Pgs Balancing the Load - SSATP

Proceedings of the Asia andAfrica Regional Seminars onGender and Rural Transport

June and July 1999.Publication sponsored by ILO ASIST

International Forum for Rural Transportand Development

IFRTDIFRTD

Cover photographsNitya RaoGina PorterPascal Kaumbotho

Acknowledgments ii

Background,Aims and Methodology iii

Overview and Summary vi

Chapter One: 'Balancing the Load' Asia, 24–25June 1999 1

Chapter Two: 'Balancing the Load' Africa 15–16 July 1999 7

Chapter Three:Toolkit for Effective Advocacy 18

Participants in Asia Seminar 20

Participants in Africa Seminar 23

List of Researchers, Facilitators and IFRTD Staff 26

Appendices 29

Asia Case Study Summaries 30

Issues from Asian Case Studies 40

Africa Case Study Summaries 43

Issues from African Case Studies 64

Contents

ii

Acknowledgments

This publication of the proceedings of the Balancing the Load Seminars in Asia and Africa is testimony to the factthat there has been a significant number of people from a wide range of organisations in several countries aroundthe world who have discussed and debated about how gender can be integrated into rural transport

interventions. Our thanks to them for contributing their ideas and experiences.The case studies that provided the background to the discussions at the seminars were written by Amadou

Ouedraogo, Honorine Damiba and Aminata Ouedraogo from Burkina Faso; Mahjabeen Chowdhury and Neela Matinfrom Bangladesh; Nitya Rao, Mihir Bhatt, Rheema Nanavaty, Mahua Mukherjee, Shakula Alaknanda and Rekha Barve fromIndia, Pascal Kaumbotho, Justina Nthenge and Cecilia Kinuthia Njenga from Kenya,Alexandrina Sabela from Mozambique,Ganesh Ghimire and Ava Shrestha from Nepal, E M Shaibu Imodagbe, Nurudeen Abubakar and Mohammed Bello Yunusafrom Nigeria,Anne Marie Dizon and Maureen Pagaduan from the Philippines, Dharshini Samarajeewa, Kusum Kuruppu,Kusala Wettasinghe and Upali Pannilage from Sri Lanka, Suad Mustafa Elhaj Musa from Sudan, Josephine Mwankusye fromTanzania, Harriet Iga, Kwamusi Paul and Charles Kaira from Uganda, Dorris Chingozho from Zimbabwe, David Seddon, JeffTurner and Gina Porter from the UK. Most of the case studies were based on the researchers’ own experience of workingwith women in disadvantaged rural or urban communities in developing countries.They have made an enormouscontribution to the existing knowledge on gender and rural transport.We are grateful for all the work that went into thestudies and for the support and encouragement of the researchers during periods of funding difficulties and other delays.We also acknowledge with gratitude the work of Ros Patching in summarising the case studies.

The programme has had the benefit of some excellent facilitators. Special thanks to Megan Lloyd Laney, who took theresponsibility for designing the Asia and Africa seminars and facilitated both of them and the workshops that immediatelypreceded them. She is also responsible for the compilation of these proceedings.We really appreciated Megan’s unflaggingenthusiasm and energy, and her ability to draw out even the most reluctant participant.

The initial research workshops in Asia and Africa were facilitated by Helen Appleton and Dr Emma Crewe respectively.We thank them for sharing their considerable knowledge on gender analysis and research and stimulating the researchersto develop strong research plans.Thanks are also due to Kusala Wettasinghe, Nelun Fernando and Farai Samunghu whohelped Megan with the facilitation of the seminars.

The workshops and seminars were held in the regions and hosted by the IFRTD members and national networks.Weare grateful to the Centre for Built Environment, Calcutta and the Uganda National Forum Group for hosting theresearchers’ workshops in Calcutta and Kampala respectively.The Lanka Forum for Rural Transport and Development andthe South Africa National Forum Group hosted the regional seminars.A special thank you to Kalaivanee Surendranath andMac Mashiri for all their efforts behind the scenes.

Raising funds for the programme was not easy and we are grateful to the donors who have been supportive of theinitiative from the beginning.The programme’s main sponsor was the Infrastructure and Urban Development Division ofBritish Department for International Development (DFID) who sponsored the research work, provided core funds for thetwo regional seminars and through regional offices in South Africa, Uganda and Ethiopia sent participants to the Africaregional seminar. However, the IFRTD Secretariat’s input to initiating and managing the programme would not have beenpossible without the support given to the Secretariat from the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation. Othersources of support, primarily through sponsorship of participants to the regional seminars, were the CommonwealthFoundation, the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, Nepal, the Asian Development Bank, the United NationsEnvironment Programme, Copenhagen, the World Bank Gender and Thematic Group, the World Bank Rural Travel andTransport Programme, ILO Cambodia, ILO ASIST Harare and the governments of Sri Lanka and South Africa.We alsoacknowledge ILO ASIST’s contribution towards the publication and distribution of these proceedings.

Finally our thanks to all those women (and men) who have been the subject of the case studies and who have sharedwith us their problems and their aspirations.They have set us a challenge. It is up to us to meet it.

IFRTD SecretariatLondon

November 1999

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Balancing The Load is a research programme of theInternational Forum for Rural Transport andDevelopment (IFRTD).The aim of the

programme is to investigate how gender and genderrelations affect men and women’s access in general, andtransport provision in particular, in the two continents ofAsia and Africa.

The programme set out to achieve this aim bycommissioning research in 15 countries.Workshops wereheld in 1998 in Calcutta and Kampala for the researchersand organisers to agree common aims and Terms ofReference.A period of one year was then allowed forthe research to take place. During June and July 1999,two further workshops were held in Colombo, Sri Lankaand Pretoria, South Africa, to discuss and analyse thefindings of the case studies, and to prepare the issues formore public debate during two-day seminars which wereheld immediately after each workshop.This reportpresents the findings of the twoseminars.

The organisers of Balancingthe Load wanted to achievesomething more than astraightforward sharing of theresults of the 25 case studiesduring the seminars.Theywanted to find out from the150 policymakers, transportpractitioners and professionalsworking at a community levelwho were to be gathered together for the seminars,what were their experiences of gender and transportprovision.They wanted to provide a forum for theparticipants, together with the researchers to identifyspecific interventions which would bring about greaterintegration of gender into transport initiatives.

Two specific objectives were set for the seminars:

● To highlight the constraints and opportunities thatexist for integrating gender and rural transport as ameans of reducing poverty, fostering small enterpriseetc.

● To develop guidelines for changes that are required atthe three different levels of the community, theprogramme, and the policy in order for theseopportunities to be maximised and the constraintsovercome.

Issues arising out of all of the case studies, which hadbeen identified by the researchers during the three-dayworkshops held immediately prior to the seminars, werepresented to the participants.The issues had beendivided into three categories: those relevant to peopleworking at the community level (defined as ‘Institutionsand practitioners working directly with the community’);

transport practitioners (defined as ‘Professionals andpractitioners designing and implementing transportinterventions’) and policymakers (defined as‘Government and donor institutions with responsibilityfor developing policies and strategies which affecttransport systems and the people that use them’).Theparticipants were divided into three groups to hear theissues, and something of the case study context fromwhich they had been identified at community, practitionerand policy levels. In Sri Lanka, all of the nine case studieswere presented but in South Africa – where a total of 16case studies had been researched – only the seven casestudies which had looked at specific transportinterventions were presented. Issues unique to the othercase studies were fed in as resource material during thecourse of the Africa seminar.

On the first day of each seminar, the three groupsheard the issues and were asked to add their own

experiences which wererelevant for their targetaudience.They were asked toprioritise the five mostimportant issues and try to‘craft’ them as guidelines orinstructions which would, iftaken up by the targetpolicymakers, practitioners andthose working at a communitylevel, lead to more practicaldevelopment interventions.

They were told that the guidelines should be clear,practical and realistic.

These guidelines were shared at plenary on thesecond day. In Colombo, the participants chose then tobreak into smaller, multi-disciplinary groups to developstrategies for communicating these guidelines to theirintended audiences. In Pretoria, the participants chose tobreak into groups representing the different regions ofsub-saharan Africa (South Africa, southern Africa, eastAfrica, francophone West Africa and anglophone WestAfrica) to design strategies for delivery of the guidelinesto specific target audiences. In both cases, the products ofgroup discussions were shared at plenary at the end ofthe day, and conclusions drawn from them.

In each case, the purpose of the seminar structurewas to begin a process of raising awareness about theimportance of better integration of gender into ruraltransport interventions; and to introduce the concept ofadvocacy and to begin designing strategies whichadvocate change in the way that policymakers,community organisations and practitioners think aboutand implement rural transport interventions.

A Forum for participants andresearchers to identify specific

interventions which would bringabout greater integration of gender

into transport initiatives.

Background,Aims and Methodology

Background,Aims and Methodology

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Overview and Summary

The Balancing the Load research programmebegan in 1996 with funding from the BritishDepartment for International Development, to

fill the gaps in our knowledge about how gender relationsaffected women and men’s access to goods and servicesand influenced the provision of transport infrastructureand services.The immense volume of analytical workemanating from the gender and development (GAD)programmes of universities and development agenciesworldwide seemed to have hardly permeated theconsciousness of transport providers, planners and policymakers including those working on rural transport issues.At the same time, though gender analysis was rapidlybecoming integrated into the work in rural development,rural development planners and practitioners rarelyaddressed the issues of mobilityand accessibility.The IFRTD’sprogramme was aimed atbringing these two groupstogether.

The programme could havebeen approached in severalways, but at the IFRTDsecretariat we chose toimplement it in a way thatwould maximise theparticipation of women and men working with ruralcommunities, that would establish a dialogue betweenthose working on gender issues and those working onrural transport and create opportunities for networkingamong them, and which would raise the profile issuesrather than aim to explore them in depth.Theprogramme commissioned around 40 case studies in Asiaand Africa and planned to share the findings with a wideraudience through regional and international seminars andthrough the publication of the full case studies.Theprogramme also produced an issue of the Forum Newson the research programme and expects to publish abibliography on gender and rural transport.

The difficulties encountered in finding funding for theprogramme right through its implementation, reflectedthe lip service that many donor agencies are paying togender issues and we are grateful to the handful thathave been supportive of the initiative from the beginning.The major supporter of the programme was theEngineering Division (now called the Infrastructure andUrban Development Division) of the British Departmentfor International Development (DFID) who sponsoredthe research work, provided core funding for the tworegional seminars and through regional offices in SouthAfrica, Uganda and Ethiopia sent participants to the Africaregional seminar. Others who have supported theprogramme through sponsorship of participants to theseminars include the Commonwealth Foundation, SwissAgency for Development and Cooperation, Nepal, the

Asian Development Bank, the United NationsEnvironment Programme, Copenhagen, the World BankGender and Transport Thematic Group and the WorldBank Rural Travel and Transport Programme, ILO,Cambodia and ILO ASIST, Harare and the governmentsof Sri Lanka and South Africa.

This volume of proceedings is being co-sponsored bythe Senior Technical Advisor on Rural Travel andTransport of ILO ASIST in Harare. It was put together byMegan Lloyd Laney, who, together with KusalaWettasinghe and Nelun Fernando in Sri Lanka, and FaraiSamunghu in South Africa, facilitated the two seminars.

In this proceedings you will find an account of the tworegional seminars held in Asia and Africa.The twoseminars aimed to bring the researchers together with a

range of other actors with aninterest in gender, ruraldevelopment and ruraltransport, so that they couldpool their experiences anddevelop recommendations forbetter integration of gender intorural transport interventions(and rural transport into genderinterventions!)

The seminars weredeveloped along similar lines and were intended to be asparticipative as the time allowed.There are manysimilarities in the outcomes, reflecting the fact that at thevery basic level, the problems relating to gender and ruraltransport issues are similar across the regions and thatthe nature of policy making, professional transportpractice and community organisation do not differ verysignificantly either.There are also many differences.Thesereflect the differences in the culture, economy andpolitical structures of the Asian and African countries. Inthe words of Michael Bamberger from the World BankGender and Transport Thematic Group (who attendedthe Asia seminar):

“Having just come from a gender and transportworkshop in Tanzania, attended by delegates fromvarious African countries, I was struck by the verymuch more active role of the public sector in theformulation and implementation of transportpolicies in South Asia. In countries such as Sri Lanka,India and to some extent Bangladesh. there is astrong emphasis on the responsibility of the state inpromoting the social dimensions of transport.Therewas a feeling among many policy makers that manydonors have unrealistic expectations concerning theability of the private sector to provide transportservices which satisfy the social needs of thepopulation.”

Differences in outcomes were also a result of thedifferences in orientation of the Asian and African

The seminars brought together arange of actors with an interest ingender, rural development and ruraltransport so they could pool their

experiences.


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researchers and participants. In Asia, several researchersand several participants had a strong sense of gender asan issue and many more were engaged in activities at thecommunity level.There were also several media people inthe Colombo seminar, and this enabled the seminar totake on a strongly strategic communications andadvocacy perspective. In Africa, while participantsincluded several with interesting and importantcommunity-level experiences, many more were eitheracademics, consultants or policy makers with only little orpast community level experience. Several participantsseemed to be still grappling with such concepts as‘gender’ and ‘participation’ which probably reflects astronger technocratic orientation.There were also almostno media represented in the audience, and this absencewas reflected in discussions on communications. On theother hand, the Africa seminar had much greaterparticipation from key persons in donor agencies (DFID,World Bank, ILO) and might therefore have wieldedgreater influence.

The outputs of the seminars were targeted at threegroups: communities and community-based organisations,transport practitioners, and policy makers.At each of theseminars, participants crafted guidelines or messages foreach of these groups. In Asia they developedcommunication guidelines to reach these audiences. InAfrica, the participants broke into regional groups todesign strategies for delivery of the messages orguidelines to the three key target groups.

The key themes linking messages to each of theaudiences are outlined below, along with communicationstrategies and the regional strategies developed by theparticipants in Asia and Africa respectively.

Messages for Communities andCommunity-based OrganisationsThe need for organising and building capacity

● Community participation and cooperative approachesshould be actively sought in any transport andinfrastructure development project. Existingcommunity and cooperative approaches should bestrengthened and new approaches designed wherenecessary. (Asia)

● Women have to be mobilised and organised intocooperatives to lobby the concerned institutions foraccess to credit and support. (Africa)

● Community capacity and in particular the capacity ofwomen needs to be built up to enable them toparticipate in problem identification and analysis,programme planning and execution, and programmemonitoring and evaluation.The dilemmas of followingthis strategy include increasing women’sresponsibilities, for example by getting them involvedin the time consuming task of participating incommittees which empowers them but adds to theirworkload.(Africa)

● Community organisations and institutions concernedwith transport interventions need to be identified forthe purpose of capacity building. (Africa)

Changing attitudes

● It is important to raise awareness within thecommunity especially among women, on their right tomobility and the way in which cultural practicesrestrict this right. (Asia)

● there is need to change the attitude of both men andwomen to gender imbalances in carrying the load:presently women as well as men accept the loadcarrying as a natural part of their role within thefamily. (Africa)

Establishing the link between transport and otherdevelopment activities

● All development initiatives should consider bothgender and transport needs. Communityorganisations should make a point of identifying andraising awareness about local people’s gender andtransport needs so that they are not ignored. (Asia)

● Community Development Organisations should lookat non-transport interventions that enhance access toservices as a result reducing the need to travel longdistances. If necessary, relevant training skills should beprovided. (Asia)

● Gender planning should be integrated at all levels.(Africa)

● Economic activities for women need to be introducedalongside any project aiming to increase transportownership, because without economic opportunitiesmost women would not be able to afford the cost ofimproved transport.(Africa)

Developing appropriate transport technologies

● Community organisations should identify culturally-appropriate transport modes taking intoconsideration gender and location. Communities maywant to take into consideration already availablealternative modes of transport. Once they havedecided on a suitable design, this information can beshared with technology providers. (Asia)

● It is essential that intermediate means of transportare developed to complement existing means oftransport used by women. (Africa)

● Access to rural transport services helps in balancingthe load, and those should be supported by local andnational governments, NGOs and the private sector.(Africa)

● Technical support should start with peoples’(women’s) own innovations and seek to strengthenthem appropriately. (Africa)

● Rural infrastructure and transport service providersands users should be made aware about safety issuesand develop safety procedures. (Africa)

● Transport interventions should be exchangedbetween south-south communities. (Africa)


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Collecting gender disaggregated information

● Community organisations should allocate resourcesto collecting and analysing information on genderrelationships and family dynamics (ie householddecision making) prior to taking actions to meetgender and transport needs. (Asia)

● Data gathered during research must be disaggregatedin order to show that the transport needs andburdens of women differ from men, and transportinterventions need to reflect these differences. (Africa)

Messages for Transport PractitionersThe messages for practitioners were very focused andwere concerned with understanding community andwomen’s needs and involving them in transport planningand intervention, with prescriptions as to how this couldbe achieved.There was also recognition of the need fortransport practitioners to work in multidisciplinary, cross-sectoral teams and provide gender sensitive informationto policy makers

Understanding and responding to need

● Transport interventions need to respond directly tothe needs of women. Often women are more likelyto discuss freely their problems and transportaspirations with other women and therefore womenshould be used in gaining their views. (Asia)

● Planners and practitioners need to understand thesocio-economic realities and needs of women’s livesin rural communities. Engineers and economists mustwork with social analysts in designing transportinterventions using experiences drawn from the non-transport sector. (Africa)

Engendering community involvement

● Practitioners should involve the community in allstages of rural development: planning andmanagement. Recognition should be given to the factthat communities are not homogenous and thatwomen’s voices are often not heard and they are alsonot all the same.(Africa)

● Maintenance of infrastructure is particularly crucial towomen’s accessibility. Practitioners should activelyinvolve both women and men in the maintenance anddelegate the control over this process whereappropriate (and should be aware that in somecountries there may be social and cultural reasonswhy women cannot easily be involved in these tasks).(Asia)

The need for integrated and cross-sectoral approaches

● Problems of accessibility are not necessarily solved bytransport interventions.Therefore practitionersshould ensure their work is cross sectoral. (Asia)

● An integrated approach to rural transport servicesand infrastructure must take into account of the

cultural context and must be equitable andappropriate to the needs of women. (Africa)

Providing gender sensitive information

● Practitioners should generate and use qualitative andquantitative, gender-disaggregated information toprovide analytical evidence to policy makers whendesigning transport interventions. (Asia)

● There is a need for advocacy strategies at all levels ofgender and transport interventions (ie policy,practitioner, community) which are currently gender-blind. (Asia)

● There is need for gender responsive planning toprovide feedback to policy makers and othertransport practitioners and to communities.Thisrequires effective monitoring and evaluation tools anddissemination of good practice. (Africa)

● Resource mobilisation and allocation to gender needsmust be recognised as a priority.(Africa)

Messages for Policy MakersIn both Asia and Africa seminars, participants recognisedthat the lack of gender disaggregated information was akey constraint to the development of appropriate policiesand practices at the macro level. In Africa the messagesarticulated the need for an enabling environment for theimplementation of specific gender-sensitive transportinterventions.The consensus appeared to be that ifpolicies existed that encouraged community participation,environmental sustainability, safety, maintenance andlabour based technologies, then these things wouldautomatically meet gender needs. In Asia, the emphasis ismore on the recognition of women’s contribution to thenational economy and the way in which this affectstransport policy and practice.

Need for gender sensitive information

● All the agencies dealing with the subject of transportshould collect and analyse gender-disaggregated datain formulating plans and policies, and develop gendersensitive monitoring and evaluation. (Asia)

● [Transport policies] should ensure that transportprojects seeking funding are gender responsive andsensitive.They should provide adequate resources forgathering and disseminating gender disaggregated dataand information to raise awareness about transportproblems and to support media projects to reachwomen. (Africa)

● Priority should be given to monitoring and evaluation;demonstrations; gender disaggregated information,data gathering and dissemination; and awarenessraising. (Africa)

Need to recognise women’s contribution

● Women’s full economic and social contribution toeach sector of the economy should be bothrecognised and documented. Estimates should be


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made of how much this could be enhanced bydeveloping gender responsive transport policies andprogrammes. (Asia)

Need for policies to promote a gender perspective andwomen’s involvement

● Review existing policies, laws and standards relating totransport from a gender perspective. (Asia)

● Establish a multi-sectoral policy forum to exchangeinformation and agree appropriate policies at thehighest level. (Asia)

● Socio-economic empowerment should be an integralpart of transport policies and should address genderinequalities in culture (Africa)

● Policies should promote adecentralised framework forplanning and implementationto encourage capacitybuilding among women;community ownershipthrough a participatoryplanning process andacquisition of skills. (Africa)

● Integrated ruraldevelopment and planningshould provide for resourcesto be made available forgender-responsive planningand implementation. (Africa)

Need for policies to promote appropriate transportinterventions

● Compare transport vs non-transport interventions asa way of improving women’s access to services andreducing women’s transport burdens. (Asia)

● Recognise the importance of non-motorised meansof transport as a transport option and provide policysupport for developing infrastructure and creditfacilities for them. (Asia)

● An enabling policy environment is essential forinclusion of incentives, finance and adequate access tocredit. (Africa)

● Integrated rural development and planning shouldincorporate community contributions; appropriatedesigns for rural transport infrastructure and facilities;environmentally sustainable transportinterventions.(Africa)

● Policies should promote labour-basedtechnologies/approaches for rural transportdevelopment. (Africa)

● Donor initiatives should fit within country policies andframeworks for rural development. (Africa)

● Policies should include transport regulations thatpromote the use of safe rural transportfacilities/modes of transport. (Africa)

● Governments should allocate resources to the ruraltransport sector and priority should be given to

capacity building. (Africa)● Specific resources, both financial and human, need to

be allocated for the maintenance of rural transportinfrastructure (footbridges, access roads, paths, tracks,culverts). (Africa)

Reaching the audienceIn both Asia and Africa participants developed strategiesto reach the different audiences with the differentmessages they had developed. In Asia, participantsdesigned communication guidelines to reach theseaudiences. In Africa, they broke into regional groups todesign strategies for delivery of the messages orguidelines to all three key target groups.

The Asian guidelines forcommunication to communitiesand community-basedorganisations were developedby tackling the problem from agender perspective rather thana transport one.They stressedthe role of community-basedorganisations and the need forthem to be more assertive inintegrating gender and ruraltransport issues into their work.Strategies included carrying outpilot projects, raising funds and

building capacity within the organisations to address theissues.The guidelines also emphasised the importance ofinformation sharing and the use of informalcommunication methods.

The guidelines for reaching transport practitionerstargeted ‘engineers’; a professional group who wereperceived to be mostly men, and included strategies tomake them more gender-sensitive.These strategiesranged from exerting peer group pressure and pressureby people higher up in the organisational hierarchy, toensuring that appropriate language is used in any gender-sensitisation communication. It included integratinggender awareness and gender planning into the curriculaof academic and training institutions, producing genderdisaggregated information and providing professionalengineers with gender planning training.

Communication strategies for reaching policymakerscentred around making alliances with a wide range ofactors, including donors and civil society and members ofthe policy-making institutions themselves, and developingappropriate ways of presenting information.The Asiaparticipants were also conscious that there were othergroups that have developed effective advocacy strategiesand that they ought to learn from them.

In Africa, the guidelines were developed by theregional groups and reflected the particularcharacteristics and interests of the region.The SouthAfrican group saw quotas and the government’s policy on


The challenge is to use theexperience, in formation and contactsgained to make a difference within

the community, among fellowpractitioners and among those policy

makers whose decisions affectwomen’s lives

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affirmative action as an opportunity to integrate genderissues into the planning and implementation of transportactivities.They also emphasised the need for relevantinformation, the need to change attitudes and the needto keep policies under constant review.The SouthernAfrica group comprising participants from Zimbabwe,Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique called for greaterintegration with other sectors and stressed the need forpolicy advocacy to come from all levels.The East Africanparticipants (from Uganda, Kenya Tanzania, Ethiopia andSudan) concentrated on strategies that would raiseawareness of gender and transport issues amongcommunities and transport practitioners.They consideredusing informal communication methods at the communitylevel. At the practitioner level they recognised the needto disseminate information of best practice and toenforce the consideration of gender in procedures and inmonitoring and evaluation.The francophone West Africangroup with representatives from Burkina Faso, Guineaand Côte d’Ivoire, felt that because of the low prioritygiven to rural transport in their countries, it was better toapproach the problem from a gender perspective ratherthan a transport one.The anglophone West Africa group(Nigeria and Ghana) also emphasised the need to workwith women’s organisations, the mass media and toimplement pilot projects.

The challenge for the futureThe Balancing the Load programme has generated anumber of exciting ideas about integrating gender intorural transport interventions.The issues discussed in thecase studies and at the seminars go beyond gender tochallenge how we work to eradicate poverty and bringabout a more equitable development.These proceedingsshould mark the beginning of change in the transportsector and in rural development, generally.

There are about a 150 people working in countries ofAsia,Africa, Europe and North America who participatedin the programme and who, by their participation, havemade an implicit commitment to take the ideas forward.The organisers hope to publish the full case studies byApril 2000.The World Bank Gender and TransportThematic Group hopes to build on the work of theBalancing the Load programme and are planning to hostan international seminar on gender and transport in early2000. But the real challenge to all those who participatedin the programme, both as researchers and workingguests at the two seminars, is to use the experience,information and contacts gained to make a differencewithin the community, among fellow practitioners, andamong those policy makers whose decisions affectwomen’s lives.

Priyanthi FernandoExecutive Secretary, IFRTD

Project Coordinator, Gender and Transport ProgrammeLondon

October 1999


1

Day One: Developing Guidelines forPractical Interventions

The seminar was officially opened by MrChandrasena Maliyadde,Additional Secretary,Ministry of Plan Implementation and

Parliamentary Affairs.The proposed structure of the seminar was

presented, and agreed.The participants divided up intothree groups as instructed, and spent the rest of the daydiscussing the issues coming out of the case studies, withparticular focus on the three case studies presented bythe authors who were present in each group. Each groupwas asked to brainstorm the issues, contribute theirexperiences and add any further issues which had beenmissed.They were then asked to prioritise the five issueswhich were most important for the audience they weretargeting and feed these back to the plenary on thefollowing day.

Group One: Guidelines for practicalintervention at the community levelThe issues arising out of three case studies which hadparticular importance for community-level interventionswere presented.These were ‘Accessing healthcare facilitiesin Sri Lanka’ by Dharshini Samaranayake and KusumKuruppu; ‘Transport data on Brgy, Caramay, Roxas, Provinceof Palawan, Philippines’ by Maureen Pagaduan and AnnaDizon; and ‘Transport issues in a cashew growing andprocessing community in Sri Lanka’ by Kusala Wettasingheand Upali Pannilage. Summaries of all case studies areincluded in the appendices.

Discussions prompted by the three presentations andissues arising out of the other case studies focusedaround a number of themes. One was around the needto raise women’s awareness of their own transportburdens, and of the options which exist to relieve theseburdens. In general it was stated that women are notconfident enough to identify possible solutions to theirproblems of access, and those working at a communitylevel should be careful to integrate strategies to increasewomen’s self-confidence and strengthen skills of analysis.

Another set of discussions focused around theappropriateness of transport devices. It was noted thateven where equipment such as IMTs (IntermediateMeans of Transport) are more appropriate to women’sneeds than other, more conventional forms of transportsuch as cars and buses, there are still limitations. Forexample, men don’t always recognise women’s need totransport goods.A number of case studies reinforced thepoint that technology is not gender-neutral, but thatgender awareness is a skill which has to be learned bythose working at a community level and support shouldbe given to strengthen such skills.The lack of transport

options for those living in particularly hilly places such asNepal was also raised.

The problems of trying to quantify ‘savings’ broughtabout by improved means of transport were raised. Itwas proposed that by trying to convert everything intonumbers, a distorted picture is being painted, for examplehow can the value of education be measured innumbers? Why isn’t an improved quality of life consideredsufficient reason to improve women’s transportation? Willfamilies who do not earn income as a result of improvedaccess be marginalised if the basic tool of cost-benefitanalysis is used? It was proposed that increasedhousehold or personal income should be a means to anend of improving the quality of life rather than the end initself.

Community organisations should be aware of theneed for two-way communication between local

Chapter One:‘Balancing the Load’ Asia, 24–25 June 1999

Chapter One:‘Balancing the Load’Asia, 24–25 June 1999

Six guidelines for practical intervention at thecommunity level were prioritised:

✦ Community organisations should allocate resourcesto collect and analyse information on genderrelationships and family dynamics (ie householddecision-making), prior to taking actions to meetgender and transport needs.

✦ Community participation and co-operativeapproaches should be actively sought in anytransport and infrastructure development project.Existing community and co-operative approachesshould be strengthened and new approachesdesigned where necessary.

