gender, higher education and geographic context in the region. The research underscores the need to further explore how gender and regional dynamics influence social entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Despite the longstanding male dominance in the socio-politico-economic spheres, recent decades have witnessed remarkable improvements in gender inclusion. Although the issue of gender inclusion has been widely documented, answers to the question of whether institutional arrangements and information technology shape gender inclusion remain contentious. This study, therefore, empirically examines the effects of institutional quality and ICT penetration on gender inclusion on a global scale.

To control for the endogeneity of modeled variables and cross-sectional dependence inherent with large panel datasets, the study employs the Driscoll-Kraay Fixed Effects (DKFE) and the system Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimators for a panel of 142 countries from 1996 to 2020.

The empirical findings from the DKFE and system GMM estimators reveal that strong institutions significantly enhance gender inclusion. Moreover, by disaggregating institutional quality into various governance indicators, we show that besides corruption control, which has a positive but insignificant effect on women’s empowerment, other governance indicators significantly enhance gender inclusion. Furthermore, there is evidence that various ICT measures promote gender inclusion.

The study results suggest that policymakers in developing countries should implement stringent measures to curb corruption. Moreover, policymakers in low-income countries should create avenues to facilitate women’s access to ICTs. Hence, policymakers in low-income countries should create and equip ICT training centers and render them accessible to all categories of women. Furthermore, developed countries with high-tech knowledge could help developing countries by organizing free training workshops and sensitization campaigns concerning the use of ICTs vis-à-vis women empowerment in various fields of life.

The present study fills a significant research gap by comprehensively exploring the nexuses between governance, ICT penetration, and the socio-politico-economic dimensions of gender inclusion from a global perspective. Besides the paucity of studies in this regard, the few existing studies have either been focused on region and country-specific case studies in developed or developing economies. Moreover, this study is timely, given the importance placed on gender inclusion (SDG5), quality of institutions (SDG16), and ICT penetration (SDG9) in the 2015–2030 global development agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the multinational oil companies’ (MOCs) corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in Nigeria. Its special focus is to investigate the impact of the global memorandum of understanding (GMoU) on gender and food security in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

This paper adopts a survey research technique aimed at gathering information from a representative sample of the population. A total of 800 women respondents were sampled across the rural areas of the Niger Delta region. It is essentially cross-sectional, describing and interpreting the current situation.

The results from the use of a combined propensity score matching (PSM) and logit model indicate that the CSR interventions of the MOCs using GMoUs have contributed to empowering women to effectively discharge their role in food and nutritional security. This is achieved by enhancing coherence in policies on gender, agriculture, nutrition, health, trade and other relevant areas in the Niger Delta. The findings also show that the CSR intervention of MOCs supported ecologically sound approaches to food production, such as agro-ecology that promotes sustainable farming and women’s empowerment in the region.

This suggests that recognizing and respecting the local knowledge of farmers, including women farmers, will help develop locally relevant food and nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa.

This implies that promoting the implementation of everybody’s right to food, particularly that of women, as well as giving women rights to other resources such as land, in addition to engaging women and men in challenging the inequitable distribution of food within the household, will help strengthen food security in Africa.

This research contributes to the gender debate in agriculture from a CSR perspective in developing countries and serves as a basis for the host communities to demand social projects. It concludes that corporate establishments have an obligation to help solve problems of public concern.

Mainland Tanzania has seen two decades of significant social policy reforms and transformations in its social and economic structures, whilst the country continues to grapple with persisting gender inequalities. This article examines Tanzania's social policy developments from a gender perspective. The authors analyse the level, reach and quality of social policy delivery to working-age women across the areas of health policy, social protection and employment policy during 2000–2021.

The article draws on qualitative research deploying the scoping review method. The data consist of diverse secondary materials, including academic publications, government policy documents, relevant statistics and other types of “grey” literature.

Tanzania has made significant advancements in the legal frameworks around welfare provision and has instituted increasingly gender-responsive government policy plans. The health and social protection sectors, in particular, have witnessed the introduction of large-scale measures expanding social policy implementation. However, social policy delivery remains two-tiered, with differences in provisions for women in the formal and informal sectors.

Social policy delivery and implementation have increased and diversified in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) during the new millennium, with a growing integration of gender-specific policy objectives. However, limited social policy scholarship has focused on the gendered effects of broader social policy models in SSA. The article remedies the concomitant knowledge gaps by examining various social policies and their impacts on working-age women in Mainland Tanzania. The authors also engage with the theoretical welfare regime literature and present an analytical framework for gender-sensitive assessment of emerging social policy models in the Global South.