Infrastructure development policies have been criticised for lacking a deliberate pro-gender and pro-informal sector orientation. Since African economies are dual enclaves, with the traditional and informal sectors female-dominated, failure to have gendered infrastructure development planning and investment exacerbates gender inequality. The paper examines the effect of the infrastructure development index, the size of the informal economy, and the level of economic development on gender inequality. The paper applies the panel autoregressive distributed lag method to data on the gender inequality index, infrastructure development index, GDP per capita, and size of the informal sector for the period 2005–2018. The sample consists of 44 African countries. The research established that the infrastructure development index, its sub-indices, GDP per capita, and the size of the informal sector are crucial dynamics that governments need to consider carefully when formulating development policies to reduce gender inequality. The research found that investment in infrastructure in general, transport infrastructure, and energy infrastructure reduces gender inequality. infrastructure development has gender inequality increasing effects in some countries and gender inequality reducing effects in others. The pattern suggests that at the continental level a Kuznets-type patten in the relationship between gender inequality and infrastructure development, gender inequality and size of informal sector, and gender inequality and GDP per capita exists. Some countries are in the region where changes in these covariates positively correlate with gender inequality, while others are in the region where further increases in the covariates reduce gender inequality.

This study analyzes the studies on project finance (PF) and renewable energy (RE) arena, employing a comprehensive scientometric analysis to illuminate the current research landscape, identify prominent scholars, and uncover emerging trends. Encompassing several analyses, we have charted the evolution of this domain from 1993 to March 2024 and showed the way for further research. We analyzed 80 studies selected from several databases by means scientometric tools. Despite decent citation rates, research in this relatively young field is surprisingly scarce. While geographically diverse, research leadership stems from the UK, USA, Australia, and Germany. Interestingly, a significant portion of the studies originates from broad energy and sustainability areas, highlighting a potential knowledge gap in finance and economics areas. Additionally, the prevalence of case studies points to a strong connection between theory and practice. The research also revealed prominent topics like the interplay between PF and RE, various renewable resources, infrastructure development, financial considerations, risk management, among others. While many themes exist, areas like technological advancements, diverse cost approaches, valuation methodologies, and policy considerations remain underexplored. Other results unveiled an unexpected finding: limited evidence of large-scale collaborations, with individual or small-group research efforts currently dominating the field. However, existing collaborative networks promise future advancements through the emergence of more formalized research groups, which can perform future research endeavors with a wide spectrum of unexplored topics.