✦ It is important to raise awareness within thecommunity, especially amongst women, on theirright to mobility and the way in which culturalpractices restrict this right.Also communities couldbe informed about alternative means of transport.

✦ Community organisations should identify culturally-appropriate transport modes, taking intoconsideration gender and location. Communitiesmay want to take into consideration alreadyavailable alternative modes of transport. Once theyhave decided on a suitable design this informationcan be shared with technology providers.

✦ All development initiatives should consider bothgender and transport needs. Communityorganisations should make a point of identifying andraising awareness about local people’s gender andtransport needs so that they are not ignored.

✦ Community Development organisations shouldlook at non-transport interventions that enhanceaccess to services, as a result reducing the need totravel long distances. If necessary relevant trainingand skills should be provided.

2

authorities (and other service providers) and thecommunity whose needs they are meant to meet.Community Based Organisations (CBOs) should supplyinformation required by the local authority (of thecommunity), and this might prompt the authorities toshare information which they have, with the communitiesand bring about the desired two-way communication.Theimportance of networking, and its increased effectivenessover one institution working individually with one other,was stressed.The importance also of using the media, andof using intermediaries to put the media in touch withsuccess stories, was stated. Conventional media tends tolook for crisis and sensation, but there does exist an‘alternative’ media which looks for stories about thehuman condition and its improvement (for example YATV in Asia). Stories about women and transport aremore likely to find a place in these alternative media.

Group Two: Guidelines for TransportPractitionersThe group began by defining all the sorts of people whocould be included in the title Transport Practitioners:

● Civil and Transport engineers● Transport planners at sub-regional levels● Researchers● Manufacturers and

producers of transport aids● Transport sociologists and

economists● People responsible for the

construction ofinfrastructure

● Bus/freight and othertransport operators

● Transport user associations and committees● National forum groups● Transport unions● Transport regulators● Specialist transport journalists● Gender specialists

These people operate at various levels within theirrespective institutions and include managers in bothpublic and private institutions.

Issues of importance to practitioners were presented,with particular focus on three case studies: Cycling into theFuture about the introduction of women to bicycles inTamil Nadu, India by Nitya Rao; From dawn to dusk:transportation of rural women to and from CalcuttaMetropolis, presented by Mahua Mukherjee, and Transportneeds of the women of the Santhal Parganas, Bihar, India,presented by Nitya Rao.

A discussion ensued in which it was noted thatwomen have special responsibility for the transportationof sick people to and from hospitals and bicycles wereused for this. It was noted that the current man’s bicycle

design is not comfortable for carrying passengers, nor is itparticularly safe for more than one person to ride.Interventions from practitioners were welcomed in theform of more appropriate designs such as locks, andimprovement to the tracks and infrastructure along whichthe bikes travel. Practitioners need to understand theunique role of the bicycle and its usefulness to women.The need to popularise the use of bicycles wasexpressed, along with the need for practitioners to lobbypolicymakers with evidence of this successful use ofbicycles in order to create a more enabling environmentfor this appropriate transport intervention. Bicycles needto be integrated into other sectors because it provides asolution to other problems such as access to health andwater services.

It was agreed that there is a general lack of gender-awareness in the transport sector.The group said that thiscould be partly remedied by a campaign to make alllevels of people involved in transport provision (at thecommunity, practitioner and policy level) more aware ofthe gender dimension of transport provision. It wouldalso be useful for practitioners and others to produce ordemand more contextual information which wouldidentify the nature of the problems (for example,consider who are the stakeholders, disaggregate gendertasks and corresponding transport needs; investigate

family dynamics; and exploreroot causes of transportdeficiencies).

One participant said thatthere is a need to quantify data,and that data isn’t always gendersegregated.There was adiscussion about what quantifymeans in this instance, and

disagreement about whether this was an appropriate toolin gaining insight into women’s particular needs foraccess.Accessibility Indices were mentioned in trying tojudge whose transport needs were highest, and someparticipants felt that gender was missing from thismethodology. Others who said that there is a way toincorporate a gender perspective into this calculationagreed that it wasn’t always understood or used.

There was some discussion around how practitionerscan influence the policy environment in which they work.It was agreed that quantitative evidence was more likelyto ‘make the case’ than other more qualitativeinformation. Quantifying the work of women is useful notonly for practitioners but for the women and men at acommunity level, who are sometimes surprised by justhow many tasks are carried out by women.And itdoesn’t have to be a difficult or complicated assessment:just counting the number of tasks done by a women in atypical day is enough to make the point about hercontribution.There needs to be an enabling environmentwhich empowers women and gives them a voice andshows others and themselves that they are capable of


It is important to use the media andto use intermediaries to put the

media in touch with success stories

3

undertaking technical and management tasks as well asmen.An example from Nepal illustrated how a projectovercame the problem of women not volunteeringthemselves or their views on transport: they employedwhat they called a ‘critical mass’ of women professionalswho gained the confidence and trust of the villagewomen and thereby increased their participation in theproject design.The appropriateness of this methodologywould vary in different countries, because of differingsocial and culturalcircumstances.A number of keyfeatures of an advocacy strategywere identified. First, it isimportant to focus on one ortwo major issues and repeatthem until they have beenabsorbed by the targetaudience. Second, you shoulduse the language of youraudience: that is craft the sameinstruction in many differentways so that the people you’re talking to can understandyou easily and absorb the content of your message.Third,to remember that the media is an important advocacytool.

It was proposed that sometimes, what appears to bea transport problem (such as in Calcutta where women

have to travel long hours on inadequate transport) isreally a symptom of a larger problem (women travel tothe city of Calcutta because of lack of economicopportunities in the rural areas around it, and because ofhigh prices charged in local markets). Once this correctanalysis is made, suitable interventions can be designed(such as bringing a collective method of marketing to therural areas outside of Calcutta in this example).Thisillustrates the need for synergy across sectors such as

transport, energy, water, micro-enterprise etc.

Practitioners should beadvocates of their own advice:ie that they should practicewhat they preach or learn fromwhat they find in their genderresearch, for example, andincorporate it into the way theywork.There is a need forinteraction between the threegroups of policy, practitioner

and community to make effective gender-sensitiveinterventions in transport.The example of womenmaintaining their local roads was given, where womenhave been given basic skills training and support fromlocal institutions and have gained control over thetransport. Practitioners need to be able to accesssophisticated gender analysis before seeking to engage fullparticipation of women in transport issues.

Group Three: Guidelines for policymakersIssues of note for policymakers were presented, withparticular attention to three case studies Spatial mobilityand women’s empowerment: implications for developing ruraltransport in Bangladesh, by Neela Matin and MahjabeenChoudhary; My daily odyssey: transportation in the lives ofSEWA Bank’s clients, by Sangita Shrestova and RekhaBarve; and Gender and Transport in Nepal, by GaneshGhimire.

Initial discussion concentrated on the case studies.Thedifferent patterns of transport ownership in each of thethree countries was highlighted, along with differences inthe way that men recognise women’s transportresponsibilities and difficulties, compared with women’sunderstanding of men’s transport needs.

Some of the problems of incorporating a genderdimension into transport policies were covered indiscussion.The importance of any guidelines ‘taking amellow tone’ was stressed, so that the policymakers don’treject them outright.The group was reminded that evenwhen the gender dimension is included in policies, theactual implementation of these policies doesn’t alwayssolve women’s problems of access for various reasons.For example, in Bombay, special trains and buses forwomen are provided, but there is no provision for the


Five priority guidelines for practical interventionby Transport Practicioners were identified as

follows:

● Practitioners should generate and use qualitativeand quantitative, gender-disaggregated informationto provide analytical evidence to policymakerswhen designing transport interventions.

● Problems of accessibility are not necessarily solvedby transport interventions.Therefore practitionersshould ensure that their work is cross-sectoral.

● Maintenance of infrastructure is particularly crucialto women’s accessibility. Practitioners shouldactively involve both women and men in themaintenance and delegate the control over thisprocess where appropriate. (And should be awarethat in some countries, there may be social andcultural reasons why women cannot easily beinvolved in these tasks).

● There is a need for advocacy strategies at all levelsof gender and transport interventions (ie policy,practitioner, community) which are currently largelygender-blind.

● Transport interventions need to respond directly tothe needs of women. Often women are more likelyto discuss freely their problems and transportaspirations with other women and thereforewomen should be used in gaining their views.

Quantifying the work of women isuseful not only for practitioners but

for the women and men at acommunity level who are sometimessurprised by just how many tasks are

carried out by women

4

goods that women carry on them. It was argued thatwomen’s need for transportation is more complicatedthan men’s because the men simply go to work andcome back and so provision of transport to meet theirneeds is easy. Policymakers lack awareness of the differentneeds of the people (for example they tend to overlookwomen’s economiccontributions and therefore failto provide transportation whichwould enable the women toeasily fulfil their responsibilities).Policymakers, it was proposed,are only really interested inproviding transport, rather thangender-appropriate transport,and it is therefore up to thoseimplementing the policies tomake them benefit women.

The group talked about some of the reasons whypolicymakers are detached from the reality of people’stransport needs (for example, policy decisions are madeby the politicians, but NGOs are working with thebureaucrats and that’s why there is a communication gap;also, women are ‘late inclusions’ into the whole transportdebate and as a result their needs are not recognised;current policies are made by urban-based policymakerswho do not understand well the situation in rural areasetc.) It was suggested that it takes years for enlightenedpolicies to bring concrete benefits ‘on the ground’ andtherefore people should be patient and not raise

expectations even when they see gender becoming aserious consideration in the paperwork.The distinctionbetween the work of planners and policymakers wasdiscussed, and it was proposed that planners should dothe research and policymakers do the policymaking.

There was debate about the various policy optionswhich exist for funding transport(eg the customer pays andprovides profit for theoperator). Mention was made ofthe different ‘safety nets’ whichexist to ensure that those whocannot afford to travel are givensubsidised access to basic healthand education.

It was recommended thatgender-sensitive monitoring andevaluation systems should be

included at all levels of policymaking, and the impact ofpolicies should be investigated.A researcher said thatthere was no information in Ahmedabad about thenumbers of women who pull handcarts and there is ageneral need for more information about these patterns.Someone said that the whole concept of transportationfor students slips between the two sectors of educationand transport but in Sri Lanka this is covered by theEducation Ministry. Research is needed to investigate thelink between access and levels of education of womenand transport provision. Having women amongpolicymakers is not enough to ensure that gender needsare incorporated, but rather awareness needs to beraised among all policymakers.


Guidelines for practical intervention at the policylevel

● All the agencies dealing with the subject oftransport should collect and analyze gender-disaggregated data in formulating plans and policies,and develop gender-sensitive monitoring andevaluation.

● Review existing policies, laws and standards relatingto transport from a gender perspective.

● Recognize and document women’s full economicand social contribution to each sector of theeconomy and estimate how much this could beenhanced by developing gender responsivetransport policies and programmes.

● Recognize the importance of non-motorizedmeans of transport as a transport option andprovide a policy support for developinginfrastructure and credit facilities for them.

● Compare transport vs. non-transport interventionsas a way of improving women’s access to servicesand reducing women’s transport burdens.

● Establish a multi-sectoral policy forum to exchangeinformation and agree appropriate policies at thehighest level.

Practitioners should be advocatesof their own advice: they shouldpractice what they preach, learn

from what they find in their genderresearch and incorporate it into

the way they work

5

Day Two: identifying messages andstrategies for deliveryThe guidelines were presented at plenary by each of thethree groups. Questions of clarification were taken andcomments followed.The themes which were common toat least two of the groups were as follows:

● Existing research methodologies should be improvedor new ones introduced so that the right sort ofinformation is generated which tells each of the threegroups about women’s needs, capacities andexperiences in appropriate transport interventions;

● Women should be given the space to actively andeffectively participate insolving their own problemsof accessibility;

● We should be raisingawareness about transportoptions, about transportrights and about thetransport needs of womenin particular ;

● Gender and transport interventions should be moreintegrated, and ‘Gender and Transport’ interventionsshould be more integrated with other ‘sector’interventions such as health, education etc.

● Transport problems are not necessarily solved bytransport solutions;

● Each of the three groups (policymakers, practitionersand community organisations) should be generatingmore information about appropriate transportoptions, as well as information about the range andsuccess of current and past transport options.

The progress of the previous day was summarised, andthe tasks for the second day outlined. Specifically, theorganisers had divided up the participants into threegroups according to their profession (eg policymakerswere asked to join the ‘policymakers’ group; thoseworking with communities to join the ‘communityorganisations’ group etc).Two objectives were set foreach of the groups: first, to build up a profile of theinformation needs of policymakers, transportpractitioners and community organisations and second, todesign a strategy for reaching these audiences with oneof the guidelines developed on the first day of theseminar.

To meet the first objective, participants were dividedup into three groups and asked to brainstorm for twohours to build up a picture of the information needs andconstraints of their respective audience.They were givena set of questions to assist them in this task.

● What sort of information do you need to do yourjob (or a specific, typical task within your job, egdeveloping a policy, designing a transport interventionwithin a project, mobilising a community to upgrade apath etc.)?

● When do you need this information?● Where do you look for this information (the source

of information for example the author?);● How would this information best reach you (eg By

telephone? By Internet? In a publication? On the radioetc.)

● How often do you need this information?● Under what constraints do you operate (ie what

practical problems do you have in undertaking thesetasks)?

Each group tackled this exercise using differentmethodologies: some broke up into smaller groups withcommon languages and shared their answers in a ‘mini-

plenary’; others chose aparticipant who was actually apolicymaker (or transportpractitioner etc.) and quizzedthe individual about their needfor information and why currentinformation provision isinadequate for making gender-sensitive transport decisions.

Each group used the information profiles to feed into theafternoon’s session about designing appropriate strategiesfor reaching development professionals.

Group One: Reaching CommunityOrganisationsThe group made up of people working at the communitylevel presented a list of recommendations which they feltwould bring about better, and more gender-awaretransport interventions.The list incorporated elements ofthe guidelines developed by the previous day’s group, andpointed towards a strategy for their effectivedissemination. Each point was directed at others workingat a community level, even though some of them hadimplications for transport practitioners and policymakerstoo.

Community based organisations should

● Be willing to share information generated andidentified in their work;

● Carry out pilot projects to assess impact of Genderand Transport interventions and to monitor and re-orient projects if necessary;

● Use the credibility of their organisation to accessfunds for Gender and Transport projects;

● Build capacity of a group of people within Communitybased organisations to meet Gender and Transportneeds;

● Improve community based organisations’ capacity toaccess, analyse and systematically use data for effectiveproject implementation;

● Network with other NGOs which have negotiationskills or equipment;

● Recognise that information shared is positive, whether


Gender sensitive monitoring andevaluation systems should be

included at all levels of policymaking

6

within or outside the organisation;● Ensure that there exists a systematic way to regularly

share information among project staff;● Encourage appropriate communication methods

which need not be formal eg photos, illustrations,local forms of communication, community songs, skits,sharing personal experiences;

● Invite external resource people to share theirexperiences;

● Expose people to reading habit consciously;● Assign staff to make presentations to outside

organisations to acquire and share knowledge;● Develop skills to articulate acquired experiences.● Make policymakers talk in the language of the

beneficiaries.

Group Two: Reaching TransportPractitionersThe group presented their strategy for reaching similarpractitioners with the issue ‘Practitioners should generateand use qualitative and quantitative, gender disaggregatedinformation to provide analytical evidence topolicymakers when designing transport interventions.’

● Convince the planners and managers and they willconvince the engineers;

● Lobby policymakers who issue instructions toengineers;

● Ensure that information that is regularly used byengineers is broken down into men and women’sneeds;

● Speak ‘in the language’ of the engineer if you want toeffectively communicate;

● Get gender-sensitive information into the engineeringsubjects and institutions of learning if you want toinfluence future engineers;

● Methods of analysis commonly used should be gendersensitive;

● Lobby researchers and producers of information usedby engineers to make it reflect men and women’sneeds separately;

● Write stories about successful women’s participationin transport in professional journals;

● Influence the agenda of professional meetings tohighlight the Gender and Transport approach;

● Analyse how the environmentalists mainstreamedenvironmental issues in development, and copy theirsuccesses:

● Include gender-dissaggregated information in thesocial impact assessments which are done as part ofcost-benefit analysis;

● Introduce and enforce gender-planning training toengineers;

● Encourage/stimulate engineering research andpublication – showing the value of incorporatinggender disaggregated information into engineeringwork;

● Encourage (with incentives) more men to getinvolved in gender issues.

Group Three: Reaching PolicymakersThe group presented a strategy for reaching the Ministryof Transport and other relevant agencies with the issue‘To influence them to recognise and document women’sfull economic and social contribution to each sector ofthe economy and estimate how much this could beenhanced by developing gender responsive transportpolicies and programmes.’

● Collate data from existing sources and present in anappropriate form, remembering to highlight thetransport component in different sectors.Whilecollating data, identify partners from other influentialagencies that can collaborate on the advocacystrategy, including personnel from the TransportMinistry itself;

● Produce material (eg video) to be used in creating anawareness of gender and transport issues among keyofficials in the Ministry;

● Influence other agencies such as those in policymakingor communication/information by organising ameeting and generating publicity (eg pressconference);

● Mobilise donor support for pilot intervention;● Mobilise civil society organisations and other

stakeholders to advocate for recognition of women’seconomic contribution;

● Monitor strategy and continually reinforce strategy.Look at other effective lobbying/advocacy strategiesdone by other groups eg sustainable developmentgroups and see how to adapt some of these ongender and transport.

The facilitator highlighted some of the recurring themesin the presentations, such as the need to constantlydocument women’s positive interventions andachievements in the transport sector for dissemination;and the need to recognise the interdependency of thethree levels of community, practitioner, and policymakerand the information needs of each one. PriyanthiFernando, as Executive Secretary of IFRTD, thanked theparticipants for their interest and attendance and pledgedthe Forum’s continuing support for further integration ofgender into rural transport work.The seminar was thenofficially declared closed.


7

Day One: Status report and developingguidelines for practical interventionMac Mashiri, on behalf of the Centre for Scientific andIndustrial Research (CSIR), the host institution for theseminar in South Africa and Convenor of the South

African Forum Group, welcomed all 87 participants tothe seminar.

He described something of the background to theseminar and introduced Ms Joyce Seroke, Chair of theCommission on Gender Equality (CGE), to formally openthe seminar.

Chapter Two:‘Balancing the Load’Africa, 15–16 July 1999

Chapter Two:‘Balancing the Load’ Africa, 15–16 July 1999

Chief Guest’s opening speech

On behalf of the Commission on GenderEquality (CGE), I thank-you for the invitationto speak at the opening of what I am sure is

going to be a rigorous seminar on Gender and RuralTransport. I know that these two days will bechallenging because the GCE has been dealing with theissues of gender equality since 1997, and we still findthe path an uphill struggle, so I applaud you. I especiallycommend the organisers of this seminar for taking theinitiative to promote the issue of gender equalitythrough seminars like this one. It is not easy we know,but the cause is a worthy one so I urge you topersevere.

As background information I’d like to provide thisaudience with some information about the CGE andthe constitutional framework within which it functions.The Commission on Gender Equality is anindependent, statutory body created in terms of theConstitution and is one of a number of structures thatfreedom-loving South African women and men foughtfor, in order to promote and protect gender equality, aspart of the pursuit of social justice and democracy.Thelocation of the Commission within the Constitutionmakes it unique in many ways – it is the onlyindependent body world-wide that is solely devoted toadvancing gender equality.

The Commission’s functions are set out in itsenabling legislation, the Commission on GenderEquality Act,Act 39 of 1996. One of the Commission’skey functions is the monitoring of all aspects of society,including government and the private sector.The Actspecifically mandates the Commission to evaluate alllaws – those already in existence, indigenous andcustomary systems of law and draft legislation – toensure that they measure up to the Constitutionalstandard of equality.The Commission may makerecommendations to Parliament in the event oflegislation not adequately incorporating these values.The Act clearly articulates the need for theCommission to play an active role in rigorouslyreviewing all legislation to ensure that all the laws ofSouth Africa protect and empower women.

The CGE has committed itself to creating a societyfree from gender discrimination, and all other forms of

oppression, in which all people will have theopportunity and the means to realise their fullpotential, regardless of race, gender, class, religion,sexual orientation, disability or geographic location. Infulfilling this mandate, the Commission will workclosely with Parliament to ensure that the strongestpossible gender provisions are included in all relevantlegislation.

In your discussions on gender equality and ruraltransportation, you will focus your attention on thetransportation requirements and problems of ruralareas.These are some of the questions you will beasking yourselves:What types of journeys do peoplemake? Why do they make them? How do they makethem? What types of goods do they move? What arethe costs of journeys undertaken in terms of time,efforts, money, opportunities foregone? What are thecosts of limitations on mobility in terms of losses ofincome or in lack of access to health and educationfacilities? What types of opportunities would aparticular transport intervention provide?

A gender perspective on rural transportation hastwo major aspects:

● Identifying differences in the socio-economicpositions and resources of women and men, andensuring that transport interventions provideopportunities and benefits that meet the need ofwomen as well as those of men.

● Identifying opportunities to reduce genderinequalities and to move to more equal genderrelationships.

I am glad to see from your presence here, that youtake the issue of gender equality seriously. If ourexperience at the CGE is anything to go by, this is notgoing to be an easy journey.The CGE relies heavily onits partners and on those who share a vision ofequality.When you return to your own organisations, Iask that you give life to the discussions and plansformulated during this seminar. Let us all work tomanifest and better this example in all the sectors ofour continent.

With these few words, I declare this seminar open. Ithank you.

8

Following the opening speaker the aims andobjectives of the Balancing the Load research projectwere explained and the the proposed structure for thefollowing two days, linking it to the seminar’s objectiveswas presented.A team of three researchers thenpresented a combined oral and visual picture of thestatus of gender and rural transport in sub-SaharanAfrica, as built up by the 16 case studies.The picturewhich they painted was intended to remind people ofthe diversity of transport problems which are currentlyexperienced by men and women, and therefore toprovide a common background for the discussions whichwere to follow.

Dr Charles Kaira began by stating that the task ofbalancing the transport load should be achieved notthrough confrontation, but through sharing andunderstanding.The main factors that influence thedistribution of this load are gender roles, culture, religionand access to opportunities (social, economic andempowering). He said that when we discuss the issue ofBalancing the Load, we should remember that we areseeking a balance of time (time budgets/savings); effort(transport aid vehicle/means); and burden (transport aidvehicle/means/time and health).

Dr Pascal Kaumbotho presented a set of slides whichdepicted some of the problems identified through theresearch, such as broken bridges, unkempt roads andpathways, difficult terrain, overcrowded buses etc.Theslides also showed some of the innovative solutionswhich the men and women of Africa have made to partlysolve these transport problems.

Josephine Mwankusye went on to present the keyfacts which currently inhibit women’s access in particular,and men’s, to adequate transport systems.These factswere categorised as those relevant at the communitylevel; at the practitioner level; and at the level wherepolicies are designed and implemented.

At the community level

● Cultural systems determine what men and womencan do, or cannot do, particularly influencingownership over the means of transport and use oftransport devices;

● Social systems have particular influence over women’saccessibility;

● Ownership and transport operations are mainlycontrolled by men;

● Community involvement in planning, implementationand monitoring of transport interventions is lacking;

● Community organisations have high potential but insome places they suffer from lack of control overresources.

At the level of transport practitioners

● The topography can cause serious constraints to theuse of intermediate means of transport (IMTs), andeven on maintenance of roads and footpaths;

● Safety issues are serious limitations to widespread useof IMTs, particularly among women;

● Time can be a constraint on women startingempowering projects: women’s inputs are increasedwith more productive use of the time saved;

● The use of IMTs is associated with economic gain.

At the level of policy makers

● Gender policies and institutional frameworks whichsupport appropriate, gender-friendly interventions arelacking;

● Lack of resources and support to the communityaffect the development of community initiatives;

● Sometimes priorities are misplaced or misdirected;● Facilities are often badly sited, far away from the users.

Developing ‘guidelines for practical intervention’ in groups

Participants divided up into groups, as instructed, andspent the remainder of the first day in these groupdiscussions. Each group heard presentations from two orthree researchers with examples of specific interventionsaimed at improving access in rural parts of Africa. Spacewas given for others in the group to share their ownexperiences, and each group was asked to prioritise fiveissues which they considered to be most important fortheir particular audience (eg policymaker).Wherepossible, the groups crafted these key issues intomessages appropriate to their particular audience andprepared presentations for delivery to the plenary thefollowing morning.

Group One: Users/CommunityorganisationsTwo ‘intervention case study’ presentations were made;Impact of bicycle/motorcycle taxi services – boda-boda – onwomen’s travel needs in Uganda, by Harriet Iga, and Theimpact of feeder roads in Jebel Si Rural Council area on foodsecurity by Suad Mustafa Elhaj Musa (Sudan), andquestions invited. In response to the Sudanese case studyabout feeder roads, one participant pointed out thatpaths and tracks are often even more important towomen who travel within communities as much if notmore than between them. For such routeways, donkeysare a valuable alternative means of transportingmarketable produce and doing household tasks forwomen.

The situation where communities establish a road andlorries and trucks come to use it but pay money to thelocal authorities for permission, was raised.The localauthorities don’t use the money to re-invest in thetransport infrastructure which means that the road wearsaway very quickly and the community have to face theburden and costs of its maintenance.The need for genderplanning training at this local level was raised.

The issue of ownership over a transportintervention, whether infrastructural or a device, was


9

introduced as crucial to the sustainability of theintervention. Labour based technologies, for exampleinvolving the community in the construction andmaintenance of a road, was suggested as a good way ofincreasing the community’s ownership and commitmentto the road as well as creating employment and incomepotentially during the non-harvest season.Women’sparticipation is crucial to building appropriateinterventions.

The issues arising out of the researchers’ case studieswere presented.The influence of cultural traits was re-emphasised and stress was made of the need tounderstand the nature of these in order to craftappropriate transport interventions.A multi-sectoralapproach was promoted, stressing that problems ofaccess don’t necessarily need a transport solution, butthat solutions should begin with the access needs ofwomen.The problem of roads passing through severalcommunities was raised, where inclusion of usersbecomes complicated, but it was agreed that bothgovernment and NGOs should support spontaneouscommunity initiatives, and involve them particularly in theproblem identification stage of the process.

Criticism was made of NGOs which go into acommunity with pre-conceived ideas of what sort of‘development’ they want tofacilitate (for example thosewith Transport Programmeswanting to pursue this solutionto any identified problem). Inthis case, it was suggested thatlooking to facilitate solutions ofbetter access would be betterthan simply providing transportoptions. It is important torecognise and respect existingcultures and taboos in anyimplementation project andwhere this is ignored there can be dramatic results.Theexample of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project wascited, where people were displaced to make way for areservoir which they felt was going to benefit the peopleof South Africa rather than local people.There was greatopposition to the scheme and when a crack developed inthe dam wall, this was interpreted as punishment for theproject not respecting ancient burial grounds and thewishes of the people.

The issue of capacity building at all levels of thecommunity and the institutions which work with themsuch as local government, traditional structures, civicinstitutions etc. was explored.The capacity buildingprogramme being conducted in three pilot areas by theAssociation of Rural and District Councils in Zimbabwewas suggested as a good model for this work withcommunities.Work in South Africa includes that doneunder the Public Works and Health Programmes whichbegin with PRAs at the community level with the

objective of being able to analyse problems and identifysolutions without outside intervention.The fact thatwomen are far behind men in terms of access, status,resources, confidence, was stated as reason for there tobe positive discrimination in all capacity building workwith communities.

In Uganda, work is going on to spend time withwomen at the very early stages of both government anddonor-funded projects in order to raise their skills andlevels of confidence to a stage where they feelcomfortable to speak in public at community meetings.Quotas are set in Uganda for minimum numbers ofwomen to be in attendance at community meetings toensure that their views are heard and their needsincorporated in any development planning. Capacitybuilding at all levels should be undertaken in the contextof providing practical project support and imparting skillsrather than teaching theories which aren’t easilyabsorbed.The need to separate men and women whenthey are being first approached to identify needs andproblems, was raised as a way of making sure that thewomen’s voices are heard.Where this has been done, ithas resulted in women not being afraid to speak out andtell the truth about their concerns and desires.

Someone said that the most important strategy wasone of getting womenthemselves to stop acceptingtheir transport burden as ‘oneof those things’, but to activelyreject the hardship and seek andwork for alternative time andlabour saving options. Men alsoshould be sensitised to theimbalance of women’s burdensand encouraged to supportinitiatives to relieve theseburdens.

