Why do gender-responsive public spaces matter?
Nepal’s cities are seeing brisk changes, with new climate hazards and rapid urbanisation. These shifts have placed considerable strain on existing infrastructure, alongside growing concerns about accessibility for vulnerable populations. Gender-responsive public spaces play a critical role in ensuring that urban growth supports the safety, health, and daily mobility of women and diverse groups, rather than reinforcing existing inequalities.
Reports from the Cities 4 Women: Inclusive and Climate Resilient Urbanization in Nepal initiative highlight how most parks, streets and municipal spaces remain unsafe and inaccessible for women, people with disabilities, and sexual and gender minorities. With only seven of 221 municipalities led by women mayors, systematic approaches—not just individual champions—are needed to embed equity and inclusion in daily urban decision-making.
Source: South Asia Partnership Nepal
Cities 4 Women
Implementing partners UN-Habitat and UNOPS work with seven secondary cities including Chandragiri. The strategy is simple: treat public open spaces as the starting point for safe, healthy, climate-ready urban design. Local governments apply practical tools such as women’s safety audits, urban walks with residents, and gender-focused mapping to shape gender-responsive public spaces grounded in lived experience.
These participatory steps are integrated into Nepal’s seven-step planning process and supported by new gender- and climate-responsive municipal guidelines. This makes inclusion a function of city management, not a side-project.
Chandragiri in focus: data meets design
Chandragiri, west of Kathmandu, is emerging as a model for local SDG action. Its recent Voluntary Local Review, supported by UN-Habitat, maps priorities across health, gender equality, water/sanitation, and sustainable urban growth, and codes all budget lines against SDG targets.
The data reveals numerous cross-cutting issues. Despite good coverage for household water and toilets, sanitation assessments show that almost all faecal sludge is still unsafely managed—exposing women to health risks during daily activities such as waste disposal or park use. Women’s labour-force participation also lags behind, often linked to unsafe commutes through poorly lit streets and underused public spaces. As men and women experience cities differently, a gender-sensitive approach is essential to improving urban health and wellbeing.
What do women—and diverse groups—want ?
Detailed workshop accounts by the Cities 4 Women program capture what women and community members seek in their parks:
- Safer routes, good lighting and CCTV to reduce harassment.
- Child-friendly areas, outdoor gyms, and accessible toilets with sanitary supplies.
- Discreet breastfeeding kiosks, supporting women’s needs in public.
- Meditation spaces for elders and ramped paths, handrails, tactile strips for those with disabilities or visual impairment.
These priorities reflect concerns consistently raised across South Asia in women’s safety audits and urban health surveys, underscoring the strong link between gender-responsive public spaces and daily wellbeing.
From needs to built change
Design competition briefs for Chandragiri parks show how community input is being built into reality. Lighting layouts now minimize shadowed corners, gym and play spaces increase visibility and security, toilets and breastfeeding areas are located along main routes.
Inclusive access—ramps, handrails, tactile paving—is standard, not optional. Trees and permeable surfaces further help manage heat and flooding under changing climate. Chandragiri’s approach demonstrates how urban health and SDG targets are translated into practical design elements that everyone can use.
Kanchanbasti Aarogya Udhyan Park. Source: City Alliance
Replicating tools in diverse cities
Other Cities 4 Women sites, like Dhangadhi and Birendranagar, have adapted the same set of audits and mapping to address different spaces—bus stations, market areas, riverside paths—identified as unsafe by women and girls. Validation sessions among local government and communities produced focused upgrade plans: better lighting, safer crossings, improved toilets. National safety audit findings confirm these fixes can quickly increase women’s mobility and use of city services.
The lessons for cities and urban health networks
- Participatory data collection through women’s evidence: Safety audits and urban walks directly reveal where health and gender gaps intersect—such as unsafe toilets in parks, underused public spaces due to harassment fears, and invisible care needs like breastfeeding facilities—while feeding community findings into co-designed solutions that empower residents
- Institutionalize participation: Making community engagement part of official planning cycles and budgeting embeds inclusion, especially vital where women’s formal leadership is scarce.
- Use demonstration spaces to multiply impact: Parks and upgraded streets function as visible “living labs,” showing how gender-responsive public spaces can advance equity, participation, and climate resilience in practice.
Resources from the Regional Laboratory on Urban Governance for Health and Wellbeing support cities seeking to replicate this integrated approach.
As our cities continue to grow, it is essential to reflect on who urban spaces are designed for and whose voices are heard. Gender-responsive public spaces provide a powerful entry point for improving women’s safety, health, and wellbeing while strengthening climate resilience and inclusive governance. By listening to lived experiences and embedding participation into city systems, urban development can move beyond infrastructure to create spaces where everyone feels safe, welcome, and supported.
This article draws from the Cities 4 Women initiative led by City Alliance in partnership with UN-Habitat and UNOPS. Further programme details and tools are available through City Alliance and related partnered sites.
