Access is infrastructure: How to build an economy where more women can learn, earn and adapt in World Economy News 09/03/2026 International Women’s Day often brings a familiar narrative cycle: commitments, campaigns and the language of intention. Intention matters, but it is not the binding constraint. The binding constraint is infrastructure. Lack of infrastructure means lack of access to opportunity and the pathways that enable women to learn, earn, progress and build. Shamina Singh, Founder and President of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, which focuses on expanding access to economic opportunity, puts it plainly: inclusive economic growth needs to shift from aspiration to execution. If inclusion is real, it shows up in the systems people move through every day – and this includes women. Designing services for women from the outset Singh frames inclusion as a design-and-delivery discipline that integrates the creative process of designing a product, service or system with the technical details of its implementation. In essence, design determines who the system works for, while delivery determines whether access turns into outcomes, at scale. Yet data shows that women are less likely to be included in the design of processes and services. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, less than a third (29.5%) of tertiary-educated senior managers are women. Women are also 55.2% more likely than men to take career breaks, and spend longer time away from work – often due to parental requirements. At the same time, we often default to explanations about confidence when it comes to women in the professional world. We recycle the line that men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of qualifications, while women wait until they feel they reach 100%. Then comes the advice: be more assertive, lean in because it is actionable for women and cost-free for institutions. As Singh’s points out: “Inclusion fails most often not because of lack of intent, but because systems were optimized for those already inside them.” Start with lived realities to design for women At the design stage, Singh argues, we must start with lived realities rather than averages or assumptions. If lived reality includes low connectivity, limited devices, safety risks and time poverty, inclusion cannot be layered on later. The digital economy assumes people can simply log on. Many cannot. According to the International Telecommunication Union, only 74% of the world’s population uses the internet and in low-income countries, usage is around 23%. At the same time, women are 10% less likely to own a mobile phone. This is why “AI literacy for all” can become performative when the basic digital infrastructure is missing. Young Global Leader (YGL) Nino Enukidze says this is an engineering problem, not a messaging problem. As Rector of Business and Technology University and Founder of Coding School for Women in Georgia, she has built a pathway that has reached more than 10,000 women and girls, and extended that logic into artificial intelligence (AI) literacy through AI4Globe, recognized by UNESCO. “There is a very high risk to increase the digital divide… not everybody has access to computer, to high speed internet… or even an understanding of what AI is,” says Enukidze. And once access expands, safety – the ability for women and girls to use digital and AI tools without being exposed to avoidable harm such as poor privacy protections, scams or