It was suggested that inSouth Africa very few women are Rural and Districtcouncillors and that the issue of gender training andraising awareness is particularly difficult. Otherparticipants agreed that the type of government incontrol influences heavily the access that women have todecision-making structures. In particular, there areproblems where community structures are particularly‘politicised’ such as in parts of South Africa. Oneparticipant from Kenya advised that it is good advice to‘depoliticise the project but politicise the cause’, meaningthat sometimes it is useful to be able to promote thedevelopment cause through existing political structureswhich might find it in their interests to take up the causeand lobby on its behalf.The need to involve governmentstructures at an early stage is important however,because government structures remain when NGOs andoutside institutions move on.The proposal of includingother ‘stakeholders’ such as manufacturers of transportdevices, government and non-government agencies


The most important strategy isgetting women themselves to stopaccepting their transport burden as‘one of those things’ and to activelyseek and work for alternative time

and labour-saving options

10

involved in the sector and businesses in the managementand implementation of any project was felt likely toincrease the chances of any interventions beingappropriate.

The issue of safety was raised in connection with theBoda Boda case study from Uganda.

The group nominated a handful of people to preparetheir presentation, and to share their key findings withother participants the following morning. It was agreed to‘cluster’ a range of key issues under five broad headingsrather than present only five priority issues, because thegroup thought all of them equally important.In plenary discussion, one participant said that if thecommunity feels that they are part of the intervention,they are more willing and able to provide the materials.Naturally occurring community groups are moresustainable and more able to mobilise resources thangroups which are created specifically for the purpose ofintroducing a development initiative.

Another participant said that capacity building shouldexplicitly seek to build women’s leadership skills. Aquestion was asked about what steps can the communitytake to balance the load without adding to the already

existing burdens and responsibilities of the woman?Someone from the group answered that women shouldbe involved with problem identification right from thevery beginning, and in that way they would be able tochoose to be involved with problem solvinginterventions.Another participant said that it might benecessary to accept short-term disbenefits (for examplemore time spent at committees and general involvementin the transport intervention) for long-term benefit(sustainable systems for maintaining paths and tracks andbuilding new roads).

Group Two: Guidelines for TransportPractitionersThe group began by brainstorming the types of peoplewho would be part of the audience of transportpractitioners.● Engineers – contracting and consulting● Development planners● Non-policy staff and those involved in implementation

in government agencies at regional, district and locallevels.

Issues for Users/Community Organisations

Gender planning

● Integrate gender planning at all levels;● Change the attitude of both men and women to

gender imbalances in carrying the load (women aswell as men accept the load as a natural part of theirrole within the family);

● Disaggregate data gathered during research to showthat the transport needs and burdens of womendiffer from men and transport interventions need toreflect these differences.

Access and ownership

● Introduce economic activities for women alongsideany project aiming to increase transport ownership(without economic opportunities, most womenwould not be able to afford the cost of improvedtransport);

● Women have to be mobilised and organised into co-operatives to lobby the concerned institutions foraccess to credit and support;

● Access to rural transport services helps in balancingthe load, and thus should be supported by local andnational governments, NGOs and the private sector.

Capacity building

● Build community capacity, and in particular thecapacity of women, to enable them to participate inproblem identification and analysis; programmeplanning and execution; and programme monitoring

and evaluation.The dilemmas of following thisstrategy include increasing women’s responsibilities(for example by getting them involved in the time-consuming task of participating in committees whichempowers them but adds to their workload).

● Identify community organisations and institutionsconcerned with transport intervention for thepurpose of capacity building.

Appropriateness

● It is essential that intermediate means of transportare developed to complement existing means oftransport used by women;

● Transport interventions should be exchangedbetween south-south communities;

● Technical support should start with peoples’(women’s) own innovations and seek to strengthenthem appropriately;

● Rural infrastructure and transport service providersand users should be made aware about safety issuesand develop safety procedures.

Policy environment

● Government should create a gender-sensitive andenabling environment for provision of basic serviceswith special reference to transport interventions;

● Management structures which include manufacturersof transport devices, transport planners and localpolicy makers are more likely to lead to appropriatetransport interventions for women;

● Development agencies should be lobbied to developa multi-sectoral approach to transport interventions.


11

● Manufacturers of transport equipment● Transport operators● Transport equipment support service providers● Researchers and educators● Transport economists● Development banks● Co-ordinating agencies and networks● NGOs

The group discussed the issues arising from three of the‘intervention’ case studies thatwere presented: GenderResponsive Planning in Uganda,by Charles Kaira,The impact ofIntermediate Means of Transporton the allocation of the transportburden, by Dorris Chingozho(Zimbabwe), and The NkoneRiver Bridge and its impact ontravel and marketing activities ofthe Karia Community, MeruDistrict, Kenya, by PascalKaumbutho.

The discussion focused on key sets of issues.The firstset of issues related to government and communityroles in transport interventions.The group discussed the‘absence’ of government and government’s inability tomeet the priorities of local communities – such as in thecase of Nkone Bridge case study in Kenya, where thecommunity identified the need to repair the bridge butreceived no support from the government to do so.Thisled to a discussion on the importance of communityinvolvement in transport planning and in implementinginterventions. Participants suggested the need forcommunity integrated development as well as the needin some circumstances for the community to take theinitiative to mobilise their own resources and to carry outactivities independently of government on a self-helpbasis. Some members of the group felt that it wasimportant not to allow governments to neglectdisadvantaged communities.The group recognised thatcommunity involvement did not necessarily imply theinvolvement of women.Transport practitioners shouldhelp communities with capacity building, and at the sametime ensure representation of women.This would alsosometimes require efforts to raiseawarenessconscientization of women.

Consideration of the role of government also led to adiscussion on decentralisation.The group recognised thatdecentralisation could lead to community participationand representation of gender needs provided it wasaccompanied by ‘good government’. Effectivedecentralisation involved decentralisation of management,finances and technical capacity.

A second set of issues related to the analysis,monitoring and evaluation of transport interventions. Itwas agreed that any analysis should take into account

what happens at the household level.What happens atthe household level is strongly influenced by the culturalcontext. It was important to recognise that this culturalcontext could change. It could be influenced by theproject in the long term. It could also impede the successof a project and the accurate analysis of gender relationsat the household level. For instance it was not oftenpossible to understand the household dynamics incultures where women are in seclusion, or when men’sinfluence (either by being present or through fear of

coercion) is strong on womenbeing interviewed.

Most transportinterventions, such as roadprojects, are evaluated only ineconomic terms. It is importantto analyse the social as well aseconomic impact, includinggender and to ensure thatinterventions are equitable andappropriate.This integrated and

multidisciplinary approach to rural transportinfrastructure and transport projects should bemandatory.Transport practitioners were encouraged towork with social analysts in designing interventions and totake into account methodologies that have been usedoutside of the transport sector. It was also consideredimportant to take into account the net benefit ofinterventions: to analyse the gender differences in trip

Issues for Transport Practioners

● Practitioners should involve the community in allstages of rural development: planning andmanagement. Recognition should be given to thefact that communities are not homogenous, andthat women’s voices are often not heard and theyare also not all the same.

● Planners need to understand the socio-economicrealities and needs of women’s lives in ruralcommunities. Engineers and economists must workwith social analysts in designing transportinterventions using experiences drawn from thenon-transport sectors.

● An integrated approach to rural transport servicesand infrastructure must take account of the culturalcontext and must be equitable and appropriate tothe needs of women.

● There is need for gender responsive planning(monitoring and evaluation) to provide feedback topolicy makers and other transport practitionersand to communities.This requires effectivemonitoring and evaluation tools and disseminationof good practice.

● Resource mobilisation and allocation to genderneeds must be recognised as a priority.


Naturally occurring groups are moresustainable and more able to mobilise

resources than groups which arecreated specifically for introducing a

development initiative

12

frequencies and purpose and to look at the implicationsfor non-transport interventions.The group alsorecognised that women are not a homogenous group.

Participants stressed the importance of sharing anddisseminating information on successful interventions,especially of feeding back the information to policymakers, other transport practitioners and communities.

A third set of issues related to the need forpractitioners to be aware of the existing legal and policyframework. Interventions should be consistent with andbuild from the legal and policy framework.

A fourth set of issues related to the access womenand men in rural communities have to finance.Thegroup felt that practitioners should consider the realitiesthat rural women and men face and facilitatecommunities to mobilise resources. Several examples ofgroup credit schemes etc. were cited.The importance oftargeting women was stressed and the example of awoman’s bank in Burkina Faso was considered as onesuch option. It was important that transport innovationsshould be innovative and low cost so that they canbenefit women (who often have less access to finances).In plenary discussion, it was suggested that corruptionmust be tackled by a strategy of promoting goodgovernance at all levels, and capacity needs to be built upat the local level.When considering resources needed foreffective interventions, a broad definition of ‘resources’should be used which includes community knowledge.

It was recommended that the transport sector shouldlearn from other, more gender-sensitive sectors such aswater and sanitation, and should look to genderspecialists and social scientists for techniques whichincorporate the needs of women from the outset.Theneed to sensitise district engineers, particularly wherethere are community road projects, was highlighted andthe case of Uganda was used as an example of wherethis had happened successfully. One of the keys toeffective integration of engineers and sociologists within aproject was to focus on the objectives of the project andthen to look at the relative contributions to be made byeach professional.

More general discussion focused on the need to haveexplicit rural transport policies in all countries; to ensurethat road agencies have a gender-balanced staff andstaffing policy; to introduce affirmative action as a way ofincreasing women’s participation in projects; and toconsider road users’ contributions to financing ruraldevelopment alongside the government’s contributions.

Group Three: Guidelines forpolicymakersThe group looked at the transport problems arising outof the case studies from Tanzania and Nigeria: Ruraltransport interventions in Tanzania: are they reachingwomen? by Josephine Mwankusye and The impact of roadrehabilitation on transport and accessibility in rural Soba

District of Kaduna State, by E.M. Shaibu Imodagbe.Threecategories of transport constraints emerged: mobility,provision of transport services and planning.The genderdimensions of these problems were also highlighted toform the basis for developing guidelines for policy

Issues for policy makers

● Socio-economic empowerment should be anintegral part of transport policies, and shouldaddress gender inequalities in culture; it shouldensure that rural transport projects seeking fundingare gender responsive and sensitive; and it shouldprovide adequate resources for gathering anddisseminating gender disaggregated data andinformation to raise awareness about transportproblems, and to support media projects intendedto reach women.

● Policies should promote a decentralised frameworkfor planning and implementation to encouragecapacity building among women; communityownership through a participatory planningprocess; and acquisition of skills.

● Integrated rural development and planning shouldincorporate community contributions; appropriatedesigns for rural transport infrastructure andfacilities; environmentally-sustainable transportinterventions; and should provide for resources tobe made available for gender-responsive planningand implementation;

● Policies should promote labour-basedtechnologies/approaches for rural transportdevelopment.

● Donor initiatives should fit within country policiesand frameworks for rural development.

● Policies should include transport regulations thatpromote the use of safe rural transportfacilities/modes of transport.

● Governments should allocate resources to the ruraltransport sector, and priority should be given tocapacity building.

● Specific resources, both financial and human, needto be allocated for the maintenance of ruraltransport infrastructure (footbridges, access roads,paths, tracks, culverts).

● Priority should be given to monitoring andevaluation; demonstrations; gender disaggregatedinformation, data gathering, and dissemination; andawareness raising.

● An enabling policy environment is essential forinclusion of incentives, finance and adequate accessto credit.


13

makers. Lack of access to means of transport by womenwas highlighted and the group underlined this as one ofthe major factors contributing to the transport burden ofwomen in particular.

The group also noted that the location of services,such as markets and otherbasic services wasparticularly inconvenient forwomen.Although therewere clear transportproblems related to this,the group agreed that someof these problems could betackled by non-transport interventions, through anintegrated approach to rural development.Theimportance of understanding the realities of communities,and involving them in planning was also emphasised.

The group agreed on the fact that there is a generalabsence of rural transport policies in Africa. In caseswhere policies exist, these are not gender responsive andthere is either limited implementation, or none at all. Inaddition, there is a lack of representation of women inpolicy formulation, and lack of adequate data andinformation to enable policy makers to make effectivegender policies.

Day Two: Developing strategies foreffective communicationArmed with an agreed set of guidelines for each of thethree audiences, the next task for participants was todiscuss and come up with strategies for communicatingthese guidelines effectively. It was pointed out thathowever important were the participants in theirrespective fields, they couldn’t be expected to bringabout the changes needed in the rural transport sectoralone.Therefore, some strategy needed to be outlinedwhich would effectively convince others outside theseminar of the need to change the way that they work tobetter include the needs of women, and the womenthemselves, in their transport interventions.

Some brief guidance was given on the nature ofadvocacy.To being with, the ‘ABC’ of advocacy wasdescribed (a term which originated in one of the groupsat the Sri Lanka seminar), followed by a list of factors toconsider when trying to influence people (detailsincluded in Chapter 3).

With this brief introduction, the participants weredivided up into regional groups to come up withcommunication strategies relevant for their own areas.There were five regions identified: South Africa, southernAfrica, east Africa and anglophone and francophone WestAfrica.The groups spent the morning in discussion.Theypresented their strategies to plenary in the afternoon.

Communication strategies: South AfricaKey recommendations for more gender appropriatetransport interventions in South Africa

● need for a quota system within projects● more attention to gender planning● more relevant information for policy making

● constant review of existingpolicies

● change of mind set, attitudestowards intermediate means oftransport

Strategies for communication

● flyers● press conferences

● mass media – especially radio● targeted papers to government● attendance at open parliamentary days

The group reiterated some of the key recommendationswhich might bring about more gender-appropriatetransport interventions.These include the need for aquota system within projects; more attention given togender planning; and more relevant information fed intopolicymaking.The group said that there is need for aconstant review process to be undertaken of policies, inorder to identify gaps and to gauge the appropriatenessof these policies to the government’s development needs.

Themes emerging from all groups

The broad themes which appeared to be common toall groups were as follows:

● The need for information to be generated anddisseminated on both men and women, butseparately, if more appropriate transportinterventions are to be made;

● The need for an integrated approach, egmultidisciplinary teams within projects whichemploy social scientists, gender specialists,technicians together; eg multi-institutionalmanagement of projects to include representativesfrom manufacturing sector, private and public,NGO, the community and policy; eg integratedlearning from other sectors which have alreadyfound ways of better meeting the needs of bothwomen and men such as the water and sanitationsector.

● An enabling policy environment which bothsupports and promotes gender-sensitive andgender-sensible interventions and ways of working;

● More money released for initiatives whichspecifically involve and benefit women;

● Capacity building for a range of ends, eg goodgovernance, strong leadership, gender-awareness;

● The need to generate and disseminate goodpractice based on evidence from practical projectwork.


Community involvement didnot necessarily imply theinvolvement of women

14

In addition, a change of mindset on the part ofcommunities in South Africa is necessary towardsintermediate means of transport (IMTs) so that they areno longer considered as second rate.

They said that a variety of media should be used toeffectively communicate these issues, such as flyers, pressconferences, mass media, especially radio, workshops(send proceedings to all parties), targeted papers togovernment, and attendance at parliamentary OpenDays.

A range of questions followed the presentationaround the topics of setting quotas and the nature of‘disadvantaged groups’.The first question asked specificallyhow to bring about greater participation of women,because in Ethiopia various techniques had been triedand found not to have been successful.The presentersuggested that quota setting within projects atcommunity and non-governmental levels is a practicalmeasure, and along withaffirmative action (one of SouthAfrica’s national policies) couldhelp to broaden participation.

A representative from theWorld Bank said that it wasimportant to be flexible whensetting quotas for women’sinvolvement in transportprojects. She explained that the World Bank had originallyrequired that women should make up half of all theparticipants of their projects, but when this had failed tomaterialise, they had dropped the quotas to 25% and thisseemed to be more realistic.Another participant raisedthe issue of the involvement of disabled members of thecommunity, asking that they shouldn’t be marginalised inthe same way that women shouldn’t be ignored inprojects.A practitioner said that they should beconsidered as part of the ‘disadvantaged’ group alongwith women and steps taken to involve them in the sameway. But another participant said that they shouldn’t all be‘lumped’ together because this doesn’t take considerationof their different needs and women should continue tobe considered separately.

The importance of training practitioners to be moreaware and inclusive of women in projects was raised, butit was stressed that policymakers also need training,however senior their positions. It was suggested thatpolicy reviews be conducted regularly to identify gaps inthe existing framework, and to fill them with appropriatetraining. ‘Catching future policymakers early’ is animportant strategy to ensure that future policies aregender-sensitive.

Communication Strategies: SouthernAfrica (including Zambia, Zimbabwe,Malawi and Mozambique)Main message: the need for gender integrated planningand awareness of the gender dimension to transportinterventions

The main message chosen by the group was the needfor gender integrated planning and awareness of thegender dimension to transport interventions.Theirdiscussions had produced strategies aimed atcommunicating this message to the three different groupsinvolved in transport interventions, and the presentationreflected these discussions.

Strategies for communication at a community level

● Awareness should be raised through participatorymethods such as groupdiscussions (held separatelyfor men and for women),drama, songs etc.

● Attitudes should beinfluenced through theeducation system so thatgirls and boys understandtheir gender differences andhow that impacts on theway they do things.

● Communities need to be empowered so that theycan be the ones to influence policy.

To transport practitioners

● Data collection and analysis should be genderdisaggregated. Researchers to collect evidence toprove to policymakers that rural transport needs ofmen and women differ.

● Practitioners should work in association with othersectors to create a generic gender planning strategyinvolving agriculture, water and transport-relatedsectors.

● Dissemination should be achieved through workshopsand seminars; emailing lists, briefing papers, media(radio, internet etc); and through learning institutions.

● At the inception stage of research, projectpractitioners need to involve other sectors.

● Transport practitioners need to understand policiesbefore they attempt to influence it.

Policymakers (including gender ministries and organisationswho can influence policy makers and government)

● Use credible institutions to lobby policymakers.● Use abstracts of research to influence policymakers.● Invite policymakers to see the demonstration

projects.

Following the presentation, a researcher from theaudience suggested that one way of bringing about moreintegrated transport work is to look at how you as a


It is important to analyse the socialas well as the economic impact oftransport interventions, including

gender, to ensure that interventionsare equitable and appropriate

15

practitioner could work with practitioners from othersectors, and that was one action she was going to takewhen resuming work in England.Another participanthighlighted the importance of the media in facilitatinginformation exchange. She proposed that everyoneshould consider themselves an ‘activist’ and actively lookat how the media could be used to promote bettertransport interventions.A representative from ILO-ASISToffered their range of documents held in Harare foreverybody’s use as a way of furthering this disseminationtask.

Communication Strategies: East Africa(including Sudan, Uganda, Kenya,Tanzania and Ethiopia)Main message – the need for capacity building

Strategies for Communication

At a community level it was recognised that this neededto revolve around community participation; that there aremany stakeholders but women needed to be recognisedas a specific and unique group within this; and that thereis a need to raise awareness of the whole issue of genderin rural transport.A range of techniques can be used toboth communicate and strengthen capacity, including

● using posters, drummer groups, and religiousorganisations;

● providing management training for women; improvingwomen’s access to credit;

● making available funding and resources for capacitybuilding; and

● making more effort to involve women in the decisionmaking and control of maintenance.

At a transport practitioner level the aim is to sensitisepractitioners to gender issuesand this could be done in manydifferent ways for example

● through training (refreshercourses ‘on the job’ as wellas through college anduniversity);

● by revising procedures toenforce gender (dialoguerequired with policy toensure that they aresupportive of ‘writing in’ gender into the procedures);

● by making checklists (VTTP in Tanzania already haschecklists and this could be copied elsewhere);

● by dissemination of ‘Best Practices’ and lessons;through appropriate interventions, for exampleprovision of information; and

● by ensuring that the monitoring and evaluation ofgender impact is mandatory in all projects.

Networks at a country, regional and international level

should be identified and exploited as a starting point tocarry out this work.They should be influenced to take upthese issues and adopt the same advocacy objectives sothat a large body of organisations is pushing for the samegoals.The NFGs should be used as a point of entrywhere they exist, eg Kenya and Uganda.

The discussions centred around the nature ofinstitutions which support capacity building, and theprocesses which encourage information sharing. Oneparticipant stated that strong institutional structures areneeded to support capacity building of themselves and ofother stakeholders. National Forum Groups are goodplaces to begin building and strengthening capacity, andinfluencing at a policy level. In some countries where theNFGs are already established, they already have thecredibility to influence at each of the different levels. Oneparticipant who runs a Website from the University ofManchester invited others to use this medium for sharinginformation, and encouraged others to think aboutidentifying and offering their own mechanisms forinformation dissemination.

Communication StrategiesFrancophone West Africa (to includeBurkina Faso, Côte D’Ivoire, Guinea)Messages

● The need to treat men separately from women in theplanning, involvement, resource-allocation andinformation stages of every project.

● Capacity building is necessary in order to sensitisepeople, impart skills and involve them in projects.

Strategies for communication

At a policy level, the specific targets for this messagewere identified as the Ministry of Transport; the Ministry

for the Promotion of Women;local government; donors; andNGOs.The strategy forcommunication relied upon theNational Forum Group. InBurkina Faso, the NFG is madeup of policymakers (officialsfrom the Ministry of Transport),researchers and women andwomen’s associations.

In the region, despite thestriking development of intermediate means of transport(IMTs), rural transport is not actually taken into accountin overall transport planning.A favourable factor is thatauthorities have shown concern for the promotion ofwomen in many instances, and the strategy forcommunicating the two messages capitalises on this factand aims to address the issue from the genderperspective rather than the transport perspective. Onerecommendation is to urge authorities, donors, and thecommunities themselves to implement pilot projects.


There is a lack of representation ofwomen in policy formulation andlack of data and information toenable policy makers to make

effective gender policies

16

Information should be disseminated through the NFGs,Municipalities, mass media, newsletters, meetings, visitsand workshops.

Communication Strategies:AnglophoneWest Africa (including Nigeria andGhana)Messages:

● the need for gender disaggregation in planning,involvement, resource-allocation and information, and

● the need for capacity building.

Strategies for communication.

In Nigeria it was recommended that a National ForumGroup be established which should link up with theNational Commission for Women and the NationalCouncil for Women Societies (NCWs) in order tosensitise them about the genderimbalance existing in ruraltransport. In addition, a numberof institutions could benetworked for evidence andsupport including CBOs whichfocus their work aroundwomen’s issues; Ministries;Universities; researchinstitutions; professional bodies and international NGOsand other non-forum groups.

Dissemination to key policymakers and to thecommunity should take place by networking; through themass media, talk shows and advertisements; innewsletters and by demonstration. Use should also bemade of community institutions such as town criers,women’s groups and religious bodies, and local educationauthorities.

Questions and contributions following the WestAfrican presentations centred around the value of pilotprojects in generating evidence for influencing; mediumsfor sharing information; and problems and promises offunding gender and transport work.

One participant supported the francophonecountries’ recommendation that pilot projects cangenerate evidence to influence policy and practitioners.He proposed that NFGs could play an important role inestablishing and using information from such projects,with adequate funding, and went on to suggest that thesegroups chronicle their existing experiences to make acase for further projects.Another participant agreed, butsaid that donors are reluctant to fund such initiatives andcalled on the donors in the audience to support suchwork.

General DiscussionThere was general consensus that dissemination ofinformation was a desirable activity so that mistakes could

be minimised and successes replicated, but questionsabout what was the best medium to share information.Arepresentative from the World Bank said that plenty ofinformation on gender and transport already exists – forexample as discussed by the Gender and Transportthematic group within the World Bank – but that it waslargely anecdotal. She added that policies whichencourage and promote a more gender-aware approachto transport interventions are unlikely to be designedwithout firmer evidence.A member of IFRTD wanted toknow where this information is located, and whether itcould be shared more widely so that others could act onit too, and greater efforts to disseminate informationwere promised.The World Bank has looked seriously atthe Internet as a way of sharing the information theyhave, but needed to know how accessible this channel isfor most of the practitioners working in the field.Responses to this query were in agreement that while

the Internet may be a usefulway of reaching somepolicymakers, moreconventional channels ofinformation delivery should notbe overlooked because theseare more common in Africa.ILO-ASIST promoted their roleas information brokers andurged participants to use them

and the information which they hold.Participants reinforced the need for networking as a

way of promoting more gender-sensitive approaches totransport interventions. Forging strategic alliances wasseen as one particular strategy which works well,particularly in those countries without National ForumGroups such as Ethiopia.With a view to furthernetworking, a plan to hold an international seminar onGender and Rural Transport was aired by the WorldBank, and they were urged to invite ‘real people’ who areworking directly with the issues in the field to this forum.One of the aims of the seminar is to take lessons topolicymakers, and issues arising out of this seminar wouldbe used in preparation for the task.

With regards difficulties to date in funding NFGs, theWorld Bank Rural Travel and Transport Programme(RTTP) pledged to finance work in the countries in whichthey have programmes, both for dissemination andadvocacy activities.Asked how easy this funding would beto access by NFGs, and what strings might be attached,the World Bank responded that because the fundingwould be in the form of grants and not loans, therewould be no strings attached save for those ofaccountability and reporting.As for the details of how toaccess the funds, these had not yet been thought throughbut would be communicated as soon as they had beenworked out.


National Forum Groups are goodplaces to begin building andstrengthening capacity andinfluencing at a policy level

17

Themes emerging and issues arisingAn attempt was made to draw out some of the commonthreads which had arisen out of the presentations anddiscussions, as follows:

● When trying to influence specific audiences, it may beuseful to use intermediary institutions to lobby youractual target audience (for example using the forumgroups with established reputations to influencepolicymakers);

● The media can be a usefultool in building ‘backgroundnoise’ in support of yourcause, so that when you doreach your target audiencewith specific messages andrecommendations, they arealready familiar with thesubject and themes within it;

● It will be necessary to raise the profile and capacityand reputation of the instruments of influence (ie theinstitutions who will be doing the actual advocacywork);

● In order to bring about effective changes in thepolicies and practices of policymakers, you need tofully understand the policy context and be seen bypolicymakers to have this understanding;

● Influencing today’s policymakers doesn’t necessarilyguarantee gender-aware practices in the future: youneed to reach tomorrow’s policymakers throughtraining centres, education facilities, schools to makethem gender-sensitive now;

● When trying to change the way individuals work,show them how much they have already achieved inmeeting the needs of both men and women in theirwork – then point out how much more effective theycould be by incorporating yourrecommendations/guidelines;

● The most influential tool you have for changing theway people work and think is EVIDENCE. Make sureall gender and transport work (practical as well asadvocacy) is monitored and disaggregated informationcollected on an ongoing basis.You should then be ableto assess the impact of current strategies regularlyand share this information with others.

● Think about your own individual capacity andpotential to bring about change. Once you’ve auditedthis and started to be an advocate, talk about whatyou do as a way of inspiring others to take their ownpersonal commitment to bring about change.

● Look for a niche for your information: ie find out whatother people are doing and what information wouldbe useful to them and try to ‘fit’ your advice so that itmeets their needs (that way, your ideas are morelikely to be taken up with enthusiasm);

● Audit what you already know and disseminate it toothers so that they may use it in their own advocacy

work.

Conclusions and the way forwardPriyanthi Fernando, Executive Secretary of IFRTD,thanked the participants and presented a synopsis ofwhat the Secretariat would be doing in the immediatefuture to take forward the issues raised at the seminar.

● Produce proceedings of the ‘Balancing the Load’Asiaand Africa seminars, by the endof August 1999;● Book of the full case studies

to be published by the endof 1999;

● Forum News issuededicated to the theme ofadvocacy during 2000;

● AT Journal (Septemberissue) takes as its theme rural

transport;● Email discussion list;● Abstracts and Occasional Papers;● Ongoing support to National Forum Groups in South

Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire,Zimbabwe,Tanzania;

● Issues workshops/other networking opportunities;● Collaborative events eg World Bank International

Seminar ;● Pilot projects with funding from World Bank RTTP

programme;● Media activities.

She urged participants to continue their hard work, andto become advocates for the better identification andintegration of both women and men’s needs in ruraltransport interventions.


Think about your own individualcapacity and potential to bring aboutchange.Talk tabout what you do as a

way of inspiring others.

18

The ABC of AdvocacyWhen trying to convince other people to your way ofthinking, it’s useful to divide them into the ABCs anddecide on the best way of approaching each groupseparately.

A is for Advocates: people who are alreadyconvinced of the issues and who are actively influencingothers and generating evidence with which to convincethem.You need to learn some of the tricks andtechniques used by this group of people, who probablyhave much more experience of advocacy than you, andyou need to share any evidence you have which couldsupport their advocacy work as part of a broadmovement for change.

B is for Benign: this group of people are neither foror against what you are trying to do.They probably agreewith the theory of what you are trying to do – in thiscase, satisfy women’s transport needs more directly intransport interventions – but have never been sufficientlyconvinced of how this can be done.The majority ofpeople working in the rural transport and gender sectorsprobably lie in this middle group, and the potential forengaging their co-operation and turning them intoadvocates themselves is enormous.You need evidenceand instruction to show them how to integrate womenmore effectively into rural transport programmes, andyou need to understand under what constraints theywork and what sorts of support they need to be able tochange the way that they currently work.

