5 women working to change the world

Economist Impact: Women face unique challenges in cities. How do we design greener cities that are also gender-responsive and resilient?

Kotchakorn Voraakhom: We need to design cities from a different perspective. Traditionally, cities are about productivity and economic growth, and green cities and infrastructure don’t necessarily fit neatly into that narrative (at least not yet). We need to shift the way we think about cities and view them not just as hubs for GDP, but as places where people and communities live, and which pose different challenges for many based on gender and other factors. When it comes to resilient and inclusive urban design, you need to make sure that whatever you do is human-centric. For example, we sit in a car, the car burns gas, and GDP is going up. But when we are at home with our families (a traditionally women-centric place), this GDP is not moving. And so we are only valuing certain things that generate GDP, and this is then reflected in how cities are designed (more roads for cars v less investment in place- and people-based approaches). 

Also, we know that decision-making that feeds into GDP is mostly done by men, with women making up less than a quarter of corporate boards (the World Bank estimates that long-run GDP per capita would be almost 20% higher if employment gender gaps were closed). So to create inclusivity and gender-responsive resilience it comes back to decision-making and mindset shift. Are women having an equal part in deciding how a city moves forward? Urban planning is still male-dominated and often based on linear thinking and the idea of maximum productivity. But nature and nurturing, which are traditionally associated with women, are being devalued and degraded, and again this is reflected in urban design.

Economist Impact: How do you think climate-adaptation funding can be best used in the context of shaping safe, resilient cities and public spaces, particularly for women? 

Kotchakorn Voraakhom: We’re not talking about money. We’re talking about value. So what we value has to shift, and creating this shift is the challenge. We need to move beyond seeing humans in a supply-demand binary. And of course we are part of nature, and who’s not longing for being in nature? But we don’t need to wait until we have enough money to protect nature. We have nature now, and protecting it is actually going to save us from future uncertainty. It’s not that we don’t have enough money. But I don’t think we have enough courage to change.

And when it comes to adaptation funding for developing countries, that money is still being channelled through traditional processes. When can we actually get that money on the ground? We’re all now fighting for the same funding, same support, and we just have one cake and it’s not going to sustain us all. And if we are lucky, that funding from the developed world will be transferred to developing countries… but is that money enough? And who is making the decisions about where that money goes? Is it going to more grey infrastructure like seawalls, building more roads, and then claiming these as nature-based solutions? There is a fundamental mismatch here. It’s good to have that extra money from other countries, but why can’t we sustain ourselves?

How do we reshape our economy and change what we value when thinking about growing our cities? That also is a question to all of us. Rather than blaming each other over who is responsible for burning gas and who is going to pay for it—yes, that is important and needs to be fixed now, but there’s many other things that we need to fix and we cannot only rely on Loss and Damage as the only mechanism, because that money will probably not be going to fund real solutions. 

Economist Impact: How can cities embrace nature-based solutions (NBS) to climate change and other challenges? 

Kotchakorn Voraakhom: Landscape architects have been working on NBS for millenia, and I struggle when some people talk about NBS without really understanding what these solutions are. What do we mean to make a solution that also allows for nature? And do they let landscape architects of all genders be part of the solution? I’m not naive in thinking that every NBS put forward is great from a landscape-architecture or community perspective. And of course, for NBS to be truly effective, particularly in cities, they need to be designed for different contexts that respect cultural maintenance and cultural understanding of nature as well.