BONGIWE PITYI | Job No 1 to help women is fixing public transport

Every August, South Africa celebrates the achievements of women and renews its commitment to gender equality. We acknowledge pioneers, applaud progress and reaffirm the importance of empowering women. These conversations are necessary, but they are not sufficient.

The real measure of empowerment is not the number of speeches delivered or strategies adopted. It is whether a woman can travel safely to work before sunrise, access quality health care close to home, connect to the digital economy, or start and grow a business without infrastructure failures standing in her way.

Women’s empowerment is often framed through legislation, leadership programmes and corporate initiatives. These remain important, but their impact is constrained if the systems that support everyday life continue to fail. Infrastructure is what turns opportunity into participation.

For institutional investors, infrastructure is more than a social investment. South Africa’s infrastructure constraints already impose measurable economic costs. The World Bank describes unreliable electricity, underperforming freight rail and ports, and deteriorating water and sanitation as major constraints on growth, investment and job creation. Its latest modelling estimates that reforms in these sectors could support almost 600,000 additional, better-paid jobs by 2032, with electricity and transport reforms accounting for more than 560,000 of those.

The gender dimension is equally important. The World Bank estimates that closing the global gender gap in labour force participation could increase GDP per capita by about 20% on average, and it identifies limited mobility, time constraints and inadequate access to services as being among the barriers keeping women out of the workforce.

This makes infrastructure a multiplier. Reliable electricity lowers operating constraints. Better transport expands access to jobs and markets. Water and sanitation reduce the time and health burdens associated with inadequate services. Digital connectivity opens access to education, financial services and employment.

If the government and institutional investors were to prioritise one intervention over the coming decade, integrated public transport would stand out

For investors, the question is therefore broader than what an infrastructure asset costs or earns directly. It is also about what economic activity that asset enables. South Africa’s current infrastructure reforms provide a practical illustration: the World Bank says they are expected to attract private investment while lowering business costs and supporting employment across the wider economy.

Infrastructure, in other words, is productive capital. It does not simply build assets. It expands the capacity of people and businesses to participate in the economy.

Take mobility. Every day, millions of South Africans rely on public transport to reach work, education and health care.