C is for ‘Cannot Change’: a group of people whohave decided that they don’t agree with your centralargument, and they cannot see any reason to change theway that they currently work. In the minority, this group isextremely difficult to engage in debate and even moredifficult to persuade to change.An awful lot of time canbe spent getting nowhere with this group and unless theyinclude individuals who are critical to the success of yourbroader campaign, it might be useful to ignore them.

Factors critical to the success of anyadvocacy strategy are as follows:● Time: those whom you’re trying to influence have

full time jobs (usually) and are not able or willing togive you either all of their attention or unlimited timeto make your case.You need to research how andwhen they need the sort of information you have tocommunicate, and deliver it appropriately.

● Credibility: you know yourself that there are somepeople whose advice you more readily accept eitherbecause of who they are (ie you have known them along time and their advice has been good in the past)or what they know (they are well-placed with goodsources of information on hand). If you are not

regarded as credible with the people you’re trying toconvince, then pass on what you know to someonewho can deliver your message who IS credible.

● Frequency: sometimes you need to communicatethe same basic message in a range of different butconsistent ways over and over again in order for it tobe heard. Repeating yourself is unlikely to do muchdamage – except make people avoid you – and couldresult in the message finally ‘getting home’.

● Language: use the sorts of words and expressionsthat your audience will understand and which theynormally use in their own communication. Forexample, use scientific evidence if you’re trying toconvince scientists etc.

● Money: sometimes the people you’re trying to getto work in a different way – for example to usedisaggregated data when designing infrastructureprojects – cannot afford to take on board your ideasbecause they would cost more money than has beenbudgeted. In this case, it might be worth trying tosecure funds to ‘bolt on’ to their project in order thatthey can incorporate your ideas and you can provethat this approach is more effective in meetingwomen’s transport needs (which in itself can be usedto secure more gender-sensitive funds in the future).

● Evidence: your opinion or instinct or articulatewords are never going to be as convincing asevidence. Build up a portfolio of evidence whichproves the points that you’re trying to make.Try tomake them relevant, current, accurate and credible.

● No choice: people can be influenced to change theway that they work if you do all of the above, and ifyou’re lucky and are in the right place at the righttime. But they have to change the way that they workif their organisation or line manager or donor requiresit Sometimes it is worth ‘leap-frogging’ the personyou’re actually trying to influence in order to bringabout changes in the organisation’s culture orprocedures or Planning Monitoring and EvaluationSystems to force them to change the way that theywork.

Chapter Three:Toolkit for Effective Advocacy

Chapter Three:Toolkit for Effective Advocacy

19

AnnexesList of Asia Participants

List of Africa Participants

List of Researchers, Facilitators and IFRTD Staff

Abstracts of Case studies

20

Bangladesh

Mahbubar Rahman MrBangladesh Inland Water TransportAuthority (BIWTA)BIWTA Bhaban141-143 Motijheel C/ADhaka-1000Bangladesh.Phone:+880 2 9550870Fax: +880 2 9551072E-mail:[email protected]

Mashuda Khatun Shefali MsExecutive DirectorNari Uddug Kendra (NUK)(Centre For Women’s Initiatives)22/18, Khilji Road, Block- BMohammadpur, Dhaka-1207Bangladesh.Tel: + 880 2 9115696Fax: + 880 2 9110088E-mail: [email protected]

Cambodia

Kheng Chanthou MsILO8 street 352Phnom PenhCambodiaTel: ++ 855 23 211484, 428210Fax: ++ 855 23 427632Email: [email protected]

Sophany Kco Sun MsILO8 street 352Phnom PenhCambodiaTel: ++ 855 23 211484, 428210Fax: ++ 855 23 427632Email: [email protected]

Denmark

Maria Figueroa MsUNEP Collaborating Centre on Energyand EnvironmentRisoe National LaboratoryP O Box 49, Roskilde DK 4000DenmarkTel: +4545775171Fax:+4546321999Email: [email protected]

India

Ashoke Sarkar DrCivil Engineering GroupBirla Institute of Technology andSciencePilani (Rajasthan)333031IndiaTel: +91 1596 45073/4Fax: +91 1596 44183Email:[email protected]

Madhusudan Mistry MrDisha9 Mangaldeep FlatsNear Parikshit BridgeGandhi Ashram PostAhmedebad 380027IndiaTel: +91 79 7559842Fax: +91 79 755 6782

Sikdar P K ProfCentral Road Research InstituteDelhi – Mathura RoadNew Delhi 110 020IndiaTel: 91 11 68 48917/6823437Fax: 6845943/6830480Email:

Nepal

Alok Rajouria MrITDGP O Box 15135TangalKathmanduNepalTel: +977 1 415477Fax: +9771 434354Email: [email protected]

Bidhan C. Rajbhandari MrSr. National Pogramme OfficerSwiss Development CorporationEnkantakuma, JawalkhelP O Box 113KathmanduNepalTel: 00 977 1 524927 to 9Fax: 00 977 1 525358Email: [email protected]

Pakistan

Zubaida Hussain MsDevelopment VisionsEducation TownP O Allama Iqbal TownWahdat RoadLahorePakistanTel: + 92 42 5414427Email: [email protected]

Philippines

Ruwani Jayewardene DrC/o OESDAsian Development BankManila 0980PhilippinesTel: +632 632 5915Fax: +632 636 2205Email: [email protected]

Sri Lanka

Abegunawardena V G T R MsMin. of Transport & HighwaysNo 1 D R Wijewardene MawathaColombo 10Sri LankaTel: +94 1 687108, 687437Fax: +94 1 687284

Dinali Fernando MsJournalist and university lecturer572/10 WelikadawatteNawala RoadRajagiriyaSri LankaTel: +94 1 862946Fax: +94 1 863671Email: dinali @sjp.ac.lk

Eva Ranaweera MsCoordinator,Kantha Handa (Voice of Women)21/25 Polhengoda RoadColombo 5Sri LankaTel: +94 74 517879

Participants in Asia Seminar


21

Faizal Samath MrJournalist4/1D Pietersz PlaceKohuwelaSri LankaTel: +94 1 822595Fax: +94 1 822595

Fuard M. Sabry MrYoung Asia Television8 Kinross AvColombo 4Sri LankaTel: +94 1 596286Fax: +94 1 501740

Gamage M T MsNational Transport Commission241 Park RoadColombo 5Sri LankaTel: +94 1 503707Fax: +94 1 503725

Jayalath Gunarathna MrAsst. Business Development Co-ordinatorREDS36 Privena RoadRatmalanaSri LankaTel: + 94 1 715165Fax: +94 1 731110Email: [email protected]

Jegarasingam K MrChairmanNational Transport Commission241 Park RoadColombo 5Sri LankaTel: +94 1 503680Fax: + 94 1 503725

John Diandas Mr12 Galle Face CourtColombo 3Sri LankaTel: + 94 1 324313/ 433512Fax: +94 1 324313/ 433512Email: [email protected]

K D Pieris MrVINIVIDA‘Jayadam’AgunawilaMundelTel: + 94 72 240324Email: [email protected]

Liyanage U L K MsNational Transport Commission241 Park RoadColombo 5Sri LankaTel: + 94 1 587373Fax: +94 1 503725

Madhavi Ariyabandu MsITDG5 Lionel Edirisinghe MawathaKirullaponeColombo 5Sri LankaTel: + 94 1 852149Fax: +94 1 856188Email: [email protected]

Mallika Gamage MsSenior TrainerSEEDS36 Privena RoadRatmalanaSri LankaTel: + 94 1 715165Fax: +94 1 731110Email: [email protected]

Neranjana Gunathilake MsInstitute of Policy Studies99 St Michael’s RoadColombo 3Sri LankaTel: +94 1 431368Fax: +94 1 431395Email: [email protected]

Ramona Miranda MsITDG5 Lionel Edirisinghe MawathaKirullaponeColombo 5Sri LankaTel: + 94 1 852149Fax: +94 1 856188Email: [email protected]

Ratnayake W K S MrNational Transport Commission241 Park RoadColombo 5Sri LankaTel: 94 1 587394Fax 94 1 503725

Ray Wijewardena Mr133 Dharmapala MawathaColombo 7Sri LankaTel /fax: + 94 1 421881Email: [email protected]

Sahabandu M J MsNTC241 Park RoadColombo 5Sri LankaTel: 94 1 503705Fax: 94 1 503725

Sangeetha Nesiah MsIntermediate Technology DevelopmentGroup5 Lionel Edirisinghe MawathaKirulaponeColombo 5.Sri LankaTel: 94 1 852149Fax: 94 1 856188Email: [email protected]

Seneviratne M P P C M MsNational Transport Commission241 Park RoadKirulaponeColombo 5Sri LankaTel: + 94 1 503707Fax: + 94 1 503725

Sugathadasa W P D K K MsNational Transport Commission241 Park RoadColombo 5Sri LankaTel: 94 1 503707Fax: 94 1 503725

Tushara Williams MsInstitute of Policy Studies99 St. Michels RoadColombo 3Sri LankaTel: 94 1 431368Fax: 94 1 431395Email: [email protected]

Vishaka Hidellage MsPolicy DirectorIntermediate Technology DevelopmentGroup5 Lionel Edirisinghe MawathaKirulaponeColombo 5Sri LankaTel: + 94 1 852149, 829412-5Fax: + 94 1 856188Email: [email protected]


22

Weerasinghe W P D V M MsNational Transport Commission241 Park RoadColombo 5Sri LankaTel: + 94 1 503707Fax: + 94 1 503725

United Kingdom

Annabel Davis MsTransport Research Laboratory (TRL)Old Wokingham RoadCrowthorneBerkshire RG45 6AUUnited KingdomTel:+44 1344 770398Fax: +44 1344 770643Email:[email protected]

Jenny Rigby MsDepartment for InternationalDevelopment (DFID)94 Victoria StreetLondon SW1E 5JLUnited KingdomEmail: [email protected]

USA

Michael Bamberger MrSenior SociologistGender and DevelopmentPoverty Reduction and EconomicManagementWorld Bank1818H Street, NWWashington DC 20433USATel: + 1202 473 6438Fax: + 1202 522 3237Email:[email protected]


23

Cote D’Ivoire

Siele Silue DrBP 399 CIDEX 1AbidjanCote D’IvoireTel:+225 07 73 53Fax: +225 25 86 68Email: [email protected]

Ethiopia

Brian Samuel Barr MrP.O. Box 12700Addis AbabaEthiopiaTel: +251 1 531633Fax: +251 1 514866Email: [email protected]

Jemal Ali Gizaw MrP.O. Box 12700Addis AbabaEthiopiaTel: +251 1 531633Fax: +251 1 514866Email: [email protected]

Guinea

Marie Yvonne Curtis MsBP 3423ConakryGuineaTel +224 46 57 47Email: my [email protected]

Kenya

Jeffrey Maganya MrIUCN Eastern Regional OfficeWasaa Consevation CentreMukoma Road (off Magadi Road)PO Box 68200NairobiKenyaTel: +254 2 890 605Fax: +254 2 890 615Email: [email protected]

Malawi

Arthur Chibwana MrRTTP CoordinatorMinistry of Local GovernmentP O Box 30312LilongweMalawiTel: +265 780 555 0r 721810Fax: + 265 780 242Email: [email protected]

South Africa

Wim Van Steenderen MrUniversity of WitwatersrandDepartment of Civil EngineeringPrivate Bag 3 PO WitsJohannesburgSouth AfricaTel: +27 11 716 4424Fax: +27 11 339 1762Email: [email protected]

Claudia da Lomba MsUniversity of WitwatersrandJohannesburgSouth AfricaTel: +27 11 716 4423Fax: +27 11 339 1762Email: [email protected]

Constance Ntsoko MsCSIR TransportekPO Box 395PretoriaSouth AfricaEmail: [email protected]

Diamond Motha MrCSIR135 Block IMabopane 01490South AfricaTel: +27 12 841 3769Email: [email protected]

Dirk Hanekom MrAgricultural Research CouncilInstitute for Agricultural EngineeringPrivate Bag X519SilvertonPretoria 0127South AfricaTel: +27 12 842 4053Fax: +27 12 804 0753Email: [email protected]

Dora Zitha MsDepartment of Public Transport,Northern ProvinceP O Box 239Giyani 0826South AfricaTel: +27 15 297 4884Fax: +27 15 291 3989

Matthew Dayomi DrDepartment of GeographyUniversity of The NorthPrivate Box X 1106SovengaPetersburgSouth AfricaTel: +27 15 268 2236Fax: +27 15 268 2323Email: [email protected]

Ramachandra Rao Kalaga DrDepartment of Civil EngineeringUniversity of Durban – WestvillePrivate Bag X54001Durban 4000South AfricaTel: +27 31 204 4185Fax: +27 31 204 4755/204 4291Email: RRKalaga@ pixie.udw.ac.za

Thandiwe Sizdumo-Mazibuko DrIndependent Development TrustEastern Cape Regional OfficeP O Box 5275Umtata 5100South AfricaTel: +27 47 5312973/5315113Fax:+27 47 5312969/+27 11 7261020Email: [email protected]

Danso Poku Agyemang MrUniversity of WitwatersrandCivil Engineering DepartmentSouth AfricaTel: + 27 11 7162484

Isaac Kwaw MrUniveristy of the NorthDepartment of GeographyP/Bag X1106Sovenga 0727South AfricaTel: +27 15 268 3185Fax: +27 15 268 2323Email: [email protected]

Participants at Africa Seminar

Participants in Africa Seminar

24

Madumelena Inncentia Mhlongo MsCSIR/B10PO Box 395PretoriaSouth AfricaTel: +27 12 841 3791Fax: +27 12 841 3232Email: [email protected]

Matseliso Motsoahae MsGraduate Research AssistantUniversity of Fort Harep/B X1314Alice 5700South AfricaTel:+27826908201 or +27406022085Fax: +27406531730Email: [email protected]

Mark Harvey MrDFID208 Infotech Building1090 Arcadia StreetHatfieldPretoria 0083South AfricaTel: +27 12 342 3360 X118Fax: +27 12 342 3429Email: [email protected]

Ted Stilwell MrDevelopment Bank of South AfricaPO Box 1234Halfway House 1685South AfricaTel: + 27 11 27313 3911/3138Fax: +27 11 27313 3086/3533Email: [email protected]

Hazel Ngwenya MsPrivate Bag X83MarhsalltownJohannesburg 2107South AfricaTel: +27 11 355 7227Fax: +27 11355 7163

Mmeme Sejosengwe MsDepartment of Transport and PublicWorksPrivate Bag X83MarshalltownJohannesburg 2107South Africa

Phumla Princess Zangga MsPrivate Bag X83MarshalltownJohanneswburg 2107South AfricaTel: +27 11 355 7228Fax: + 27 11 255 7163

Sbongile Mokgatla MsPrivate Bag X83MarshaltownJohannesburg 2107South AfricaTel: +27 11 355 7227Fax: +27 11 355 7163

Thokozile P Mabaso MsPO Box 232Plessilaer 3216South AfricaTel: + 27 331 3558866/886 (w)Fax: +27 331 3558098Email: [email protected]

Vivienne Susan Lipman MsDepartment of TransportPrivate Bag X 193Pretoria 0001South AfricaTel: + 27 12 309 3231Fax: + 27 12 328 5102Email: [email protected]

Natasha Primo MsNational Research FoundationSouth AfricaPrudence MoeketsiCSIRTransportekPO Box 395Pretoria 0001South AfricaTel: +27 12 841 4287Fax: +27 12 84 4200Email: [email protected]

Sabina Mahapa MsUniversity of the NorthDepartment of GeographyP/Bag X1106Sovenga 0727South AfricaTel: +27 15 268 2323/3199Fax: +27 15 268 2323Email: [email protected]

Sammy Magalego MrCSIR TransportekPO Box 395Pretoria 0001South AfricaTel: +27 12 841 3932

Longile Moho Mabuza MrUniversity of the WitwatersrandPrivate Bag 3Wits 2050South AfricaTel: +27 11 356 0740 (H) 716 4460(W)Email: [email protected]

Timothy Simalenga DrChairpersonATNESAUniversity of Fort HareP.Bag X1314Alice 5700South AfricaTel:+27406022085Fax: +27406531730Email:[email protected]

Tuswa Pumza MrTransaid WorldwideP O Box 5023Halfway house 1685South AfricaTel: +27 11 805 6158Fax: +27 11 805 6158

Wellington Didibuku Thwala MrUniversity of WitwatersrandP O Box 543 WITSJohannesburg 2050South AfricaTel: +27 11 359 6061(home) 7164460 (work)Fax: +27 11 339 1762Email: [email protected]

Segape David Makgahlela MrDepartment of Transport – NorthernProvincePO Box 269Lebowakgamo 0737South AfricaTel: +27 15 6335722 home 0829636291 +27 15 2952923 (work)Fax: + 27 15 2912711/29135989


25

Sudan

Mohamed Harou Ismail MrElfashir UniversityDarfurSudan

Uganda

Bernard Tumwebaze Mrc/o John NewberyWestern Uganda Roads Maintenance.Capacity Building Project CommunityRoads OfficerParkman – O’Sullivan & GrahamPO Box 777Fort PortalUgandaFax: 00 256 483 22636Email: mailto:[email protected] [email protected]

Rose Gamwera MsUganda local authorities associationntc building, 8th floorrplot 3 pilkington roadp o box 23120kampalaUgandaTel: +256 41-347575/85M: +256 44-77 401340

Salome Kamure Okayi MsDistrict CAP CoordinatorCommunity Action Programme,WestNileP O Box 303AruaUgandaTel:+256 076 20002Fax: +256 041 234409Email: [email protected]

United Kingdom

Simon Lucas DrDFID94 Victoria StreetLondon SW1E 5JLUKEmail: [email protected]

Annabel Sophie Claire Davis MsTransport Research LaboratoryOld Wokingham RoadCrowthorneBerkshire RG45 6AVUKTel:+44 1344 770398Fax: +44 1344 770643Email:[email protected]

Bruce Britton MrConsultantFlass FarmhouseSt FortNewport-on-TayFife DD6 8REUKTel: +44 1382 540070Fax: +44 1382 540070Email: [email protected]

USA

Elizabeth Rankin MsConsultant on Gender and TransportIssues, RTTP648 Robin Glen DriveGlendaleUSATel: + 1 818 243 8880Fax: + 1 818 502 1533Email: [email protected]

Jerry Lebo DrWorld BankF4P-1921818H Street NWWashington DC 2043USATel: + 1202 458 7396Fax:+ 1202 522 3223Email: [email protected]

Zambia

Diana Banda MsGender specialistUniversity of Zambia IMT GroupDept. of Rural Economics-UNZABox 32379Lusaka 10101ZambiaTel:+260 1 250587Fax: +260 1 250587

Zimbabwe

Bertha Mudamburi MsInstitute of Agricultural EngineeringPO Box Bw 330BorrowdaleHarareZimbabweTel:+2634 861950/860019Fax: +263 4 860009/860136Email: [email protected]

Fatemah Ali Nejadfard DrSenior Technical Advisor – Rural Traveland Transport ComponentILO ASISTP O Box 210HarareZimbabweTel: +263 4 748345-7Fax: +263 4 759427Email:[email protected]

George Banjo DrRural Travel and Transport Program(RTTP) Africa RegionThe World BankRTTP Regional Office, ResidentMission, Finsure House (5th Floor),84-86 Union AvenueHarareZimbabweTel: 263 4 729-611/2/3Fax: +263 4 708-659Email: [email protected]

Rodgers Mozhentiy MrDevelopment AdvisorARDCP O Box BE411BelvedereHarareZimbabweTel: + 263 4 726 526Fax: +263 4 725 433


26

Researchers

Burkina Faso

Amadou Ouedraogo Mr01 BP 3265 OuagadougouBurkina FasoTel: +226 36 2132Fax: +226 38 43 24Email:[email protected]

Honorine Damiba Ms01 BP 1771 Ouagadougou 01Burkina FasoTel: +226 30 62 11 OR 30 62 12Fax: +226 31 18 24

Aminata Ouedraogo DrBureau d’Etudes BEHOD03 BP 7111 Ouagadougou 03Burkina FasoTel: +226 38 43 24Fax: +226 38 43 24

Bangladesh

Mahjabeen Choudhary MsIT BangladeshHouse 32 Road 13ADhanmondi Residential AreaDhaka 1209 Tel: +880- 2 811-934BangladeshFax: +880 2 813-134Email: [email protected]

India

Alaknanda Shakula MsShri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank Ltd109 Sakar II Building, Near Town HallEllisbridge,Ahmedebad 380006IndiaTel: +91 79 658-1597Fax: +91 79 657-6074

Mahua Mukherjee MsResearch AssociateCentre for Built Environment2/5 Sarat Bose RoadCalcutta 700 020, IndiaTel: +91 33 474-5424, 476-1495Fax: +91 33 943-333, 954-321, 466-0625

Nitya Rao MsFlat 18, 6th Floor, ‘Jeevan Satyakam’57D, Dr Ambedkar Road, Bandra(West)Mumbai 400 050IndiaTel: +91 22 604-3637, 649-3828Fax: +91 22 646-2304Email: [email protected]

Rekha Barve MsResearch in-chargeShri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank Ltd109 Sakar II Building, Near Town HallEllisbridge,Ahmedebad 380006IndiaTel: +91 79 658-1597Fax: +91 79 657-6074

Kenya

Justina Nthenge MsP O Box 61694NairobiKenyaTel: +254 2 521450Fax: +254 2 521001Email: [email protected]

Pascal G Kaumbotho DrExecutive Coordinator, KENDATPO Box 61441NairobiKenyaTel: +254 2 766939Fax: +254 2 766939Email: [email protected]

Mozambique

Alexandrina Leonando Alberto SabelaMsAgostinho Neto 1888 Andan 1orWorld Relief MozambiqueRua Jopse Mateus 274Caixa Postal 680MaputoMozambique

Nepal

Ganesh K Ghimire MrG P O Box 4067KathmanduNepalTel: +977 1 223-091Fax: +977 1 227-691Email: [email protected]

Nigeria

E M Shaibu Imodagbe MrSamaru College of AgricultureAhmadu Bello UniveristyPMB 1058ZariaNigeriaTel: +234 69 5113(Principal’s office)+234 69 551293 (Director’s office)Email: [email protected]

Nurudeen Abubakar MrSociety and Environment InitiativePO Box 1793ZariaNigeriaEmail: [email protected]

Mohammed Bello Yunusa DrDepartment of Urban and RegionalPlanningAhmadu Bello UniversitySamaru ZariaNigeriaEmail:[email protected]

Philippines

Anne Marie Dizon MsC/o Urban Poor Associates (UPA)50-A Malakas St., Brgy. PimjahanQuezon City 1100PhilippinesTel: 63 2 426-4119Fax: 63 2 426-4118Email: [email protected]



27

Maureen Pagaduan Prof.C/o National Forum for RuralTransport and DevelopmentCollege of Social Work andCommunity DevelopmentUniversity of the PhilippinesDilimanQuezon CityPhilippinesTel: + 63 2 929-0491Fax: + 63 2 929-8439

Sri Lanka

Dharshini Samaranayake Ms899 Peradeniya RoadKandySri LankaTel: +94 8 223-973Fax: +94 8 232-458

Kusala Wettasinghe MsITDG5 Lionel Edirisinghe MawathaKirulapone Colombo 5Sri LankaTel: +94 1 852-149, 829-412-4/Fax: +94 1 856-188Email: [email protected]

Kusum Kuruppu Ms899 Peradeniya RoadKandySri LankaTel: +94 8 223-973Fax: +94 8 232-458

Upali Pannilage MrRural Transport Team,ITDG5 Lionel Edirisinghe MawathaKirillapone, Colombo 5Sri LankaTel: +94 1 852-149, 829-412/4Email: [email protected]

Sudan

Suad Mustafa Elhaj Musa MsDarfurSudan

Tanzania

Josephine Mwankusye MsP O Box 77569Dar es SalaamTanzaniaTel: +255 51 668926Fax: +255 51 137437

Uganda

Harriet K Iga MsP O Box 1291KampalaUgandaTel: +256 41 251064/5Fax:+256 41 257521Email: [email protected]

Kwamusi Paul MrProfessional Driving and DefensiveSystems LimitedPO Box 9718KampalaUgandaTel: +256 41 343856Fax: +256 41 343059Mobile + 77 405503

Charles Kaira DrTransport SpecialistNational Long Term PerspectiveStudies5 Edinburgh AvenueP O Box 20, KyambogoKampalaUgandaTel: +256 41 286-218 (home), 348-307Email: [email protected]

UK

Jeff Turner MrDepartment of PlanningUniversity of ManchesterOxford RoadManchester M13 9PLUKTel: + 44 161 275 6948Fax: +44 161 275 6893Email: [email protected]://www.art.man.ac.uk/transres

Gina Porter DrCORD/Department of GeographyUniversity of DurhamScience LaboratoriesSouth RoadDurham DH1 7LEUKTel: +44 191 374 2495/+44 1765635285Fax: +44 191 374 2496Email: [email protected]

Zimbabwe

Dorris Chingozho MsIntermediate Technology DevelopmentGroupBox 1744HarareZimbabweTel: +263 4 490270Fax: +263 4 496041

Researchers not Present atthe Seminars

Bangladesh

Neela Matin Msc/o IT BangladeshHouse 32 Road 13ADhanmondi Residential AreaDhaka 1209BangladeshTel: +880 2 811-934Fax: +880 2 813-134Email: [email protected]

India

Mihir Bhatt MrDirectorFoundation for Public InterestSakar V Suite 411, Fourth floorBehind Natraj Theater,Ashram RoadAhmedebad 380 009IndiaTel: +91 79 658-2962Fax: +91 79 658-2962Email: [email protected]


28

Reema Nanavaty MsSelf Employed Women’s Association(SEWA)Sewa Reception Centre, opp.VictoriaGardenBhadra,Ahmedebad 380 001IndiaTel: +91 79 550-6477, 550-6444Fax: +91 79 550-6446Email: [email protected]

Kenya

Cecilia Kinuthia Njenga MsUnited Nations Centre for HumanSettlements (UNCHS)P.O. Box 30030NairobiKenyaTel: +254 2 623 164Fax: +254 2 624 265Email: [email protected]

UK

John David Seddon MrSchool of Development StudiesUniversity of East AngliaNorwich NR4 7TJUnited KingdomTel: +44 1603 456-161Fax: +44 1603 451-999Email: [email protected]

Faciliators

Megan Lloyd Laney MsCommsconsultHolly BarnSunny Corner,CusgarneTruro TR4 8RNUKTel: +44 1872 863279Email: [email protected]

Farai Samunghu MsHeead of MarketingITDG Zimbabwe91 Enterprise RoadHighlandsHarareZimbabweTel: +263 4 490270Fax: +263 4 496041Email: [email protected]

Nelun Fernando MsITDG5 Lionel Edirisinghe Mawatha,Kirulapone Colombo 5, Sri LankaTel: +94 1 852-149, 829-412-4/Fax: +94 1 856-188Email:[email protected]

Kusala Wettasinghe MsITDG5 Lionel Edirisinghe MawathaKirulapone Colombo 5Sri LankaTel: +94 1 852-149, 829-412-4/Fax: +94 1 856-188Email: [email protected]

IFRTD Secretariat, UK

Priyanthi Fernando MsExecutive SecretaryIFRTD SecretariatNew Premier House150 Southampton RowLondon WC1B 5ALUKTel: +44 20 7 278 3670Fax: +44 20 7 278 6880Email:[email protected]

Mike Noyes MrDeputy Executive SecretaryIFRTDNew Premier House150 Southampton RowLondon WC1B 5ALUKTel: +44 20 7 278 3670Fax: + 44 20 7 278 6880Email: [email protected]

Ana Bravo MsConsultant Deputy ExecutiveSecretary – Latin AmericaC/o the IFRTD SecretariatNew Premier House150 Southampton RowLondon WC1B 5AL, UKTel: +44 20 7 278 3670Fax: + 44 20 7 278 6880Email: [email protected]


29

Asia Case Study Summaries1. My Daily Odyssey: transportation in the lives of SEWA Bank’s clients

Sangita Shrestova and Rekha Barve

2. Spatial mobility and women’s empowerment: implications for developing rural transport in BangladeshNilufer Matin, Mahjabeen Chowdhury, Hasina Begum and Delwara Khanam

3. From Dawn to Dusk: transportation of rural women to and from Calcutta MetropolisMahua Mukherjee

4. Transport patterns on two barangays in the PhilippinesMaureen Pagaduan and Anna Dizon

5. Cycling into the future:The experience of Women in Pudukkottai,Tamil NaduNitya Rao

6. Demands of a forest economyNitya Rao

7. Gender and transport in NepalGanesh Ghamire

8. Accessing healthcare facilities in Sri LankaDharshini Samaranayake and Kusum Kuruppu

9. Issues from Asian Case Studies

Appendices

Appendices

30

My Daily Odyssey: transportation in thelives of SEWA Bank’s clients

By Sangita Shrestova and Rekha Barve

This case study presents evidence regarding the pressingtransportation issues faced by SEWA (Self EmployedWomen’s Association) women in and aroundAhmedabad, India.These women experience acute accessrestrictions and transportation constraints, and theformat of the study, which includes ‘stories’ of six of thewomen’s daily lives gives clear insights into how theseissues convert into daily drudgery for the womenthemselves.

At the outset the study presents a fundamentalparadox: that while the SEWA Bank clients’ lives are someof the most adversely affected by transport relatedproblems, the women themselves are not even aware oftransportation as a ‘separate aspect’ of their lives, despitethe fact that their lives revolve around it. Concepts suchas ‘distance travelled’ have little meaning for the women,who tend to think in terms of ‘time spent’ on tasks ashaving much more relevance to their daily lives.

The study examines what form of transportationwomen are using for income-generating, leisure and socialpurposes. It asks:“Why are these transportation decisionsmade? In other words, to what extent are women’stransportation decisions affected by economic, culturaland gender-based considerations? ”.

The authors use three mechanisms to obtain theirevidence: secondary research (mainly SEWA backgroundinformation), six case studies about individual women(clothes/utensils peddler, pull-cart labourer, bidi roller,sweeper, ragpicker and farmer) and survey data collectedfrom questionnaire responses from 79 of the SEWABank’s clients, who were selected by location because ofearly problems in locating all of those from a randomlyselected list.The authors argue that this ‘deviation fromthe random sampling method’ does not decrease theauthenticity of the report and its ‘snapshot-like portrayalof transportation in SEWA Bank’s clients’ lives.

The report is presented in four sections.The firstdetails the methodology as described above, while thesecond gives geographical and demographic backgroundand detailed research findings.

All the women respondents are workers in theinformal sector of the economy, and their monthlyincome ranged between Rs.0 to Rs.5000, with an averageof Rs.1300. Both urban and rural workers arerepresented in the sample.They each work six or sevendays a week in income generating activities andhousehold chores combined, and those days are long (upto nineteen hours).Women carry headloads of up to40Kg and walking is the main mode of transportation,with many of the women interviewed ‘walking anywhere

even remotely accessible to cut transportation costs’.Thiscertainly applies to all the women featured in the fourthsection, containing the six women’s ‘travel diaries’.

Other modes of transport, such as bus or rickshaw,are secondary to walking, and buses, the second mostimportant form of transportation to the women, are onlyused in emergencies (such as for health reasons) orwhere the income earned by the woman is sufficient tostand the use of a bus occasionally. On average,fractionally under thirty per cent of the women’s incomeis spent each month on transportation, and despite manyof the women suffering physical problems as a result ofup to ten hours per day moving around, the highestpercentage (more than eighty per cent) complained ofhigh public transport costs as a difficulty, before the lackof a vehicle, long waits for public transport or physicalstrain. It was also noted among the respondents the useof public transport for health reasons for a familymember was more likely than the women using onethemselves for their own health.

The women’s favoured solution to improve theirtransportation difficulties include a significant majoritybelieving that a new vehicle would help them (58.22%).This figure includes 100% of home-based workers felt anew vehicle would ‘help them significantly’, while 92.86%of primary producers (farmers) felt this. Depending uponthe nature of business, this might be a bicycle or pushcart (rather than headloading or hiring a cart); a rickshaw(most useful to the vendors), or a bullock cart (farmers).This latter, rural category however were the mosthesitant about using one themselves, based ongender/cultural based limitations (which also exist in thecity to varying extents).

In the third section the authors then tie in their studywith one by the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service(AMTS) which brings in the wider considerations oftraffic congestion and pollution in Ahmedabad itself,which also adversely affects the women respondents, andwhich it is realised at policy level needs to be addressedurgently.The AMTS study finds that only 29% per cent ofits passengers are female.Why? This study finds that‘women save money at the expense of time and health’,and that the major deterrent to taking a bus is cost.Asthe AMTS is hoping to restructure to attract newcustomers, the authors suggest there may be scope forSEWA to negotiate a concession for members usingpublic buses.

The authors also suggest other areas for future studyand possible assistance to SEWA members, bringingtransportation much more to the fore in SEWAinvestigation and policy-making:“Transportation is notoften considered as a separate issue in the surveyedwomen’s lives, yet our study demonstrates that [it] plays avital part in both the professional and personal lives ofour respondents”.

Asia Case Study Summaries


31

Spatial mobility and women’sempowerment: implications fordeveloping rural transport inBangladeshBy Nilufer Matin, Mahjabeen Chowdhury, Hasina Begumand Delwara Khanam

The authors begin with an assertion of the knownlinkages between spatial mobility and the social andeconomic empowerment of women.This study exploresthese linkages, and analyses the gender aspects oftransport in the context of rural Bangladesh, where thelimitations on women’s mobility are entrenched andwhere gender issues in transport are an under-exploredarea of research.

Two geographical areas of the country were selected,Faridpur and Netrokona.Villages within 2km of a pavedroad were termed ‘easy access’.These villages have accessto motorised transport.Villages further from the pavedroad which can only be reached via earthen tracks andusing non-motorised transport are termed ‘remote’

The existing pattern of transport in Bangladesh isdetermined by the dominant topography.Therefore mostmodes of transport are non-motorised and pedestriantraffic still dominates. In 1986 non-motorised transportaccounted for 94 per cent of commercially operatedvehicles and two-thirds of carrying capacity.The otherdistrict feature is the regular flooding experienced duringthe monsoon in large areas of the country.The earthenroads, which are the majority, are flooded during themonsoon and remain muddy for much of the year.Country boats are much used.

In ‘easy access’ rural areas, the available modes oftransport are bus, rickshaw, tempo, rickshaw van andduring monsoon, country boat.

Women in rural Bangladesh face a rigid division oflabour in the composition of work being done by womenand men. Rural men spend 5.97 hours daily on work andrural women spend 7.57hrs. Of this, 5.57 hours are spentby women on subsistence activities and housework, mendevote little more than half an hour to such work.

The gender division of labour has been on the onehand induced by the traditional cultural restrictions onwomen’s mobility , and on the other hand has reinforcedthe restrictions.There is a strict code regarding when andfor what reasons women may leave their homes.Womenhave broken out of seclusion to some extent, but the‘social psychology is reproduced in the present daypolicies for women’s development’: developmentagencies design most of their activities for women in thefield of subsistence home-based activities which do notrequire much mobility.This, though it has helped womento participate in income-generating activities, in turn alsocontributed to the perpetuation and reinforcement oftraditional restrictions on women’s mobility outside thehome.

The authors gathered data in Faridpur and Netrokonain easy access villages and remote villages. Participatorytechniques were used and some of the findings andvariations are summarised below.

Women are greatly assisted in their duties by thepresence of clean water in or near their village (e.g. tubewell). If there is no school in the village then boys andgirls have to walk for perhaps 25 minutes. Someschoolgirls are starting to ride bikes, and those who canafford it pay for a rickshaw or tempo. Schools located invillages save much time and expense. Likewise healthcarefacilities.

A paved road is a great help to all transportationneeds in a village, and working on road construction canbring in income for men and women where such projectshave been instigated. In remote villages there can be greathardship during the monsoon flooding; men cannot get towork or children to school; health workers do not cometo the village and women hardly go out at all. NGOs arereluctant to run credit programmes in the villagesbecause they are in isolation for half of the year.As such,women have almost no employment and income earningopportunities and no way of attending trainingprogrammes.Women also do not attend markets ortravel to gather firewood, using dried leaves or dungavailable domestically.Where social restrictions are verytight in such remote villages, women express a wish forbetter jobs for the men in their families, not themselves,despite abject poverty.

In the easy access villages of Netrokona in the drierpart of the country, women enjoy much more freedomto move about.They can access credit and training andgo to the market to trade. Poorer women have to walk ifthey cannot afford a rickshaw, but still enjoy greatermobility than their counterparts above. Even in theremote villages of this region women have greatermobility.They are free to work outside the home andhave access to the family land to raise an income.Thismeans that they are often carrying loads, on heads forthe poorest. but the well-off can hire rickshaws.They alsohave to cover some distance to collect firewood. Onlymen use bicycles.

The report encompasses considerable variation, butthe authors note how women from many differentlocations and backgrounds have been able to breakthrough barriers, and have established examples ofincreased spatial mobility as a means to empowermentwith minimum aid from outside institutions. Class, wealthand caste have complex effects on women’s mobility, butgenerally the poor and destitute have fewer restrictionsthan the well-off.Women-only buses or the availability ofrickshaws help women to move around in a restrictivesociety.

Other recommendations to increase women’smobility include:

● Well-maintained earthen roads


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● Increased availability to women of non-motorisedmeans of transport (credit programmes)

● Bicycle incentives for schoolgirls to ride to school● Women-friendly bus services.

From Dawn to Dusk: transportation ofrural women to and from CalcuttaMetropolisBy Mahua Mukherjee

This paper examines the lot of rural women who takethe train each day from a collection of rural villagesoutside Calcutta to undertake mostly informal sectorwork in the city.The economic disparity between ruraland urban areas, coupled with other disadvantages hasled to this daily migration from rural to urban areas. Bothmen and women are part of this massive movement ofpeople on overcrowded trains, but a large proportion arewomen who are compelled to commute in search ofincome to support their families.

The author uses secondary research, observation anddiscussion, and primary research in the form of aquestionnaire-based interview.There was very littleexisting information about the women commuters, so theauthor found she was effectively starting from scratch.

What the study uncovers is a large and growingnumber of women travelling daily into the city atconsiderable mental and physical cost to themselves, andthere is at least some evidence in the study that familiesare suffering associated ill effects also.The author reportsthat rural/urban commuters are in a double bind; not asvocal as their urban informal sector counterparts, theyhave to endure virtually non-existent rural transportationand chaotic, overcrowded urban public transport.

The area under study, District South 24 Parganas, hasa high number of men and women commuting toCalcutta, as it supplies vegetables, fish, flowers and milk toCalcutta and vendors travel in with these, workers for theleather, plastics and building industries, untrained workersfor hospitals and care homes, a few formal sector (officestaff), but in the group of women studied, the majoritywere employed as ‘maidservants’ (domestic help).

The aim of the study, was to determine ‘who are thecommuters and how are they commuting? What are theproblems they are facing and how far are thesegendered? How does their choice and use of transportaffect, or is affected by their roles and responsibilities intheir homes and communities? What ideas do thewomen have about improving transport facilities?

Girls under twenty years of age were not found to becommuting for a job, but for educational purposes. Forthose commuting who were in their twenties, thirties andforties, selling produce of various kinds and domesticservant were the main occupations. Depending on ageand state of health the women may fulfil this role formore than one household. Only 6 per cent of

respondents were engaged in the formal sector; thesefeel they could pay more for transportation but inexchange would want a relatively comfortable journey –impossible under present circumstances. Most women inthe informal sector simply do not pay for their tickets(there is no systematic checking although railway staff arecorrupt and accept bribes.The government are runningthis part of the train line in South 24 Parganas with asubsidy, and considering closing it down because of thelosses, in lieu of further development or expansion).

The women also have to manage their ownhousework as well as their outside jobs; the author foundevidence of severe poverty, lack of access to water andsanitation.There is physical strain on many familymembers (asthma and TB are common) and someevidence of breakdown in the traditional extended familythrough the women having to work away from home. 54per cent of women respondents spend more than twelvehours outside their homes every day. Only five per centstay away for less than eight hours. On average one and ahalf hours of this is taken up with travelling, with manyrespondents spending three hours or more.Time iswasted waiting to change from one mode of transport toanother; on average 55 minutes per day. In every case thewomen walk for part of their journey, on average for 90minutes but in some cases 150-180 minutes.

There are extremely limited opportunities for earningan income in the villages of the District, which is whatdrives the women to make a difficult and often unsafejourney in a crowded and frequently late-running train. Inone village of the District however,Taldi, there is a ratherdifferent story.There is a local prawn processing industry,and most of the women who live there are engaged inthat industry, local to their homes.This gives them a localmeans of earning a livelihood, sparing considerable strainon themselves and their families.Their energies are notwasted on difficult travelling.

In her evaluation, the author draws out the followingmain points. Economic reasons are the driving forcebehind the mass daily commuting.The women usuallyhave to keep their own houses as well as earn an income.Time away from home is long (about twelve hours) andwasting time waiting between journeys is about an houron average. Regarding the journey itself, discomfort is themain problem: too hot in summer, too cold in the earlymorning in winter, no lighting when walking home in thedark, other passengers do not welcome the large loadscarried by the vendors, roads for walking are muddyduring the rainy season, no toilet facilities at the roadside,inadequate women’s facilities on the train, trains arecancelled and run late without prior warning,pickpocketing and bribery are rife on the trains.

Their long days away mean that the women caninteract less with their families and the author mentions a‘trend of negligence’ towards the women from otherfamily members themselves struggling with poor nutritionand hygiene facilities. In many of these families the


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husband is too ill to work, and the strain of housework,commuting and time away from home is taking a toll onthe women and their family relationships.

The rural women’s suggestions to improve theirsituation included: the number of trains and buses shouldbe increased; a double-decker train, electric street lightsand a cemented walkway, toilet facilities by the roadside;more women only compartments on the trains; trainsshould not be cancelled without prior notice; railway staffand police corruption should be clamped down on.Perhaps the most far-reaching long term suggestion fromthe women themselves was for alternative incomegeneration opportunities nearer to their villages. It isfundamentally lack of any alternatives which makes thesewomen follow the course of action they do, and theirhealth, education, housing conditions and family life allsuffer as a result.

The women expressed all aspects of their lives andtheir difficulties, but the author reports that they did notfeel they could play any role, however minor, in improvingtheir present situation.Their confidence and self-esteem isextremely low.

The author concludes with a broad list ofrecommendations, underpinned with the exhortationthat any solution must be economically viable andsustainable, and that the present set of circumstancesrequires a great deal of human and economic resourcesto resolve. Much research is needed now to work outthe best ways to mobilise resources and to manage anappropriate action plan.

Transport patterns in two barangays inthe PhilippinesBy Maureen Pagaduan and Anna Dizon

This study presents a description and gender analysis ofthe transport patterns in two barangays in the Philippines.

The first, Caramay which was formed in 1905, coversa land area of some 8,000 hectares and is home to about480 households, each with an average of five inhabitants.Farming is the main economic activity, with coconutsgrown as the main export crop, and fishing supportinghousehold income.There are two dirt roads servicingintra-barangay travel; two gravel provincial roads and onefeeder road.

A range of transport devices are used to transportpeople and goods.A fleet of jeepneys, oversized jeepswith the motor engine of a truck which have a seatingcapacity of 50 but accommodate 75 people when fullypacked, is used by both men and women.The vehicles aremostly owned by men for public, utilitarian andcommercial use, and operate from early in the morningto late at night.Their design poses no discomfort norinconvenience to women who are frequent users.

Motorcycles and bicycles are ridden by both men andwomen, although ownership is restricted largely to men.They are used to travel to the local high school, to work,

to undertake errands such as fetching water, anddelivering messages to friends and relatives.The barangayhas between 30-50 motorcycles and up to 60 bicycles.Women are very familiar with both modes of transportand are comfortable using them.

Bancas, or boats, both motorised and non-motorised,are used by fishermen to transport themselves to fishinggrounds.They are also used for domestic chores and forbathing, where the male owners of the boats ferry theirsisters and wives to unpolluted stretches of the CaramayRiver.The majority of the residents carry out theireveryday activities by walking.Women walk to the localmarket to buy provisions for the household, and bothmen and women walk to fetch water and to take a bath.Women and men also walk to the health centre, tochurch, to neighbours to exchange news and stories.Theyalso walk to go to other sitios, especially in the uplandsection of the community, to work on their patch of land,to gather cashew nuts, to plant rice and to take care ofthese. Children walk to attend school and some of theirteachers do too. From the national road going to thesitios, people walk towards the interior of the barangaysince there are no tricycles to transport them to theirfinal destination.There are no designated walking trailswithin the barangay since the entire area has accessiblewalking paths underneath coconut trees. Even thebarangay roads are still dominantly used by pedestrians.

The second barangay, Handumon, is one of threewhich make up the island of Jandayan, itself part of a smallchain of islands off the coast of the mainland.Thebarangay is 58 hectares, and home to 158 households.Fishing is the main economic activity, with the mainsource of cash income from seahorse trading withmainland China. Fresh water is supplied by 52 wells, andthe women of the island collect and sell firewood tohouseholds on neighbouring islands.

The sea is the main routeway used by all inhabitants.Roads are maintained by local government but thecomprehensive network of narrow paths are made andrepaired by local users.A range of transport devices areregularly used by the people of the barangay; motorisedand non-motorised bancas; ferry boats; motorcycles; pushcarts, bicycles, and walking.

Bicycles and boats tend to be used by men ratherthan women, partly because of ownership patterns, andpartly because women are not comfortable with theseparticular modes of transport (for example, women areuncomfortable with rowing non-motorised bancas, andhave developed fear of the sea because they are rarelytaught how to swim as children).Travel by motor boattakes some time because even if the actual ride onlytakes less than an hour, the waiting time is long.This isespecially difficult for women because of the manyconcerns and chores they have to attend to.While thebanca is covered, it can only provide shade for 10 people.Also, because of the incovenience of a boat ride, womencan not dress appropriately for fear that it might cause


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them greater inconvenience and embarrassment ingetting in and out of the vessel.

Women would prefer to stay home if there were nomotor boat available and non-motorized bancas are theonly option.This is because the use of the lattersometimes causes quarrel among husbands and wivesespecially when the man does not want to do therowing.Women would be forced to row and becausethey are not practised in this type of activity, an argumentmight follow.A non-motorized banca is three timesslower than a motorized boat because it is very muchdependent on wind resistance and the power of theperson who handles the paddle.The boarding area fornon-motorized bancas is along the shore where one hasto wade in knee deep water before reaching the boat. Inthis case passengers, can not do anything but get wet.

Motorcycles are modified to enable up to fivemedium-sized passengers to travel together with luggage.Fees for passengers are not fixed, and women expresseddiscomfort at sitting so closely with other malepassengers and having to negotiate fares with the driver.A passenger’s safety is a matter of concern for theindividual and the driver takes no responsibility forensuring that they wear protective clothing.

Women can be regularly seen walking.They walk toother neighbours to sell their husband’s catch when it istoo few to sell to commercial buyers.They walk to fetchwater, especially those who are located far from the wells,for the drinking and washing needs of their household.They walk to gather firewood and to sell food like breadand viands.The men, upon returning from the sea or theirwork, are not expected to work in the house.They willsleep and rest during the day because everybody believesthat they are too tired because of their work theprevious night.

Pushcarts are also owned by the men.They are bothfor their personal use and for rent together with theirlabour. Its main purpose is for hauling water containersfrom the well to the shore where they will be loaded towaiting motorised boats to deliver to customers in theisland barangays.They are also used to haul firewoodwhich is also sold like fresh water to other islanders.Theyare also rented to deliver merchandise from the shore tothe doorsteps of store owners in the barangay.

Transportation is a source of livelihood for men in thebarangay.They are the owners of boats, motorcycles andbicycles which they use for personal mobility and forleisure.

Cycling into the future:The experienceof Women in Pudukkottai,Tamil NaduBy Nitya Rao

The story of the introduction of bicycles and bicycleriding skills as part of a literacy campaign (by the NationalLiteracy Mission) in the early 1990s in Pudukkottai region,Tamil Nadu, is a well-known example of women’s

increased mobility, independence and empowermentthrough a successful intervention: cycling.

The author of this study wanted to see howcircumstances had evolved more than five years ‘downthe road’, and whether the movement in women ridingbicycles had been sustained and would remainsustainable.

The initial campaign enlisted the help of men to teachwomen how to cycle. Loans were made available forwomen to buy cycles and those with a regular income(such as NGO extension workers, childcare workers)were quick to take these up.As more women were seenregularly cycling, the opposition and ‘male jokes diedaway’. It became acceptable through the sense of it beinga widespread movement.

The author sought to ask three questions:

1. Though cycles were introduced from the perspectiveof empowering women rather than meeting theirtransport needs, have they been able to meet thoseneeds, both for their productive and reproductiveactivities.Are women able to access bicycles to meetthose needs?

2. What has been the impact of women’s increasedmobility on their self-esteem and confidence, ongender relations in the community?

3. Has providing cycles to women been a sustainableintervention? In particular, has women’s investment incycles continued and do they have control over theuse of these cycles?

Key informant interviews, a focus group discussionand a village survey were the tools employed to findanswers to these questions. 49 women were interviewedin 12 villages.

Out of these 49, only three did not know how to ridea bicycle. Most of these ‘sample’ women were Scheduledand Backward caste women, half of them barely literateand the others educated up to middle school.They earntheir living through their labour.They are mostly in the20-30 years age group and most of them have childrenand families to care for, in addition to their income-earning activities.Their workload is therefore heavy.

An activity and time profile conducted with eightcouples revealed that while men and women spent 6-8hours per day on paid work, the women spent a similaramount of time on household maintenance and childcaretasks, whereas men spent less than two hours on these.Women’s working day could stretch to between 12-18hours per day.

The researchers found that all women who hadaccess to cycles, whether their own or that of a husband,father or brother, were using them for a range of tasks,related to all areas of their responsibilities.The mostcommon uses were fetching water from the well or tank,taking paddy to the rice mill, collecting fuel and fodder,going to the hospital in an emergency, and going toschool (younger girls). A few use the cycle for their


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productive work, such as selling flowers in the market,purchasing and selling gems to and from the contractorand maintenance of plants in a government nursery, etc.

In the majority of rural homes of the District a cycle isnow common property. In a door to door surveycovering 50 households, it was found that 32 of them (64per cent) owned a cycle. 83 out of 91 men asked knewhow to cycle, and 34 out of 100 women.There mightperhaps have been three or four prior to the literacycampaign.

Only four out of the sample of 49 women actuallyowned their own bicycle, however.Women seemedwilling however to use hired cycles not only inemergencies, but also for use in paid work or when theywere able to plan several household tasks together thatare located at a distance. Hiring every day would be tooexpensive, but now they know how to cycle they can alsoborrow from neighbours or use one belonging toanother member of their own household.

Cycling is generally viewed as a cheap and efficientmeans of transport and definitely contributes to meetingthe transport needs of women particularly those in ‘lowaccess’ villages (distant from essential services).Thepattern of use and ownership of cycles bears out thatbetter provision of services such as drinking water, foodshops and health and education facilities can lead tosubstantially reducing women’s transport burden andneeds.

An interesting issue is that while between 30-50 percent of people hiring cycles in the District are women,ladies cycles can rarely be found in the shops.The womenhave in fact got used to riding gent’s cycles, and in factfeel that it gives them better balance when carrying loads.Even riding a gent’s bicycle in a sari doesn’t bother thewomen any more, the convenience of the mode oftransport outweighing all other considerations.

The author tells the stories of some individual womenand how cycling has helped them.A common theme isthat they can be more involved with social, developmentand community tasks because they can confidently andindependently cycle from village to village.This in the caseof one woman who has enhanced her status within thehome so she is now a major decision taker in herhousehold. Her husband is quite happy with this, not leastbecause his workload has reduced! This woman broughtthe bicycle on a loan, and she has already repaid it.

Other women reported how taking a sick relative orchild to hospital themselves on the bicycle gave them afeeling of independence and usefulness; of being a ‘usefulmember of society’.The motivation to learn among thewomen who do not yet know how to cycle is still hightoday.

While access to cycles for women now seemswidespread, what is more problematic is the issue ofcontrol.Very few women still actually own cycles, hencethey are dependent on the cycles of others, and theyhave to adjust their work according to the needs of the

owners. For instance, if a husband owns the bike and hasto leave for work at 8a.m., then the woman has to get upextra early to try to finish as much of her work (watercollecting etc.) before this time.The men in thehouseholds generally own the bicycles, and so they getpriority in its use.

Only 12 of the 49 women interviewed had easyaccess to cycles , and another ten reported that theyusually had access to a bicycle when they needed it.Thedistance of the cycle hire shop was quoted as a problemfor the women, reconfirming that the utility of cycles is nolonger an issue of debate for the women, but seen as anaccepted requirement to meet their needs.

There are still however some social restrictions thatprevent some women from cycling. Husbands say theyworry about their wives or daughters being injured, but inmany cases women’s work is just not a priority for men.Cycles greatly reduce the time and labour inputs forwomen in several drudgery-ridden tasks that are essentialfor household maintenance, but as these are unpaid tasksand have no cash value, the owners of the cycles, mostlymen, do not see cycles as critical for women in theperformance of their tasks.

Cycling for women does not seem to have changedgender relations (for more than two thirds of the sample)in the household significantly. Major decision making (onexpenditure etc.) continues to be vested in the men.

With the greater acceptance of cycling in the District,the profitability of cycle shops as an income earningenterprise has seen their numbers increase steadily.Acycle shop is now seen as a facility that should beavailable in a village.With changes in employmentpatterns and lifestyles, the isolated and self-sufficientvillage economy is a thing of the past. Mobility andtransportation are integral parts of people’s lives. Largenumbers of girls are cycling to school every day inPudukkottai; this is indicative of even higher bicycle use inthe next generation.

In concluding the comment on the evidence of thesurvey and interviews, the author states that the primaryimpact of learning to cycle on women’s lives is theirperception of independence in terms of their roles in thehousehold and community; productive, reproductive andcommunity managing roles.The second and relatedimpact has been in terms of improvement in both theirself confidence and self-esteem.

Looking at gender relations the picture is morecomplicated. On the positive side, women cycling hascome to be accepted as a normal phenomenon, andrural girls now learn to cycle alongside boys.

On the other hand, almost 40 per cent of the womenreported that their workloads had actually increased.Tasks that the men would do before, such as marketing,taking the children to school or whatever involvedtravelling distances, have all now shifted to women. Cyclesdo however help them to complete their jobs faster andmore easily. Despite their extra burdens, they report


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having more time for leisure.On a broader front, the Pudukkottai programme has

demonstrated that cycling can be one very effectivestrategy for empowering women.The women themselveshave found an efficient, cheap and easy way of meetingtheir transport needs, which has also empowered them.The signs are that use of cycles by women in Pudukkottaiis a sustained and sustainable phenomenon, an integraland necessary part of their lives.

Demands of a forest economyBy Nitya Rao

This study analyses the transportation patterns and linkswith gender relations in the Santhal Parganas, in thesouth-eastern part of Bihar, Southern India. Dumka is itsmain town and market centre of the area, which takes itsname from the Santhal tribes who constitute a largeproportion of the mainly rural population.

Dumka itself has no rail connection, although all themajor towns are well connected by buses. Bullock cartsremain a main form of conveyance, though these areuseless on the steep and rocky rural paths. Bicycles areslowly increasing in number, but as yet are entirely usedby men, so women have no option but to walk almosteverywhere.

The Santhals and Paharias, who make up the groupsstudied here, are poor cultivators and gatherers whohave been viewed by mainstream society as people to beemployed as labourers in agriculture and construction,rather than as literate people. In the three villages studied,they earn an income from the forests, which in someareas is receding rapidly from the settlements.

According to Santhal law and tradition, women areperceived as ‘objects’ or ‘property’ to be transferred fromthe father to the husband.Women do not have any claimover property, neither can they inherit it. Deprived frominheriting land, and frequently rejected as a consequenceof polygamy, they can be thrown out of a house withoutmaintenance. Large numbers of Santhali womentherefore lead unimaginably hard lives, with hardly anyresources.

Agriculture along with the sale of forest products isthe traditional mainstay of the Santhal economy, but thegradual decline in forest cover and lack of improvementsin agriculture means that Santhals have been forced intowage labour, both local and migrant. Livelihoods today areoften made up from a mixture of all three.

The study looks at three villages where the foresteconomy plays the major role.This means the collectionof fuel-wood; poles for the construction industry; fooditems such as roots, berries, mangoes etc.; medicinal herbsand other products such as leaves which are made intoleaf plates for sale. Shifting cultivation is also practisedunder the forest canopy.

The forest economy is primarily a female one, withwomen responsible for the collection, processing and sale

of produce.As forests dwindle they have to walk furtherand carry the produce home as headloads.The heavierproducts such as jackfruits and firewood are carried bymen who take them to market.

A few villages have a single bus service each day,taking them one way to the market. Often these arecrowded and therefore refuse to carry women with largeand heavy loads.The majority of the villages are howeverhilly and inaccessible to buses, or even bullock carts.Motorbikes are rare, and there are only a few cycles inthe villages, entirely under the control and use of men.The roads, which have not been maintained since built bythe state in the 1940s or ’50s are in a dreadful state,people preferring to walk in the fields next to them asthey are softer on the feet! The limited focus of transportprovisioning by the state has been to link villages withtowns to meet the needs of the market, rather than theneeds of village women.

Jadopani village was studied, an interior tribal village oftwo hamlets, one high up near the jungle and one lowerdown the slopes.The study brought to light the intensityof women’s daily transport burden: almost six to eighthours spent daily for the collection of water andfirewood and other forest products, in addition to theirwork in the fields.There is a clear gender division of tasks,with all household maintenance falling into the women’sdomain.This includes housework and earning income forthe purchase of food such as oil and spices.The men areresponsible for the supply of grains to the family, andtherefore for the household agriculture, in which they areassisted by women.They are also engaged in wage labourand the higher value forest products. Men’s transportburdens are also high, as they have to travel further tomarket, carrying heavier loads, but this is not a daily trip.

The scope of non-transport interventions in reducingwomen’s transport burdens can clearly be seen whenone compares the collection of drinking water in theupper and lower hamlets. In the lower one, this is arelatively easy task due to the presence of a hand-pumpnear the houses, and a stream close by. For women in theupper hamlet, the stream is about one kilometre awayand this often dries up, so they must walk further onrocky ground, carrying pots of water on their heads.

In Maholo, the second village studied, the genderdivision of labour was found to be similar, but the terrainmeant that men have recently begun to cycle to themore distant market at Pakuria and get a better price fortheir fuel-wood, which they also collect as well as thewomen. Men were found to be supporting the womento some extent by taking on some cooking and childcareresponsibilities.Thus women have had their transportburdens eased to some extent by not going to market.Men also seem to spend the money earned onhousehold necessities, but women have no access to thecash themselves because the men are doing themarketing.Any surplus the men spend on themselves.

Collecting water, fuelwood and forest products


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similarly takes many hours in the third study village ofPandhini Duma.The forest lies eight kilometres away, sojourneys start very early in the morning for women andmen, and they may not go every day.There is somemigration for wage labour to West Bengal, and men withcycles collect coal from the open-cast mines which canbe sold for a relatively good return locally or in themarket centres.The cycles are again found to be anexclusively male asset. Because the women do not havetransport, they collect fuelwood for domestic use and donot sell other forest products at the markets. Use ofbicycles would help them enormously but has not evenbeen discussed.A reliable source of drinking water withinthe village would again be of enormous assistance tothem.

The author found that as in other agriculturalsocieties, transport needs vary with the seasons,particularly between local transport needed for thecollection of forest products, water etc. and the need totravel greater distances for wage-labour in the off-season.

It was also noted that the larger families with morewomen in them actually helped ease women’s burden oftransporting and other tasks; as there is cleardemarcation between men’s and women’s duties, morefemales in a household could spread the load.Women innuclear-type households had the heaviest burdens ofwork.

Transport interventions have been few, and the statehas limited itself to the construction of roads and settingup bus routes, neither of which have helped the tribalwomen very much. Informal interventions such as theintroduction of bicycles have not helped either, as theyare under men’s ownership and control. Although menwith cycles have taken over taking forest produce tomarkets, and they do spend the income on householdneeds, women lose direct control of the income and sothey are unable to save for emergencies or utilise any ofit for personal expenses.They still have to undertake thecollection of the products from the forest, where using abicycle is impossible.

On the policy intervention level, the author feels thatit may not be possible to address many of the women’stransport needs with transport interventions alone. Non-transport interventions, such as a reliable source ofdrinking water in the village, might well be of greatassistance, as would longer term projects of protectingand regenerating the forests to prevent further receding.

Access to markets is a serious problem for women.They have to headload their produce to the nearestmarkets, and return as soon as possible.Access to better(further) markets and safe ways of returning would meanthe women could get better prices for their produce.One suggestion is to have special buses for womencarrying loads on market days.

In conclusion, the author states that ‘…a combinationof non-transport interventions for providing basicservices such as water, health and education facilities in

the villages themselves, along with innovative transportand organisational interventions to ease the transportburdens on the tribal populations, particularly women,without adversely affecting gender relations, are urgentlyrequired’.

Gender and transport in NepalBy Ganesh Ghamire

The author begins with the assertion that ‘Genderconsiderations in rural transport interventions in theNepalese context are rather new’, and this study goes onto give evidence effectively to bear this statement out,through a review of the content of the transport planningcomponent of the Five Year Plans in Nepal from 1956until the present one which runs up to 2002, andfieldwork undertaken in two rural areas, one in themountains, and a comparative piece of research based inthe rural Terai (plains).

Travelling and transport take up a huge amount oftime for rural Nepalis, and account for a good deal ofdrudgery.The research sought to answer such questionsas: how is this burden is shared by men and women?What are their transport needs? Are issues of gendertaken into account in policy and planning? and finally, whatimpacts have various transport interventions had uponthe rural populations?

Difficulty, drudgery and inefficiency of transport is aparticular feature of Nepal, and has often been cited asthe main obstacle to achieving a more rapid pace ofeconomic and social development. Settlements in themountains are generally scattered and sparse, and theprevailing method of travel is walking and moving goodsis by human load-carrying. Many of the communities haveno motorable road at all. Movement of people and goodsoften involves much physical hardship.

In the plains, there tend to be clusters of settlementslinked to each other and to the outside world via anetwork of tracks or wide trails which have evolvedaccording to needs over time.The local people upgradeand repair sections themselves, so that animal-drawncarts, hand-carts and pack animals can be used.

In the mountains the difficulty of travel has tended tolead to isolation, whereas in the Terai, malarial infectionsare a problem, connected with the seasonal flooding ofthe north/south flowing rivers which constrain movementboth within the area and to and from the outside world.

Only since the planned development period,beginning in the mid 1950s, have there been efforts todevelop transport systematically to encouragedevelopment in Nepal. A summary is given of the aims ofeach five year plan with regard to transport since theybegan.There has been a consistent priority given to‘strategic roads’, such as feeder roads main highways, andalso aviation, for long distance haulage, while for internalmobility emphasis has been placed on trails, local roadsand suspension bridges. Low-cost rural roads and more


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environmentally-friendly approaches began to emerge inthe 1980s, but, concludes the author, none of thetransport planning and policy documents ‘…mentiongender. Even implicitly…The subjects are dealt with as ifthey are gender insensitive’.

Only in the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-85) was thereany recognition for women’s role in nationaldevelopment, but the document ‘did not identify women’sissues’. Subsequent Five Year Plans made cleardeclarations about women and development, but havefailed to recognise any of the particular roles that womenplay, assuming that they are not involved in nation buildingand do not recognise women’s contribution to economicgrowth. Only the current one (1997-2002) begins toaddress the issues of discrimination based on gender.

The author looks more closely at the roles taken bywomen and men in rural areas, and finds women’sworkload is spread more widely than men’s over therange of domestic, household, agricultural and transporttasks. He then goes on to examine the impacts of certainrural transport interventions.

It is reported that building a road in a rural area hasparticular effects not only on the total stock of travel andtransport tasks, but on the share of travel and transporttasks that men and women take on, and that this variesbetween the mountains and the Terai.

The fieldwork reports on a rural road constructed toconnect the village with the market centre.The roadbrought motor vehicles about one hour closer to thevillage, and there are plans to bring it closer yet.Irrespective of gender, the author reports, long distancetravel has become easier.With better access to themarket, the demand for dairy products has risendramatically and the village people are raising more cattleto satisfy this need.This has actually increased householdburdens.Travel and transport-related tasks have alsoincreased, and this is not being shared equally betweenmen and women. It is the women who have taken on theincreased burden.

In the Terai on the other hand, the author reports ona village located on the junction of an earth track recentlyupgraded to motorable standard and an earth track builtby the local people.

The improved road condition has facilitated theintroduction of more motor vehicles such as motorcycles,light jeeps and minibuses.There is now a regular busservice to the market centre and the village now acts asan important junction for the surrounding rural areas.Motorcycle ownership has increased dramatically, and thenumber of shops of all types has increased substantially.

The transport tasks are felt to have reduced, andmany more women are now riding bicycles which hasincreased their mobility significantly, while some changesin taking responsibility for travel and transport tasks havebeen observed. For example, men using bicycles tocollect fuelwood is a new and regular sight, which mightindicate a gender shift of responsibilities at the household

level.Women, in particular young women, are usingbicycles to carry small loads. It is also the case that traveland transport tasks have increased overall and thatwomen are taking up the extra load disproportionately,as in the mountains.

Accessing healthcare facilities in SriLankaBy Dharshini Samaranayake and Kusum Kuruppu

The paper analyses to what extent the transportinfrastructure in Meegahamada village in Sri Lanka meetsthe transportation needs of women in accessing primaryand curative healthcare. It argues that because of thegender defined productive and reproductiveresponsibilities of women which gives them responsibilityfor feeding and nurturing their family and of nursing thosewho are ill, access to primary and curative care is vital.

Meegahamada is one of the few traditional villageslocated in Kandy district. It lies at the foothill of theeastern side of the rock Yahangala, as did eight othervillages at one time, but five were abandoned because oftheir inaccessibility and the community’s inability to ekeout a viable livelihood.The origins of the village are notknown exactly, but it is recorded that ten families movedin as part of the Hasalaka peasant resettlement schemewhich was initiated in 1958, bringing with it extensiveinfrastructural development. Of the total numbers ofpeople living in the 56 Buddhist households, nearly halfare women of child-bearing age, increasing the need forante-natal and post-natal medical facilities. Issues of childsurvival, immunisation, access to family planning andmaternal care supersedes other needs of the community.

Paddy cultivation is the main agricultural activity,cultivated once a year, and slash and burn cultivation inthe highlands, and casual wage labour are secondarysources of income.Women are exclusively responsiblefor vegetable cultivation in the highlands even though themen usually clear the area first, and equal numbers ofmen and women are involved in paddy cultivation,although the women are responsible for taking theharvest and processing all of the paddy and finger milletin mills some 3-4 miles from the village.

In 1997-98, as a result of a lot of pressure from thevillagers for an access road to the main road, a non-governmental organisation located in the village workedin conjunction with the Pradeshiya Sabha (local bodiesmade up of elected community members who areresponsible for all aspects of infrastructural facilities at thislevel) to construct such a road. One of their mainjustifications for this expenditure was the community’sneed for better access to medical facilities.Although thewomen were aware of the need to participate in villageorganisations, the lack of functional literacy and access toeducation deterred their participation in existingorganisations, or the formation of spontaneous commoninterest groups which promote the needs of women.


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There are now two class ‘A’ roads (connecting thecapital city with provisional capitals and the lattertogether in a network) in the division to which the villagebelongs.The main road is 12km away from the village,connected by two access roads which are gravelled. Oneaccess footpath from the main road crosses the riverwhich is often swollen and difficult to cross, and the finalfootpath leading to the village is narrow and steep withseveral flights of steps.The footpaths are used by the mento visit the fields transport produce and for bathing.Thewomen use the footpaths for agricultural activities, tocollect water for domestic use, washing of clothes andbathing, collect firewood and herbs for medicine, collectreeds to weave mats and baskets and maintain social tieswith their relatives.

Private bus services operate on the agricultural, localand gravel roads and are used by the people of the villagemore often than the public bus service, but the vans runduring peak hours only and are heavily overcrowded withgoods and commuters. People report that they traveloutside of the village most often for buying provisions,processing agricultural produce and accessing healthcareservices. Despite the addition of the road, infrastructure isstill poor: one mother walked nearly 6km, carrying a childto Udattawa hospital and then had to wait up to fourhours for medical attention. Monthly visits to the pre-natal clinic takes more than seven hours for a round tripon foot unless the family owns a bicycle – as 72 per centof families do – in which case the trip is much quicker.

The authors report that women blamed their lack ofaccess to healthcare facilities on lack of basicinfrastructure and lack of primary healthcare institutions.They found that the community had once relied upon atraditional system of healthcare which was a combinationof beliefs and rituals, traditional methods of healing basedon the use of herbs and natural substances andtraditional birth attendants. However, this traditionalsystem had been gradually eroded over a period of twodecades with the process of integration andmodernisation. Now, the researchers found that theentire village depended on western medical treatmentand primary health care facilities provided by the state.

Levels of literacy were very low in the village: 65 percent for men over 15 years of age and 55 per cent forthe equivalent groups of women.The authors suggest thiscould be partly due to the fact that the nearest primaryschool is three miles away from the village and schoolattendance is infrequent and of low priority. Girl childrenare often not sent to school because the footpathsleading to the school from the village are through isolatedshrub jungle.The general understanding in the village isthat girl children do not need an education especiallysecondary education which coincides with the age ofpuberty. Lack of education was cited by one womaninterviewed as being the main constraint to socialdevelopment which in turn affected their health status.

Of the health care needs expressed by the women

the most important need was access to maternalhealthcare services. Pre-natal care was accessed at themonthly primary health care clinic held at a hospital 5kmfrom the village, and although the access road to thevillage had been improved, the lack of motorisedtransport and the monopolisation of the family bicycle bythe men meant that women continued to walk to theclinic.Attendance had gone up at the clinic after the roadwas built, but there were no coincidental increases infrequency of the Family Health Worker to the village, andaccording to the residents the lack of road access, thenature of the terrain, and the wide geographical areacovered by the Family Health Worker were the mainconstraints to service delivery.

The impact of inadequate transport infrastructure onaccess to healthcare while the mother is having the babywas particularly harsh. Of the 50 women who had givenbirth in the village, 229 births had taken place in thehome while 31 were institutional births. 40 percent ofthe women interviewed reported of a infant/child death:a total of 32 infant deaths and 2 maternal deaths werereported in the household survey.

The paper concludes that the lack of access totransport in Meegahamada has led to a situation where acombination of factors interact to form a pocket ofpoverty, neglect and isolation in terms of healthcare dueto lack of access to education, information, services andfacilities which are a consequence of the lack of transportfacilities.Although the provision of a road has not had asignificant and immediate impact, it has definitely started aprocess of change where the women have begun toaccess services and facilities more regularly and identifytheir transport needs.


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Appropriate for community levelinterventionAccess to Health: issues from Sri Lanka

● Maintenance of infrastructure is as important as itsintroduction

● Transport interventions on their own are sometimesnot enough

My Daily Odyssey: issues from Ahmedabad, India

● Women’s lack of confidence in dealing withtechnology new to women

● There is a need to assist women to place themselveswithin the wider political/social contexts, includingunderstanding how gender influences theircircumstances

● Need for more circumstances and information ongender and transport in order to devise appropriateinterventions

● Consideration of transport issues should be central tomicro enterprise strategies, alongside businessplanning, marketing credit lines etc

● Transport is not only a means of getting from oneplace to another: it can also be the site and source ofbusiness

Tales of Isolation: issues from the Philippines

● Isolated communities suffer from a dearth ofinstitutions assisting them to solve their ownproblems and this exacerbates the symptoms of theirisolation such as transport burdens

● Understanding the dynamics within a household iscrucial in planning appropriate transport interventions

● Cross-sector co-operation is essential in meeting thelivelihood needs of women

Commuting to Work: issues from Calcutta

● Need to investigate innovative coping strategies toovercome mobility constraints of women and offerthese as options to other women

● Potential for practitioners working with women onother issues (e.g. health) to look at transport issueswith their constituency

● Need to work with women to help them analysetheir own situation and explore options

Transport Tasks: issues from Nepal

● During identification of people’s transport burdensand needs, there is advantage to talking to each of thecommunity’s stakeholder groups separately as astarting point

● Analysis of the differing impact of transportinterventions on men and women is missing inavailable information

● Introducing alternative means of transport toundertake a task can change gender responsibilitiesboth positively and negatively

Forest Products: issues from India

● Improving modes of transport could result in womenlosing control of, for example, income from sale ofproducts

● Helping women to organise themselves to‘collectivise’ the marketing of their products couldovercome transport constraints of getting to market

Cycling into the Future: issues from India

● Make cycles available as a cheap and easy mode oftransport

Spatial Mobility: issues from Bangladesh

● Communities should be involved more in the planningand maintenance of roads

● Cultural education is a vital part of any effectivetransport strategy

● Information should be made available to womenwhich inform them of their rights to mobility, and theoptions available for achieving greater mobility

Growing Cashews: issues from Sri Lanka

● All development interventions will have an impact ontransport patterns and transport needs

● There are other forms of control over transportdevices, other than ownership

● Women’s priorities for investing are determined bytheir gender and by the social environment in whichthey live

● Working with communities to raise their levels ofawareness and analytical skills will create a demandwhich is, by definition, multi-sectoral

● ‘Horizontal’ communication can be a sociallyappropriate way of raising awareness, and can be partof a broader strategy which includes capturingpositive experiences for wider dissemination.

Issues appropriate for transportpractitionersCycling into the Future: issues from India

● Make cycles available as a cheap and easy mode oftransport

● Reduce transport burden of women (by serviceprovision)


● Where transport interventions are limited (e.g.difficult terrain), non transport interventions such asprovision of drinking water, should be considered

Issues from Asian Case Studies


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● Improving modes of transport could result in womenlosing control of, for example, income from sale ofproducts

● During identification of people’s transport burdensand needs, there is advantage to talking to each of thecommunity’s stakeholder groups separately as astarting point


● Introducing alternative means of transport toundertake a task can change gender responsibilitiesboth positively and negatively


● Transport problems may only be a symptom of otherproblems (e.g. lack of economic opportunities, lack ofsocial mobilisation etc.) which, when tackled, couldrelieve transport problems

● Need for more information on the extent and natureof the gender and transport problem in order to raiseawareness of the problem and thereby stimulateaction and appropriate intervention


● Understanding the dynamics within a household iscrucial in planning appropriate transport interventions

● Transport planners and policymakers arepredominantly men.This fact, along with the generallack of awareness of gender issues within the sector,should be taken into account when planningtransport interventions.




Access to Health: issues from Sri Lanka

● Women’s unique healthcare needs should be aconsideration in designing transport interventions

● Unco-ordinated management and modes of transportinterventions makes influencing decisions moredifficult

● Maintenance of infrastructure is as important as itsintroduction

● Transport interventions on their own are sometimesnot enough



● All development interventions will have an impact ontransport patterns and transport needs

● Working with communities to raise their levels ofawareness and analytical skills will create a demandwhich is, by definition, multi-sectoral

● ‘Horizontal’ communication can be a sociallyappropriate way of raising awareness, and can be partof a broader strategy which includes capturingpositive experiences for wider dissemination.

Issues appropriate for policy makers

Spatial Mobility: issues from Bangladesh

● There is a need for more economically, socially andtechnically appropriate transport facilities for women.

● Cultural education is a vital part of any effectivetransport strategy

● Information should be made available to womenwhich inform them of their rights to mobility, and theoptions available for achieving greater mobility

● For transport options to be appropriate for women,they need to guarantee a women’s safety andfreedom from sexual harassment

● In planning transport facilities (especially roads),emphasis should be placed on non-motorised meansof transport, and efforts made to make them evenmore appropriate to women’s needs

Cycling into the Future: issues from India

● Need for policy support for local forms of transport● Women’s work to be made visible● Reduce transport burden of women (by service

provision)● Review present transport policy

Forest Products: issues from India

● Where transport interventions are limited (e.g.difficult terrain), non transport interventions such asprovision of drinking water, should be considered

● State provision currently fails to address the specificneeds of women


● Complete absence of consideration of gender andtransport issues in national policies

● When policies around issues of transport aredeveloped, they must recognise gender relationswithin the household



● Isolated communities suffer from a dearth ofinstitutions assisting them to solve their ownproblems and this exacerbates the symptoms of theirisolation such as transport burdens

● Appropriate transport systems acknowledge thereproductive roles of women in their design


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● Transport planners and policymakers arepredominantly men.This fact, along with the generallack of awareness of gender issues within the sector,should be taken into account when planningtransport interventions.


● Science and technology is not gender neutral: those incharge of educating future science and technologyprofessionals should consider this when designingsyllabi and training


● Public transport systems which serve the needs ofpoorer sections of society need cross-subsidisation ina range of ways (e.g. payment of commuter fares byemployers, purchase of travel pass by employers orstate social security)


● When planning transport systems, attention shouldbe paid to the nature of demand (e.g. timing, load,social requirement, frequency of service )

● Informal sector is invisible but massive contributor totransport sector: large transport burden is largepotential client base



● There are other forms of control over transportdevices, other than ownership



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Africa Case Study Summaries1. Impact of bicycle/motorcycle taxi services (boda-boda) on women’s travel needs in Uganda: a case study of Mpigi district

Harriet Iga

2. The impact of feeder roads in Jebel Si Rural Council area on food security, with particular focus on the role of womenSuad Mustafa Elhaj Musa

3. Gender responsive planning and implementation: the case of UgandaDr Charles K. Kaira

4. The Impact of Intermediate Means of Transport (IMTs) on the allocation of the transport burden: some aspects from theITDG transport project in ZimbabweD. Chingozho

5. The Nkone River Bridge and its impact on travel and marketing activities of the Karia Community, Meru District, Kenyaby P.G. Kaumbutho

6. Rural transport interventions in Tanzania: are they reaching rural women?Josephine A. Mwankusye

7. Gender aspects in the provision of rural infrastructureMukuka Lilian N. Zimba

8. Women and rural transport in Rollo, Burkina FasoDr.Aminata Ouedraogo

9. Contrasting gender needs and access to rural transport in the Yatenga Province, Burkina Faso: the case of TuyaDr Amadou Ouedraogo

10. Safety and gender issues in rural transport.A case study of Busia District, UgandaKwamusi Paul

11. A gender perspective on transport and accessibility in off-road areas: the case of women traders in Gomoa, coastalGhanaGina Porter

12. Rural transport infrastructure provision in Kenya – A practical view through women’s eyes:A case of KeruwosaCecilia Kinuthia-Njenga and Justina Nthenge

14. Gender and transport load sharing among households in Kafur Village in Southern Katsina State, NigeriaMohammed-Bello Yunusa

15. Issues for community-level

16. Issues for practitioners

17. Issues for policymakers

Africa Case Study Summaries

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Impact of bicycle/motorcycle taxiservices (boda-boda) on women’s travelneeds in Uganda: a case study of Mpigidistrictby Harriet Iga

This study looks at the emergence of boda-boda bicycleand motor cycle taxi services in Mpigi District, whichprovide a link between rural areas and local towns.Theresearch analyses boda-boda use and operation and itsimpact on women’s travel needs

The aim of the study was to:

● Find out the gender composition of boda-boda taxiusers and operators

● Determine significant transportation activities carriedout by boda-boda taxi services

● Assess how the boda-boda taxi services meet theneeds of women

● Determine constraints faced by women and menwho use/operate boda-boda taxi services

● Find out the gender differences in demand for boda-boda taxi services.

Rural transport in Uganda is not well developed withmost districts having remote areas which are not easilyaccessible from district headquarters.The most commonmeans of rural transport is by walking and headloadingalong road paths, tracks and trails. Culture and traditiontend to limit load-carrying activities to women, therebymaking them shoulder most of the transport chores inthe household.

Usage of intermediate means of transport (IMTs) israther poor due to the high purchase prices of bicycles,draught animals and animal carts, making them tooexpensive for many rural households.There are someinefficient locally made wheelbarrows that are used totransport firewood, water and other household goods,but these are also limited to a few middle class families. Incases where IMTs are available, men and boys tend totake over the duties which would otherwise have been apreserve of women.

Ownership of personal means of transport is verylow and limited to well-to-do households. Somehouseholds own bicycles which are the most commonmeans of transport in rural areas where terrain permits.Bicycles are popular especially in Eastern and NorthernUganda, where they are used as bicycle taxis (boda-boda). However, it is mainly in these areas that womenpedal bicycles, unlike in the Central region, where Mpigi islocated, where bicycles are owned and controlled by menand women are dependent passengers who ridesideways on the rear luggage rack.

The study was carried out in the rural towns of Mpigidistrict and it surveys a total of 195 respondents from

both rural and peri-urban areas.Mpigi District covers an extensive area which lies

within the central part of Uganda and is the gateway toKampala, the capital city. It has a population of 913,867people according to the 1991 population census with aprojected population of 1,066,400 for 1996.The majoreconomic activities carried out by the people include;agriculture, fishing, forestry/lumbering and trade.

Women carry out most of the productive tasks.Theycarry out most agricultural activities, from land clearing,ploughing, planting, weeding and harvesting and alsoperform the supporting role of health care, child bearing,cooking, fetching water and firewood for the family. Mostof these activities require some form of transport.

The district has a total road network of 851kilometres of roads, and of these, 110 kilometres aretarmac roads; 267 kilometres are all weather murram orgravel; and 474 kilometres are dirt roads. Rural areas aremainly served by footpaths, and most of the urban roadsare not tarmac and are poorly maintained.This, coupledwith poor drainage leads to very fast deterioration.

Motorcycles and bicycles are a common and versatilemeans of transport in Uganda.They are used for personaltravel and movement of goods or passengers. Unlikebicycles which are intensively used in Eastern andNorthern Uganda, motorcycles in the form of boda-bodataxi services have become more common, especially inthe urban and peri-urban areas of the central region.Where the two modes of transport are in operation,motorcycles charge higher fees compared to bicycles.

Boda-boda operators perform a type of taxi servicefrom road stands in towns, trading centres and alongmain roads.The research randomly selected 25 operatorswho were interviewed. It was found out that the majority(52%) were aged between 20-29 years old, 28% wereaged between 30-39 years and only 20% were agedbetween 15-20 years.

With regard to their educational level, 20% had nevergone to school, 56% were drop-outs at primary level and24% had dropped out at secondary level.The implicationis that this kind of transport service is rendered mainly bymale school dropouts and those who have never been toschool.The youth have taken up this service as anoccupation on which they are depending for theirsurvival.

People of different social classes use the boda-bodaservices although findings show that it is mainly theworking class (those who leave their homes to go andwork elsewhere), and the business community. Othersinclude students going to school and patients when goingfor treatment.

In rural and peri-urban areas of Mpigi district, boda-boda taxis are used for a variety of journey types, such asgoing to markets, social visits, burials, church/mosque,transportation of goods (agricultural produce and shop



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purchases), as well as travel to school and work places.They are also used for connecting to taxi stages,especially in areas which are not easily accessible to taxis.Women’s use of intermediary means of transport is onthe increase. Many women use boda-boda taxis.

Research found out that all boda-boda operators hadto be licensed and insured, and were supposed to belongto an association and receive registration numbers. Ofthe 25 operators interviewed, 19 were insured while 6were not, and only one bicycle was not licensed. InUganda, due to the poverty level, and bearing in mindthat it is mainly the low income earners who ownbicycles, it is very rare to find a bicycle that is insured.

Boda-boda operators expressed a number ofproblems affecting them, including insecurity at night dueto attacks by thieves, non-payment by some passengers,risks from accidents, heavy taxes and arrests by trafficpolice. In addition, they pointed out that the roads arerough and dusty and slippery during rainy seasons.Thislimits the extent to which body-bodas, especially bicycles,can be used effectively.

Boda-boda services are still new in Mpigi Districtalthough they are rapidly spreading all over the country.Regarding the reasons for the introduction of boda-bodaservices, many of the respondents were of the view thatthis was to bridge the transport gap between the ruraland peri-urban areas, and to ease transport movementswithin the rural towns. Other reasons included, jobcreation for the youth and veterans, and to provide ameans of income generation.

Boda-boda services have contributed to thedevelopment of rural areas because trade has beenpromoted, communication to inaccessible places hasimproved, and jobs have been created.

A number of constraints faced by users especiallywomen were enumerated, and these includeduncomfortable sitting positions and the risk of falling off,speeding leading to accidents, and high charges.Observations on cultural taboos were also made, such asbody contact with the operators and ungainly sittingpositions being necessary. However, it was noted thatthese taboos are dying out, and are not so serious tostop women from using boda-boda services altogether.

Major transport problems faced by the communitydid not differ from those mentioned by boda-bodaoperators during interviews, such as poor, rough roadswhich are slippery during rainy seasons, non-operation oftaxis in some localities and high charges by the operators.

Owing to the fact that the communities are notparticipating in the maintenance of roads, opinion leadersranked periodic road grading and repair as their firstpriority in solving the problems listed above.This wasfollowed by the need to introduce taxis and boda-bodaservices in areas where they were not yet in operation,and increasing boda-boda services in places where theyare few.

In identification of priorities for transport project

implementation, to ensure women’s participation, allrespondents were of the view that women should first besensitised on the project, be involved in community roadmaintenance activities, and they should also be involved inthe business directly, operating boda-boda servicesthemselves. Community leaders were of the view thatprojects should begin with sensitisation, outlining benefitsto be accrued from the project by the whole community,involvement in implementation and appointment of acommittee to take charge of mobilising the community toensure maximum participation in the project.

There are as yet no female boda-boda operatorsalthough the services are used extensively by both urbanmen and women.

The women users expressed a number of constraintswhich were not different from the rest of therespondents.They complained of higher charges by theoperators which to a certain extent forced them to walk.They also complained of undisciplined operators whoharass them. In addition, female respondents like otherrespondents pointed out that although the communitywas involved in transport business, there was no localgroup or organisation responsible for rural transportpromotion.

The female respondents offered a number ofsuggestions in relation to the transport problems in thearea which included a programme of repairs, grading andtarmacking of the roads by relevant authorities, which inturn would encourage transport operators to reachremote areas. Respondents appealed to the boda-bodataxi operators to travel to the more hilly areas whichwere not easily accessible.Women suggested that theyshould have access to credit facilities to enable theminvest in the transport business, and acquire means oftransport such as bicycles or wheel barrows for domesticuse. In addition, introduction of women-friendly bicyclesfor female riders was suggested.

The key findings of the case study include thefollowing. Boda-boda taxi operation is predominantly amale job mainly carried out by young men, whose level ofeducation does not exceed secondary level. In centralUganda, tradition does not allow women to ride bicyclesalthough they can be carried on them. However, a fewyoung women in the region have started ridingmotorcycles, but not as a form of taxi.Therefore, thegender composition of the operators is male.

The gender composition of the users was hard todetermine because operators could not decide whetherthe majority of passengers was male or female. However,opinion leaders were of the view that the majority userswere men. Generally, it can be concluded that themajority of boda-boda users are also men.

Boda-boda services have a positive and significantimpact on the development of their localities. Findingsindicate that the services have promoted trade andcreated jobs in the rural areas and have bridged thetransport gap between the rural and peri-urban areas,


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and therefore need to be promoted to boostcommunity/rural development.

Research indicates that women do not have anyassistance in their transport needs, and the potential fortheir involvement with community transportationschemes and boda-boda services should be furtherexplored.

The impact of feeder roads in Jebel SiRural Council area on food security, withparticular focus on the role of women,by Suad Mustafa Elhaj Musa

Northern Darfur is an arid, Sahelian region bordering theSahara Desert. It is composed of 26 Rural Councils(localities), and this case study looks at the impact of afeeder roads construction programme which took placein 1996 in one of these Rural Councils (RC), called JebelSi.

The RC is characterised by its extreme isolation andits hilly and inhospitable terrain.The traditional pattern offarming has been disrupted by successive droughts anddramatic deforestation. Most of the children suffer frommalnutrition to some extent.

It has not received any attention from governmentsince Independence in 1956, but recent out-migration hasforced the area upon the attention of outsiders, becauseif the tide of migration is to be stemmed then the areamust be developed and basic facilities provided. Foodsecurity is a dominant issue.

Men and women each have their own farms and 95per cent of the livestock is owned by women.Thewomen’s farms are the largest because these have tofeed the family all year round.The men’s farms aresupposed to grow crops for market. Polygamy ispractised, so combined with male out-migration a highproportion of households are effectively female-headed/managed.All farming is dependent on the rainscoming; in times of drought no surplus is produced forsale and there is no cash income, unless men migrate towork or livestock is sold. In such circumstances, women’sworkload has increased to make up for the gap inproduction caused by out-migration.

The lack or absence of any decent passable roads inand out of the area means that, amongst other things,women (predominantly) cannot get their produce out tomarkets to barter for the best prices.Traders may visitthe village and only buy at the lowest prices whichwomen are forced to accept.Their isolation also meansthey cannot get access to improved farming tools andtechniques (most of the work, ploughing, planting, etc. etc.is done with hand tools, in particular the hoe), there areinsufficient food storage facilities in the village to store upfood when they do have a good harvest, and they cannottravel out of the village to reach such facilities because ofa combination of inhospitable terrain, appalling roads andlack of load carting capacity.

All this brought the Jebel Si community to Oxfam toask for help. Oxfam carried out a baseline survey in 1995.The inhospitable nature of the terrain was underlined forthe Oxfam surveyors, on foot or donkey: the survey tookfour months to complete.

As a result of the dialogue process with Oxfam,feeder roads emerged as a priority to address the traveland transport needs of the community, encompassingsustainable livelihood issues and community mobilisation.

With all the communities in the area mobilised, workbegan on road clearing and construction.These roadshave now connected 24 villages in the RC, with 85 kmpassable (just) for trucks.The work was co-funded byOxfam and the Sudan Government, with thecommunities contributing their labour, food and water.

The mobilisation of the communities on this projecthas led to successful mobilisation, lobbying and advocacyon their part for other improvements, such as thebuilding of schools and health units, further roadimprovement and maintenance activities and aprogramme to halt deforestation.Women’s contributionhas been found to be 60 per cent of the total of alldevelopment activities carried out with Oxfam in thethree villages of the RC.

Although the main objectives of the feeder roadsproject was the facilitation of marketing of agriculturalproduce and access to services such as vaccination forchildren and education facilities, based on their manyroles, women have been the first to benefit. Apart fromaccess being improved for them, strategic gender needshave also been addressed.

Both women and men have increased bargainingpower in selling their products at market. 90 per cent ofwomen in the RC report increased revenues from sales.They also have better access to agricultural inputs andimproved tools.They are therefore able to increase thesize of their plots.Women have also begun to ventureinto trading as an income generating activity, at the side ofthe roads near the market. People and vehicles attendingthe markets have increased, and outsiders can get accessto the market which has reinvigorated it.

The flow of medicines into the area has improved andthe health centres are busier and more effective: childimmunisation in the area is now up to 70 per cent in thevillages linked by the feeder roads.The village of Roga,which is still remote and unconnected, has a rate of 13per cent.

The communities and Oxfam have also started aliteracy campaign, and the previous rate of 3 per centliteracy for females is rising dramatically.The numbers ofgirls (and boys) attending school has increased, and girlsare not being removed from school for domestic work orearly marriages thanks to community action on thismatter.

People’s attitudes are changing as they come intocontact with more people from ‘outside’, along withimproved diets. Food processing techniques have been


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disseminated among women in the RC (through Oxfamand ITDG) which adds value and keeping time to foodproducts, including pasta making. Demand was initiallylow, but now pasta is used throughout the villages and aparticularly nutritious food for children.

Through the interventions of Oxfam, women havebeen targeted particularly as the initial surveys revealed itwas they who were struggling disproportionately.Throughthis process and through better communications with theoutside world, women have come to realise theimportance to them of organising and participatingcollectively, and have formed committees which meet todiscuss needs and share information, and which thewomen are more likely to be able to travel to easily,within a day, on the improved roads.

All the development in the community has not beencaused by the single factor of the feeder roads project,but that has proved a significant factor in the mobilisationof the communities.

The roads are now in continuous need ofmaintenance and rehabilitation after rains, and this isarduous work.The main modes of transport are still onfoot or by donkey and this is still time consuming and theloads that can be carried are limited.The local authoritiesreceive revenues from the trucks passing along the roads,but they do not reallocate any of this for maintenancework.As such, the roads are not sustainable.

The author concludes with recommendationsincluding the following:● The feeder roads system needs to be extended to

link all the isolated villages in the Darfur Region● IMTs, taking into account usability by and for women,

should be promoted, via Intermediate Technology● Gender aware technology to relive some of the

drudgery involved in agricultural production shouldbe promoted and made available

● Gender sensitive planning is needed in all sectors, andparticularly rural transport.

Gender responsive planning andimplementation: the case of Ugandaby Dr Charles K. Kaira

This case study looks at this vitally important area, usingstatistical analysis and secondary data to elucidate thegrowth of the women’s movement in Uganda, itstranslation into policy at all levels, and then to ascertainhow this has converted into the implementation ofgender aware and responsive project implementation.

Uganda is a landlocked country on the Equator. Eightynine per cent of the population lives in rural areas livingin mainly poor conditions. Only 25 per cent ofhouseholds have access to clean drinking water and 98per cent use firewood for cooking.Although 70-80 percent of the agricultural labour force is female, only 7 percent own land and only 30 per cent have access to andcontrol over proceeds.

The author presents tabular information to underlinethe extent of the gender imbalance across a range ofindicators, including literacy, access to education, healthcare, employment opportunities and so on, andcomparing the contribution men and women make tohousehold and reproductive obligations.

The case study then looks at the ‘struggle to correctthe imbalance’, describing the rise of the women’smovement in Uganda from its pre-independence originsin the Uganda Council of Women formed in 1946, to thefoundation of the National Council of Women of Ugandain 1979.

Among the achievements of the women’s movementin Uganda are:

● Realisation of the obstacles to the advancement ofwomen in Uganda (details given)

● Mobilising the Government and NGOs to takeactions that benefit women

● Significant lessons learned about the actual roles andstatus of women in their societies; more significantlyby women themselves;

● Creation of public awareness of the need for womento take an active role in promoting a peacefulatmosphere for development and welfare.

The Uganda Government ratified the UN Convention onelimination of discrimination against women in 1980.Since coming to power in 1996, the NRM Governmenthas achieved a commendable amount by encouragingdialogue rather than confrontation.Women are beinggiven opportunities to fill responsible positions and givenequal access to resources and policy decision making.There is now a woman Vice-president and severalwomen Ministers in the Government, as well as HighCourt judges and the appointment of numerous womenin high ranking administrative and professional posts,including Head of the Civil Service.

The electoral law in Uganda now provides for awoman representative for every district to serve inparliament, in addition to which women can alsocompete in direct elections against men at country level.The Local Government Act 1997 provides for womenrepresentatives at each level of local councils.

The Government is committed to considering genderissues in sector development in the country.There is aNational Gender Policy that forms the legal frameworkand mandate for every stakeholder to address the genderimbalances within their respective sectors.The policyexists to mainstream gender concerns in the nationaldevelopment process, to improve the social, legal/civic,political, economic and cultural conditions of the peopleand in particular women.The NGP is based on thefollowing principles:

The NGP is an integral part of the nationaldevelopment process and reinforces the overalldevelopment objectives…


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● It complements all sector policies and programmesand defines structures and key target areas forensuring that gender concerns are routinelyaddressed in all planning activities as well as in theimplementation, monitoring and evaluation ofprogramme activities.

● It emphasises the cross-cutting nature of gender, andseeks to integrate gender considerations intodevelopment efforts at national, sector, district andlocal levels.

● It seeks to strengthen and provide a legal basis foralready existing gender oriented sector policies and toensure that national development policy objectivesare made explicitly gender-responsive.

The case study lists the specific objectives of the NGPwhich lie within the framework above.

The institutional framework for the implementation ofthe Gender Policy is also examined in the case study, asthe means through which the policy will be implemented.From national to local level, these institutions seek toachieve the gender responsive development objectivethrough the following strategies:

● Sensitise and train planners in gender analysis skills.● Build capacity of policy makers to internalise gender

and development concepts● Collect, compile and disseminate routinely age and

gender disaggregated data.● Formulate appropriate gender responsive micro-

policies● Develop gender specific macro qualitative and

quantitative indicators for monitoring genderresponsiveness of policies.

● Use regional and international instruments to monitorimplementation of government commitments toensure gender equity.

● During all stages of project development by donors,Government and other key actors in thedevelopment field ensure that gender issues are takeninto consideration.

● Insist that all project and programme-related missions,including financial assistance negotiation teams includepersons with gender analysis skills who are chargedwith the responsibility of incorporating genderconcerns into assistance programmes.

● Add value to the reproductive and productivecontribution of women to national development byensuring that national statistics reflect the role playedby women in social production and that such statisticsare utilised to develop gender responsiveprogrammes.

Since all these strategies are applicable at all levels, it isimportant that the political process has the capacity toidentify, analyse and incorporate gender concerns at alllevels too.The author also describes the relevantmonitoring and evaluation indicators which have been

put in place to ensure the policy objectives are beingmet, and the mechanisms through which these distinctelements in the gender policy development process aredelivered.

In assessing how far these processes have facilitatedthe meeting of rural women’s transport needs, the authorexamines the example of the Hoima District IntegratedCommunity Development Project.This was begun in1992 to run for five years, supported by a number ofdonors. Its primary objective was to reduce the rates ofmorbidity and mortality amongst rural women andchildren in the District.The secondary objectives includedimproved provision of safe water supplies and theproduction of enough food for the families’ subsistence.Achieving these also took in: improved health care andhealth care facilities, improved sanitation, improved accessroads from villages to farms, improved agriculturalpractices, provision of credit for members of women’ssavings and loan groups.

The author report a number of benefits to peoplegenerally and to women in particular, both economic andsocial. In particular, women have been employed as roadlabourers carrying out rehabilitation works in somenumbers. Men are now assisting with water collectionfrom bore holes during the dry season, if the journey ispossible by bicycle.Women’s access to credit has beenimproved, agricultural production is up and there is morecompetition and better prices paid for produce in thenewly emerging local markets. Not least women havebeen sensitised about their rights and have beenencouraged to participate in local politics and decision-making.

The Impact of Intermediate Means ofTransport (IMTs) on the allocation ofthe transport burden: some aspectsfrom the ITDG transport project inZimbabweby D. Chingozho

This study is concerned with the impacts and benefits ofimproved rural transport, specifically IMTs, on womenand on gender relations. It draws its data from areaswhere IMTs have been introduced as part of the ITDGtransport project.The study uses ITDG transport projectevaluation reports to assess these impacts.

The study finds that the use of IMTs has created bothdirect and indirect benefits for women. First, they haveshortened the travel times involved in the variousjourneys that women must make, such as water andfuelwood collection and going to the grinding mills andcommercial centres. Secondly, IMTs have increased theefficiency with which loads are carried – e.g. women findthe transportation of maize, firewood and manure viacart is quicker and more efficient than by headloading,also reducing the drudgery and effort of human portage,


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This has in turn left them with more time to devote toother activities, economic, social and in some casespolitical. Some have started or expanded income earningprojects.

The study’s findings reveal something of the pattern oftransportation in the following areas of IT’s transportproject activity: Binga, Zhombe and Chiredzi, Chivi,Nyanga, Murombedzi, Chivhu and Chiota. IMTs in useincluded scotch carts, wheel barrows, push carts, waterbarrows, and bicycles.

The ownership of IMTs in all the areas studied islargely determined by incomes, entrepreneurial skills andsocial status, and is a wealth indicator. IMT owners tendto have higher incomes than non-owners. Ownership isalso determined in some cases by the existing potentialfor income generating activities. Evidence from twovillages in Chiota also indicated disparities in ownershipdictated by family size and age.Young and small familieshave lower IMT ownership patterns than bigger and olderfamilies.

Female-headed households are those where thewoman is widowed, divorced or unmarried, with children.Female-managed households are usually a product ofmale out-migration and are not so poor as female-headed. Both together make up about 40 per cent of thehouseholds in the areas studied. IMT ownership is alsogenerally lower among female-headed households thanamong female-managed households.Their restricted cashincome, poorer agricultural performance and lower levelsof IMT ownership confirms their marginal status and lackof social and economic activity. It was also found that low-income groups make the least number of trips tocommercial centres.

Bicycle owners are few, and there are more in male-headed households. Female-headed households only havebicycles either because they were used by their latehusbands, or are used by their children. Many are old andnow unused.The use of bicycles by women generally islimited, even though they are ‘allowed’ to use them. Inareas where there are employment opportunities in thesurrounding farms, bicycles are used by men to travel toand from work, or to carry loads to and from thecommercial centres.

While not every household owns a scotch cart, it isthe most widely used form of IMT used in the areassurveyed.They are used by both men and women, foragricultural and domestic load carrying including firewoodand taking grain to the grain mill.The women who usethem have been liberated from headloading and becausethey can take larger loads, although no faster, fewerjourneys need to be made, so women’s time is saved. Insome areas carts are leased or rented, and this brings inadditional income to those who own a cart.

Women in some areas involved in marketing maize orcotton may collectively hire a truck to take it to themarket.The women feel that the higher price they canachieve for the crop justifies the expense of hiring a

truck.In areas of critical transport shortages, farmers (both

women and men) co-operatively use scotch carts or hiretrucks to move their crops to the nearest GrainMarketing Board or Cotton Co. of Zimbabwe point ofpurchase.The movement of small quantities is effected bywheel barrow.

The level of usage of carts generally thereforeexceeds the level of ownership, owing to significant levelsof borrowing, sharing and hiring, particularly during timesof peak agricultural usage.These circumstances haveworked considerably to the advantage of women whoare in female managed households.This is because thecart is a particularly useful IMT for women who need togather fuelwood, as the sources have become increasinglydepleted and journeys have got longer. Having access to acart means that women can bring back more at onetime, saving on time and effort.

The use of IMTs has created both direct and indirectbenefits for women, but there are variations betweenthese gains, depending on the wealth, status and size ofhouseholds.The main benefits fall into the category oftime saving and reduction of effort, freeing up time forother pursuits. However, as acknowledged by previousstudies, the question of time saved and its utilisation is acomplex one.They certainly do not use the time saved torest, as new demands on their time are ushered in asothers recede.Women in the study area also indicatedthat it was not so much lack of time which preventedthem from starting income-earning projects, but lack ofstart-up capital.

The evidence from this study area is that IMTs are tosome extent gender-sensitive.The ITDG designedvehicles have take gender considerations into account,and are easy to use and maintain, designed in some caseslight enough so that even a small child could operatethem.The wheel barrow seems to be gender-neutral inits usage, unlike the bicycle (not an ITDG intervention).The level of take up by women of the IMTs has beengood.

The Nkone River Bridge and its impacton travel and marketing activities of theKaria Community, Meru District, Kenyaby P.G. Kaumbutho

Here is a study which deals with the importance of asingle element of rural infrastructure; its enormous valueto a community and the impacts when it is not operating:the Nkone River Bridge in Karia, Kenya.

Karia is located on the slopes of Mount Kenya, with alandscape of hills and valleys. It has fertile volcanic soilswhich produce a wide range of agricultural and forestproducts.There is a plentiful supply of water becauseevery valley has a clear stream or river flowing along it.Means of transport however are very limited, especiallysince the last decade when government investment in


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infrastructure, as in all other areas, has dwindled.There is an elaborate, tarmacked road however, about

five kilometres from Karia, and it seems that once this wasbuilt all by the government, all other rural access roadswere forgotten and left to local initiative to maintain.

The main road did bring some benefits to Karia, but atthe same time many locally convenient services andenterprises moved further from Karia to be nearer thetarmac, and Karia was affected as a place in its own right.Falling tea and coffee prices at the same time (two ofKaria’s principle crops) have not helped its development.

One of the crucial element in Karia’s infrastructure isthe Nkone River Bridge. It crosses the Nkone, and is theshortest and most efficient route out of Karia to link itwith the rest of the world.All other routes are muchlonger and more difficult. Government money forrepairing (it gets washed away in the floods) andmaintaining the bridge has ended, leaving the communityto ‘do it themselves’.

Because of its importance to them, they have donethis several times over the last few years, most recently in1997. But without adequate funding and training, theengineering standard of the bridge was not enough toprevent it from being washed away in the particularlyheavy El Nino rains of Winter 97-98.

This case study aims to assess and report on theimpact of the Nkone River Bridge on transport andaccess, as it applies differently to the men and women ofKaria, and thereby to understand the gender-baseddimension of Karia’s travel and transport problems.Thestudy also attempts to establish the importance andurgency of the Nkone River Bridge and the need torepair the road it serves.

Like many other parts of Kenya, the interior roads ofMeru District are in great need of repairs andmaintenance.The Keria-Karia road, on which the Bridge islocated, is close to the tarmac road and as such is neededas a ‘gateway’ to the area, which has great economicpotential. Nkone is an outlet for agricultural, forestry andother products heading for markets. It is also an efficientaccess route to information: administrative, spiritual,medical, and other.

But because of the bridge and road problems, farmersare often unable to get inputs to farms, such as fertiliser.In circumstances where the bridge is broken down, menwill often send women and children to Keria Market todivide an 80 kilo sack of fertiliser among them forportability. Men view this as a legitimate means oftransport whenever an IMT or other vehicle is notavailable, even when the women and children have tocarry out several trips.The alternative would be to catchone of the few Landrovers to bring the load uphill, butthe charge for this transport can easily double the priceof the inputs.The owner of the Landrover often opts towalk – to save wear and tear on the vehicle.

The author has researched carefully into the exactdivision of labour in Karia, and from that research it is

clear that the economic activities of the community areimplemented almost solely by women.While men maybe involved in planning and some of the heavier tillagework, women alone prepare seedbeds and plant, theyweed, harvest and take produce to the market.A surveyof the market in Karia showed that the majority oftraders are women. Men are few, and they handle onlythose goods that need a short time to sell and fetchlarger returns, such as livestock and hardware.

The men of Karia carry out what are described fromthe survey as ‘well-defined and tangible’ jobs or chores,such as fetching fertiliser, getting a vet, attendingcommunity and other meetings, or arranging transport tocollect farm and building materials, etc.The equivalent‘well-defined’ jobs for women are: organising the cookingand feeding the family, caring for livestock includingfeeding, milking and general welfare, home and housecare, ‘minor’ commercial ventures such as marketingkitchen garden produce, transport of smaller loads suchas animal feed, firewood and water. Men completely stayaway from less well-defined tasks e.g. almost anything todo with nurturing children, including seeing them safelyacross the river when the bridge has been swept away (arisky business when the waters are swollen; two adultshave been drowned).The women stand on stones in theriver and throw the children across in turns.

This and other evidence researched by the authormade clear that women and children suffer the loss ofthe bridge and a serviceable connecting road much morethan men.

The author’s conclusion that it is essential to fix theNkone Bridge and road.There are no logisticalalternatives for the people of Karia, the available optionsbeing five times longer and much rougher, passable onfoot only.After the El Nino rains swept the Bridge away,many farmers gave up to some extent or anotherproducing marketable crops, despite the excellent yieldpotentials of the Karia area and the dependence upon itas a ‘granary’ by surrounding areas.

Men are inconvenienced less by the absence of thebridge, because they tend to abdicate theirresponsibilities to women and children whenever theconditions are unfavourable.Their inconvenience liesmore in the area of inaccessibility of services, and losttime and opportunities.

Men more than women express a wish for betteraccess to motorised transport and IMTs such as animal-drawn carts, pack animals and motor cycles. None ofthese are viable without the bridge.The Nkone Bridge is more useful to women in terms oftime efficiency and reduced workload.The author concludes with a list of reasons why theBridge should be fixed with appropriate workmanshipand resources. It will:

● save lives● increase economic activity and remove the isolation


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of the Karia community, enhancing their opportunitiesfor a sustainable rural livelihood

● encourage travel and information exchange● boost crop marketing and give better access to farm

and other inputs● reduce the price of food and supplies needed for

farm- increase the returns for cash crops such as tea,coffee, forest products etc.

Rural transport interventions inTanzania: are they reaching ruralwomen?by Josephine A. Mwankusye

Tanzania has a predominantly agricultural economy, andwomen are the majority of agricultural producers. In ruralareas they are responsible for about 90 per cent of foodprocessing activities, 80 per cent of transportation ofcrops from field to home and market, as well as waterand firewood collection.

Since the 1980s several efforts have been made toassist rural development. Such efforts include provision ofcredit schemes, extension services and banking services.But the impacts of these have been marginal owing tothe inefficient transport systems. Fifty per cent of villagesin rural areas are not accessible by motorised transportduring the rainy season. Paths and tracks dominate therural transport infrastructure, and many of these are alsounusable during the rainy season.

Considerable efforts are being made in Tanzania toimprove rural transport systems, and it is in this contextthat the case study sets out to examine the particularquestion of whether women have access to IMTs, andwhat the impact of such vehicles has been.The four keyquestions addressed in the study are:

● Is there any relationship between women’s householdand economic activities in the study area?

● Do women have access to IMTs?● What are the specific uses of IMTs?● What are the perceptions of women’s use and

ownership of IMTs?

The study focused on three villages; two in MorogoroRural District (Bunduki and Maguruwe) and one inMuheza District (Potwe).These Districts are among thosecurrently implementing the Village Travel and TransportProgramme (a government initiative).

The economy of the areas studied depends on small-scale agriculture.Various food crops are grown and thereis some agro-processing of mostly sisal and tea.

The transport infrastructure of the areas breaks downas follows:

● Paths and tracks. 80 per cent of domestic andagricultural activities make use of these, using walkingand IMTs.

● Feeder roads, usually made of earth, connecting village

centres to district regional roads. Main transportmodes on these are walking, bicycles, handcarts.Motorised vehicles are rare.

● District roads – mostly gravel; usually some kind ofbus service.

● Trunk roads. Used by long-distance traffic and notreally significant to the local population.

Rural women play a dominant role in domestic as well asin the income-earning activities of households. Previousresearch has revealed that women carry about 75 percent of the total transport burden in rural areas andabout 73 per cent of all the transport requirements areachieved by headloading.

Apart from the transportation of agriculturalproduce, marketing and household needs, rural womenare usually responsible for getting the sick to healthcentres.These are often located at District headquarters,an average of eight miles away.Women are alsoresponsible for the majority of family and social duties inaddition to all the above, yet they are not integrated intothe planning of transport development at all.

It is also clear that although government, donors andothers have tried to assist women through creditschemes, the majority of women have yet to benefit. Inaddition, most income generating activities do not directlyfocus on alleviating the travel and transport problemsexperienced by women.

Female-headed households are the most marginalisedwithin the society.They are substantially worse off atevery level of wealth than their male-headedcounterparts.They have fewer adults, have lower totalincomes and incomes from agriculture.The absence of amale partner and lack of access to IMTs contribute to theheavier transport burdens carried by these women.

In 1987 the Government of Tanzania drafted aNational Transport Policy.This should deliver benefits tothe rural population via a number of specific objectives,ensuring that rural people spend less time walking andcarrying, and takes into account the existence of andneed to expand the use of IMTs as being locallyappropriate and cost-efficient. It also recommends self-help road maintenance at the District level.The policyalso acknowledges the importance of locating facilitiessuch as woodlots, water sources and grain milling facilitiescloser to communities.

In 1992 a seminar was held under the aegis of theWorld Bank’s SSATP, and key policy objectives weredefined in order to deliver benefits to the ruralpopulation. Briefly these included a recognition that traveland transport should be seen as part of an integratedrural transport development strategy, and that planningfor rural travel and transport should start from the needsof the household, with emphasis on reducingunproductive time spent obtaining access to basic needs.Planning for rural transport should cater for theproduction and provision of affordable motorised and


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non-motorised IMTs, and empowering women so thatthey can use them.A bottom-up approach should betaken, including the involvement of women’s groups.

It is therefore part of policy and policyrecommendations that IMTs are a fundamental elementof developing rural transport and the rural economygenerally.

However, studies show that the widespread use ofIMTs is being hampered by several factors including thehigh acquisition price (above the earning capacity of mostrural households), and also the poor condition of paths,tracks and roads.These factors are accompanied in thecase of women’s ownership by socio-cultural factorswhich makes their ownership/access to IMTs even moredifficult.The dominance of headloading by women isbecause they have no real access to alternatives, such asIMTs.

Most women struggle to find enough cash to meettheir families most basic needs as it is, and so thepurchase of an IMT is out of the question.The demandson their time mean that they could not take on extrawork to pay for it.

Discussions with women’s vegetable growing groupsin Potwe show that the women are aware that an IMT,preferably a push cart or a bicycle with trailer, could assistgreatly in transporting their heavy produce from field tomarket, but their limited incomes and the fact that creditschemes favour men mean that they cannot purchaseeither.

Many women in the areas studied are however notaware that IMTs could substantially reduce their time andeffort spent on travel and access.They believeheadloading is all that is available.This is partly aconsequence of their lack of mobility itself: they cannottravel outside the area to see other solutions oralternative practices.Their access to outside informationis likewise limited.

Generally in all three villages studied there is nostrong culture which actually prevents women from usingIMTs, but there is a general attitude (among the womenthemselves too) that IMTs are not really for them.Theauthor feels this prevailing attitude could be changed, andis not insurmountable.Again in all three villages, there isvery little use of IMTs for household uses, including waterand firewood collection where the benefits would begreatest.When new technologies are introduced, womenhave much less time than men available to learn how touse them.

The author makes a series of recommendationswhich would assist in the effective promotion of IMTs.These include:

Measures to increase the supply and reduce theprices of IMTs, e.g. bicycles and trailers

Promote the use and benefits of IMTs to womenthrough the media, and stage demonstrations andcommunity development initiatives. Evidence andsuccessful experiences from other areas could be shown.

Women’s groups should be included as a source ofinformation and learning about IMTs

Efforts should be made to introduce specific creditschemes for individual women and women’s groups forthe provision of IMTs among other activities.

NGOs should be encouraged to provide IMTs inrural areas, and financial and technical assistance given toartisans who can produce IMTs appropriate to the localarea.

IMTs should be adapted for women’s use wherenecessary.Women’s bicycles should be given priority.

Initiatives could be introduced to encouragecommunities to encourage communities to balance thecultural division of labour.This can give women moreopportunity to participate in development programmes.

Gender aspects in the provision of ruralinfrastructureby Mukuka Lilian N. Zimba

This case study is concerned with the use andmaintenance of village paths, tracks and footbridges intwo villages in Zambia, Songololo in Northern Provinceand Mwachilele in Lusaka Province. It aims to identifymajor factors affecting the use, provision andmaintenance of rural infrastructure in terms of gender;determine the nature of interventions needed frompolicy makers, and suggest some possible solutions to themarginalisation of rural areas through the enhancedprovision of rural infrastructure.

Songololo Village is sparsely populated, about twopeople per square kilometre.The population is about600; 400 of which are women and children.The mainoccupation is subsistence farming.The main market is faraway, so there is little influence from outside to improveor modify farming practices.The village lacks feeder roadsand is serviced by tracks and paths.The women are theprincipal providers of labour, and carry loads on theirheads.They collect water from the streams whichsurround the village.

Mwachilele is densely populated, with a population ofabout 2000 who are likewise subsistence farmers.

In both villages, women walk and headload for all theirjourneys, while men had access to bicycles. In Mwachileleboth sexes had access to bicycles and ox-carts. InSongololo bicycles are used, but not by women.The bikesare owned by men. In Mwachilele men owned thebicycles but women were allowed access.

Women in both villages believe that improvements tothe network of paths is very important, as this wouldenable more contact with the outside world.They alsowish to sell produce to traders or take it to market.

Based on research findings, the author essentiallysuggests a number of interventions for rehabilitating pathsand tracks in and around the villages that would have agreat impact on the safety and efficiency of rural traveland transport.


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● increase the safety of footbridges or other watercrossing points so that people do not have to makelong detours.

● Straightening paths where helpful to cut length ofjourneys

● reducing steep and slippery sections● Upgrading routes so that they are usable by IMTs

such as a bicycle or cart as well as on foot.

Considering the shortage of money at District level, suchimprovements would have to be on a self-help basis. Itwould need to take the needs of the community as itsstarting point, and in particular women.Women in boththese villages are well aware of all the time and energythey expend on travel and transport.They fetch water,fuelwood and carry agricultural produce on poorly-maintained tracks.Although the author does caution thatthe actual benefits to women of an improved network ofpaths alone may not be as great as perceived, it wouldcertainly benefit them more than the current nationalemphasis on main road development.

In both villages surveyed, women would be preparedto take paid work on road maintenance programmes;they considered it a good opportunity to earn incomeand an activity that would benefit the community.

Women and rural transport in Rollo,Burkina Fasoby Dr.Aminata Ouedraogo

The author of this case study looks at a rural area ofBurkina Faso (Rollo) which is isolated andunderdeveloped. Some of the reasons for thisunderdevelopment are examined, and the potential rolefor rural transport in the development process isassessed, with emphasis on its capacity to ease theparticular burdens of women.

The case study begins by outlining the extent of thesocio-economic, environmental and transport problemsfacing Burkina Faso. In particular, it looks at thecircumstances in the Department (Region) of Rollo in thenorth western part of Bam Province. Rollo consists of 21villages, characterised by an isolated, arid landscape wheresevere water shortages and deforestation are majorproblems facing the inhabitants, in particular women, whomust travel to fetch scarce water and dwindling fuelwood.

Agriculture is the major occupation, employing 90 percent of inhabitants, but has been blighted by droughtswhich lead to malnutrition and then lethargy whichaffects people’s ability to farm, even if /when the rains docome. Mortality rates are high, and there is ahaemorrhage of people out to the cities and to coastalcountries.

In Rollo, there is a single track which leads from themain town of the region to Rollo (160km). It has beenformed through usage and is not surfaced at all; it isbasically a track which is disintegrating with use.

In the rainy season the lack of bridges and crossingplaces means that it becomes impassable to any/all meansof transport, and then it is impossible to get relief suppliesinto the villages of Rollo, which are cut off.There are noroads/tracks linking Rollo with other towns or villages, andin its current condition the one road acts more as abarrier to any economic or commercial activity than ahelp.

The means of transport used in the area are: donkeys,carts, bicycles and human porterage.The first three arebeyond the financial means of most people in the area, sohuman porterage is the most frequently used mode oftransport.

Women undertake most of the travelling, because ofthe nature of their combined agricultural and domestictasks. It is also a feature of the area that the women’sfields are those furthest away from the village, handedout after the family plots have been selected.They haveno rights as such to own land.

Women also engage in basket making, pottery andsoap making, to trade with other villages.The lack oftransport infrastructure makes this trade very difficult.

There are a few wheelbarrows and donkey carts inthe villages, but despite the fact that most transport tasksfall to women, they do not own any of them.

Despite their difficulties, the women of Rollo haveorganised themselves into women’s associations, to try toimprove their living conditions, but the author points outthat they cannot achieve lasting improvements withoutoutside intervention and the prioritising of developmentin the area, which has so far been lacking.

The women are agreed that what they and theircommunities most need is transport infrastructure whichlinks the villages, and a way to use/purchase IMTs. Specificand integrated development programmes, based onparticipative principles, is what the area now needs.

IMTs in conjunction with road construction willincrease the impact of the latter, saving considerable timefor women in, to give just one example, being able toload harvest produce on to a cart (150 kilos at once)rather than headloading (25 kilos at once).

If time is saved for women in their transport tasks,they could devote more time to their income generatinghandcraft work, which would assist all in the community.Better links with other villages will increase access toeducation facilities and healthcare, as well as bettertrading opportunities.

The author lists a number of potential benefits thatcould follow an integrated rural transport programmeconcentrating on road construction works and expansionof IMTs.All the respondents in the study agreed that anall-season road for their area was a priority to relieve theisolation and open up the area to communications anddevelopment.

More study and investigation into the actualimplementation of this type of programme is nowurgently needed.


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Contrasting gender needs and access torural transport in the Yatenga Province,Burkina Faso: the case of Tuyaby Dr Amadou Ouedraogo

Burkina Faso is a landlocked Sahelian country located inWest Africa with a population of ten million people.About 90 per cent of the population are subsistencefarmers.The Yatenga Province is in the northern part ofthe country, 186km away from the capital of the region.The infrastructure is poor and the drought-prone landmakes farming extremely hard.

Even where life is hard for everyone, the authorhighlights in this study the particular difficulties faced bywomen, and based on surveys, discussions and interviews,the origins of their problems are explored. Somesuggestions for solutions are offered at the end of thestudy.

The village studied,Tuya, has 3000 inhabitants, all ofwhom are involved in farming.The rainy season lasts foronly four months per year, and no farming is possibleduring the dry season which lasts around eight months ofthe year.There is a primary school in the village, but it hasonly been there for ten years and the literacy rate is verylow. Only one third of the village children attend school.There is no village health centre; the nearest is 17kmaway but is of a very poor standard.The nearest medicalcentre that is well resourced is in the regional capital,Ouahigouya, some 25km away.The village wells dry up inthe midst of the dry season, and the next nearest wellsare two to three kilometres away.The nearest market is5km away.

All these factors make life difficult for the people ofTuya, but are in turn made worse still by the poortransport system and bad access roads, isolating thevillage for certain times of the year.

The two tracks that connect Tuya with the outsideworld are in a bad state of repair.They cross a small riverwhich has no bridge, so when the river floods in the rainyseason the village is cut off and children fromneighbouring villages cannot get to school, it is impossibleto reach markets or to get healthcare, even when urgent.

There is no public transport system connecting thevillages, and the only modes of transport used arebicycles, donkeys, animal-drawn carts and motorcycles. InTuya, people’s very low purchasing power means theyonly use bicycles, carts or donkeys, and women arepermitted only to walk and must carry everything ontheir heads, no matter what the distance.The carts,donkeys and bicycles are always overloaded, way beyondtheir proper capacity.

Men in Yatenga Province only work on the farm. Sofor the eight months of the dry season that no farmingtakes place, they have no other activity except in veryrare cases.Women however have domesticresponsibilities that are assigned to them exclusively andpermanently.They also work on the family farm in the

season, and on their own farm lots where they grow foodfor the family.Throughout the year, women are the first torise and the last to go to bed.Their activities requireconstant moving about; an estimate by the author of theaverage is between 16km per day at the lower end andan upper average of 44km.All distances are covered onfoot and loads carried on the head.Women themselvesdo not appear to question any of this, as the culturalnorms are deeply ingrained.

All means of transport are exclusively owned,controlled and used by men.After a day’s work on thefarm, men will be seen riding their bicycles or donkeysback to the village without a load, passing the women asthey walk with headloads and babies on their backs. Evenwhen the family bicycle or donkey is not being used bythe husband, the woman cannot use it, either because shecannot (bicycle), or because cultural rules forbid her(donkey).

Although all in the region are poor, women are thepoorest. 89 per cent of women in Tuya earn from US$ 0-10 per annum.They therefore have no means topurchase a means of transport, even if it occurred tothem. If they have any cash or any say in how familyincome is spent, women themselves are more likely toapprove of purchasing a means of transport for ahusband or son than for themselves.

In the area studied, it is strictly forbidden for a womanto ride a donkey or a horse, even if one is available toher.The belief is not questioned, even thoughexplanations of its purpose and origin are rather vague.

The author then has highlighted three main areaswhich limit women’s mobility.The first is the unfairdivision of labour, the second is the poverty of womeneven in comparison to the men, and the third is theconstraints placed upon women by cultural rules.

The author makes a concluding list of suggestionsregarding possible solutions to the problems of women inthis region.These include:

● Planners and policy makers should see transport inthe province as a priority; a basic factor ofdevelopment.This includes the improvement ofroad/path condition and the transport system.

● Planners must be aware that women and men havedifferent transport needs, and should strive forawareness and equality of access with regard totransport.

● Transport interventions should take more account ofwomen’s needs and perspective and should involvewomen in the planning and implementation of suchinterventions.

● Women’s access to adequate means of transportshould be promoted, together with a more equitabledivision of tasks.

● Non-transport interventions, such as improved watersupplies, increasing sources of fuelwood, promotingefficient wood-burning stoves and positioning of crop


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grinding mills to reduce time and effort spent ontransportation should be implemented.

● IMTs should be promoted, taking into accountgendered perceptions and needs

● Support should be given to women in theestablishment of income-generating activities toincrease their financial autonomy.

● Consider setting up a system of small loans aimed atwomen.

The author concludes by stating that more studies andsurveys are required so that the suggestions can beimplemented successfully, taking a participatory andenabling approach, encouraging people to think over theirown situation and express their needs and concerns, sobecoming involved themselves in the search for solutions.

Safety and gender issues in ruraltransport.A case study of Busia District,Ugandaby Kwamusi Paul

This study maintains that rural road safety issuesconstitute a neglected area, and that in the studied districtin Uganda, road travel is growing in an unregulated waywhich has consequences for road safety.There has beenlittle attempt to integrate the issue with rural transportplanning and development, and the issue also links withgender considerations.

There is an increasing rate of accidents on rural roads,and the incidence of injuries caused by travelling falldisproportionately on women.This is even though theymake substantially less use of motorised vehicles thanmen.

The study focuses in particular at the causes ofaccidents to women, the effects of these upon thewomen and their community and to what extent thesesafety issues compromise rural accessibility.

The area selected for study is known to have thehighest number of bicycles per capita in Uganda. It isculturally acceptable for women to ride bicycles here,although there are some restrictions on when/how etc.Walking is, however the main mode of travel, and womenmake more walking journeys than men because of theirdomestic and reproductive tasks.

Many of the accidents happening to women as theywalk are caused by being knocked down either bybicycles or motorcycles.They also fall and slip owing topoor road surfaces and mud during the rainy season.Headloading contributes significantly to the risk of injury,and when falls do take place they are usually worse if thewoman was carrying a load. Fatigue caused by thismethod of load carrying also contributes to accidents.Some respondents noted that is was actually harder tohear vehicles approaching when carrying a load on thehead.

Uneven paths, animal and snake bites and collisions

with cycles and motorcycles were all mentioned bywomen as causes of accidents to themselves.

Cyclists also reported a number of causes ofaccident/injury.These include falling off (again for reasonsof poor road surface etc. as above, but women are morelikely to fall off because they are carried as passengers onthe boda-boda services and the awkward sitting positionmakes them vulnerable).

Bicycles are also frequently in a very poor state ofrepair. this is because spare parts and maintenance arevery costly. Old bicycles are adapted and somehow keptgoing, but brakes are often non-existent. Other factorsaffecting cycle accidents are poor visibility caused byriding at night without lights (they are too expensive tobuy); overloading the cycles to try to reduce the numberof journeys made, and copious consumption of alcoholby some operators.Although women do use cycles, menhave many more accidents while using them.This seemsto be because they carry heavier loads and tend to beless cautious than women.

The study also notes that only 7 per cent of roadaccidents are brought to the attention of the police, andonly 20 per cent of victims seek medical assistance.Thereis also no overall responsibility for road safety issues, anda general lack of interest on the part of the police.

The study found that travel accidents are one of themain causes of disability in the area.There are genderissues involved here, as the author points out that when awoman is seriously injured, her husband will marry a newwife. If however the man (or indeed any member of thewoman’s family) is permanently injured, it will be seen asher job to look after them, in addition to her other tasks.

The accident rate also affects women’s perceptions ofIMTs, many respondents stating that they prefer to walkeverywhere because it is safer, and only ride anywhere inextreme emergencies. In this way, accidents cancompromise the success of rural transport initiatives.

The author states a need for more data in the field oftravel safety issues, but concludes with a list ofrecommendations to assist with bringing the accidentrate down while improving awareness of the problems atall levels.

The recommendations include: promoting communitybased road safety programmes; resources andmobilisation needed for self-help road rehabilitation andmaintenance programmes to improve road conditions; areview of bicycle design with regard to ‘woman-friendliness’, load-carrying capacity and increased safety,with scope for technology transfer from those Asiancountries who have more experience of these matters.

At policy level there is a need to take safety intoaccount when planning travel and access initiatives, and tohave proper definitions of what constitutes safety in ruraltravel, and minimum standards. Gender aware planningshould recognise this as an issue particularly affectingwomen.


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A gender perspective on transport andaccessibility in off-road areas: the case ofwomen traders in Gomoa, coastalGhanaby Gina Porter

The case study begins with a concise statement of theprevailing circumstances of women traders in coastalGhana, for whom marketing is a major responsibility.

In many districts women face considerable difficultiesin getting their goods to market, particularly from off-paved road locations. Feeder roads and tracks deterioraterapidly in the rainy season and even settlements just afew miles from a tarred road can become inaccessible.Traders may not visit such villages at these times and soprices are depressed.Women have to headload theirproduce to the nearest motorable road if they are toobtain reasonable prices.

The author of this study asks five research questionswhich define the scope of the report:

● What is the current organisation and cost pattern oftransport services in off-road areas (regarding links tothe main market centres utilised).

● What are the particular needs and difficulties ofwomen traders in a small number of selected off-roadsettlements (and to what extent are they transportrelated?)

● Most transport is owned by men. Is there potential todevelop women run/owned transport services?

● What potential is there for various types ofintermediate transport use in the specific localcultural context and what would be the implicationsof its use for women’s trading activities?

● Could electronic communications (such as mobilephones) play a role in improving market information?Would this have transport implications?

The study area is Gomoa, one of Ghana’s poorest coastaldistricts. It is principally an agricultural district, and themain crops are maize, cassava, peppers and tomato.Restraints include unreliable rainfall, lack of credit forfarmers, fluctuation in agricultural prices, high input costs,poor roads and labour shortages caused by out-migrationof youth.

Central Region in which Gomoa lies has a reasonableroad network compared to northern Ghana, but thecondition of roads is frequently very poor. Gomoa has afairly good network of roads, but the majority of theseare classed as ‘gravel’. On inspection they are frequentlyfound to be indistinguishable from earth tracks, since thetopography of Gomoa means that the gravel surface israpidly lost and gulleying occurs.

Four villages in Gomoa,Adabra, Sampa, Lome andAbora have been selected for study and are comparedand contrasted under a number of headings, including thecurrent organisation and cost pattern of motorised

transport services; non-motorised transport use, and theneeds and difficulties of women traders. Under the latterheading, although differences exist in the specificsdepending on the village, the following evidenceemerged.

A frequent response from richer and poorer womenin all the villages was to talk about the lack of capital forexpanding trading activity, including lack of money fortransport fares (in the case of poorer women with regardto visiting local markets, in the case of better-off womento visit larger, more distant markets).Although womenare the principal produce marketers, they are usually lessable to afford transport than their husbands, whogenerally have larger areas of land to farm.

Defaulting creditors and long delays in repayment ofcredit are a second common problem for traders whichaffects those with both large and small businesses andboth roadside and off-road residents alike, but is notspecifically transport related.Another frequentlymentioned problem is that of drivers of tro-tros arrivinglate on market day to pick up the traders and theirgoods. Many women in the off-road villages complainedabout loss of sales occasioned by such delays.The marketmay be well-advanced by the time they arrive, so it is notpossible to sell all the produce they have brought beforethe customers disperse (having already purchased fromthe more punctual traders). Failure of transport to arriveat all is particularly common during the wet season, whendrivers are unwilling to venture along difficult stretches ofroad.Women complained about the spoilage and lossesof produce this caused.

From the evidence presented, it becomes clear thatalthough not all trader problems are related, access totransport figures significantly among the difficultiesdescribed by women traders in the villages studied.

The study then looks at the potential for IMTs andthe implications for women’s trading activities.

IMT use is relatively low in Ghana, and among officialsin Accra and Cape Coast, IMTs seem to be perceived asunlikely to be acceptable in the coastal areas (incomparison to northern Ghana).

Photographs of five IMTs were shown to groups ofwomen of varying age and economic status in each ofthe four villages.The photos were selected to illustrate arange of transport options: the ‘kencart’ (a large meshcontainer on wheels, shown being pushed by a woman),the tricycle cart (shown ridden by a man), the wheelbarrow, the bicycle(with long rear carrier), and finally ashoulder pole (shown being carried by a man).

The kencart was the most popular option withwomen from all villages, with the exception of Lome,where the bicycle ranked first.The cart was perceived bymost women to be a really valuable means oftransporting crops from field to village and on towardslocal markets.When the groups were asked aboutpotential difficulties in getting the cart along village paths,they generally responded that the cart could be parked


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on the nearest junction with the broad track and still easetheir work considerably.

The tricycle cart was the second choice overall,especially with older women , and seen as having goodpotential, like the kencart, for both farm to village andvillage to market transport.The wheel barrow generatedless interest and comment than either the kencart ortricycle cart.

The bicycle attracted much debate. Its long carrierwas admired, but only in one village was the bicycleranked above the kencart or tricycle. It was perceived tohave restricted load carrying capacity, and unsuited to theunevenness of farm paths. Interestingly, women did notanticipate any opposition from men if they had bicyclesto ride, but many were uncertain if they would be able tolearn to ride them, and it is possible they would becommandeered by men. By contrast with the other IMTs,the carrying pole was rejected everywhere.All thewomen felt that it looked uncomfortable and too heavy,and would make it impossible to carry a baby on yourback while transporting goods.

The potential for women owned/run motorised andintermediate modes of transport was also researched forthis study. Only one woman in all the villages surveyedwas actually a transport owner, and her case isexceptional. Most women in Gomoa have little likelihoodof ever having enough funds on their own to purchaseeven a modest IMT.

Group ownership ought to be an option in thesecircumstances, but there is widespread concern amongthe women interviewed in all villages that groups wouldhave difficulty amicably sharing any vehicles purchased inthis way and everyone would want to use it at once.Andin the poorer villages, even group purchase wasconsidered beyond women’s means.This suggests that inmany villages, poverty or lack of experience with groupenterprises may inhibit development of women-owned/run motorised transport and IMTs and that substantialgroundwork would be necessary to ensure the success ofany project.

The potential for improving access to marketinformation through the use of electroniccommunications, including mobile phones is alsoexamined in the study.The author states that it seems inprinciple, another useful approach via which women’sefforts to get the best prices for their goods could beassisted. However preliminary surveys are notencouraging. Most women do not seem interested inhearing about prices obtainable in more distant markets.They report that they prefer to deal in their own, localmarket where they are known and perceive themselvesto be at less risk of being cheated. Many women alsoargue that they do not have the funds to visit moredistant markets.

In conclusion the author points out the following. Incoastal Ghana women have the principle responsibility formarketing.Access to motorised transport services from

and to off-road villages is often very restricted and travelis more costly (roughly double) than comparabledistances over paved roads.Traders are regularlydisappointed by the late or non-arrival of vehicles onmarket day, particularly in the rainy season when roadsbecome impassable.The women may lose money as aresult of this.

IMTs are currently very rare in rural Gomoa andalmost wholly male-owned and operated.The morewidespread use of IMTs could assist women in movingcrops from farm to village and village to market, and themajority of women were extremely interested in photosof IMTs provided for discussion, particularly the handcart.However, most women could see little opportunity forobtaining IMTs themselves, because of lack of funds.Theywere negative about the idea of group purchase.

The World Bank’s recently launched villageinfrastructure project (VIP) could help with IMTacquisition, but villagers are unaware of it at present.Since the project is envisaged as a providing investmentto user groups, it is important that women in thesevillages consider ways in which they can come togetherto take advantage of this potential source of finance.

Rural transport infrastructure provisionin Kenya – A practical view throughwomen’s eyes:A case of Keruwosaby Cecilia Kinuthia-Njenga and Justina Nthenge

KERUWOSA, a large women’s group of 120 members inKandara Division of Muranga (now Maragua) District inthe Central Province of Kenya is the focus of this study.The main objective of KERUWOSA is to improve theliving environment through the implementation ofinfrastructure projects, mainly water and sanitation.Recognising that poor road infrastructure was affectingtheir day-to-day lives and activities, the group hasincorporated road improvements as a key activity in theirprogramme.As a member of the group stated,“in the olddays, many roads surrounding our village were in goodcondition. Our town council was paying much attentionto them.And during those days, the spirit of harambeewas very high with people – men and women –contributing whatever they had in building or repairingroads. But nowadays, the spirit has weathered due to thecouncil failing to do their part.” But what has motivatedKERUWOSA to take up the challenge?

KERUWOSA has embarked on some communitydevelopment activities aimed at dealing with the twinproblem of poor road infrastructure and of participation.The rural people of Kandara Division have becomecommodity producers for the international market.Withthe decline of coffee as the main cash crop and the riseof the French beans, flowers and other horticulturalproduce, the rural people of Kandara are transformingtheir environments and modifying their lives, not withoutdifficulty and often with extra-ordinary energy and


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determination.They continue to rely on informal socialnetworks as safety nets of support.

Through a participatory research process, this studysought to first, identify and document the motivationalfactors behind transport infrastructure improvementprojects designed and implemented by KERUWOSA andsecond, to highlight the relationships between suchimprovements and nature of women’s transport patternsin relation to productive and reproductive activities.

Methods for investigating included focus groupdiscussions, mapping, transect walks,Venn diagrams andgender analysis tools – activity profiles, roles andresponsibilities.

With its deep volcanic soils, relatively high rainfall,undulating landscape, wide fertile valley bottoms, criss-crossing rivers and streams, Kandara Division falls within amedium high potential agro-ecological zone. Rivers andstreams in the Division are subject to heavy siltation andthus flooding during the rainy season as a result of soilerosion, which has been accelerated by the intensivefarming. Like in most parts of Kenya, women in Kandaraare responsible for household activities such as home-care, child rearing, cooking washing, fetching water andcollecting firewood. Productive activities, are however theresponsibility of both women and men. In Kandara, theproductive activities include agriculture – clearing,preparing land, digging planting, weeding, cultivating,harvesting, transporting and marketing; animal husbandry;and trading and small enterprise.

Recognising the link between their productive andreproductive roles it is no wonder that KERUWOSA hasincluded infrastructure improvement as part of theircommunity development activities.A analysis of transportneeds for the roles and responsibilities assigned towomen and men indicates that women’s responsibilitieshave a more transport-intense dimension particularly ofunserviced paths, tracks and footbridges.Theresponsibility of women to fetch water and to collectfirewood requires that they utilise footpaths and tracksand sometimes bridges, which are internally located andin very poor condition.A mapping exercise clearlydemonstrated that at least 70% of the foot-paths, tracksand bridges were in poor condition.

Focus group discussions revealed that the conditionsof transport routes and used by rural men and womendetermine the amount of time and effort spent ontransport activities. Participants of the Focus groupsdiscussions indicated that they spend one hour fetchingwater during the dry season and at least two hoursfetching water from the same stream during the wetseason.This is because some paths are totally impassableduring the wet season.The same case applies to access tofrench beans collection points.This point was very wellillustrated in the mapping exercises and transect walks.

Based on this analysis, KERUWOSA has set aside halfa day a week when they contribute to improving ruralinfrastructure in their respective villages.Their key

activities including sweeping the roads, digging gullies andgutters, repairing bridges, and laying twigs and leaves oncritical paths during the rainy season.The women use thetools used regularly in their homes. such as hoes, pangas.,jembes and brooms.The group has only purchased 20brooms and 5 hoes.They have written proposals todonors requesting support to purchase additionalequipment including gloves.They are however, notinvolved in improving the main roads as these wouldrequire permission from the local authorities. Moreover,work on major roads would require some investment incapital and cash, which the group currently lacks.Thework of the group is purely voluntary and part of theircommunity development contribution.

Very little is known about the benefits women derivefrom participation in road infrastructure improvement,although recent studies indicate that rural infrastructurecontributes to women’s lives and those of their families,particularly those from marginal regions or have few landassets and/or are economically worse-off. Focus groupdiscussions with the members and non-members ofKERUWOSA indicated that improved roads contributedpositively and some instances negatively to both womenand men.

Members of KERUWOSA are motivated tocontribute to the improvement of road infrastructure forthe following reasons:

● to reduce energy and time spent on carrying outroles and responsibilities – for example, withimproved road infrastructure it takes only half an hourmore to fetch water during the rainy season;

● to increase women’s access to social services –mobile clinics and community based health workersvisit areas that are more accessible – thus reducingthe need to make lengthy trips to district hospitals;

● to increase access for extension workers to farmsthat are located more interior ;

● to improves access to collection points/markets forfarm produce.

The KERUWOSA initiative in road improvementillustrates that women are capable of determining theirinfrastructure needs, and can successfully mobilise theirresources to address their priority problems.

Gender and transport load sharingamong households in Kafur Village inSouthern Katsina State, Nigeriaby Mohammed-Bello Yunusa

This study looks at the particular roles and circumstancesof women in terms of their transport needs in theparticular circumstances of an isolated rural Hausa-FulaniMuslim community where the women are furtherisolated by the practice of purdah.

The level of rural transport infrastructuredevelopment in Nigeria is generally very poor, and is


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compounded by a poor policy framework. Governmentshave continued to invest in urban transport showing littleor no commitment to the rural sector. Rural communitiesrely on traditional transport means such as walking andanimals for carrying loads.Women in these circumstancesare further constrained by socio-cultural as well asmaterial factors.The study contends that women inpurdah and in isolated villages have specific transportneeds that require attention.

The study sets out to look at the concept of‘transport burden distribution’ by gender in a ruralcommunity in Nigeria. In this context the problem ofrural transport load provides a framework for addressingthe problems of poverty and gender inequality.The studywas carried out in Kafur village in the Savannah belt ofNorthern Nigeria.

Women here are secluded from men other than theirhusbands and cannot leave the house without hispermission. In purdah, women do not work on the farm,but do go out for important ceremonies or on healthgrounds. However, they are engaged in productiveeconomic activities at home in addition to householdchores.

The village has good services which have developedbecause of the establishment of Local GovernmentCouncil headquarters which is based there. Servicesinclude a market, clinic, repair and other shops and apetrol station. For this reason, journeys by men orwomen for basic households needs above 3km in lengthare exceptional.

Many of the women are engaged in handicraft workbased at home, while some sell goods or snacks in themarket.Women’s income is much lower than men’s.

Men often own a bicycle or a motorcycle, but womencannot afford to, and/or are prevented anyway forcultural reasons.The only exception is oxen, which theycan own in order to hire out to farmers for ploughing.Therefore men both own and control means oftransport.Added to this there are cultural restrictionsplaced upon women in the ownership and use of meansof transport.The women surveyed also stated in somecases that they felt travel by bicycle or donkey was ‘notconvenient’.

Men actually make most of the journeys, as womenare confined for much of the time.They do go to marketto buy household necessities, but they also send theirchildren out often to do these things for them. Somerespondents relished the rare opportunities they got togo and do these things for themselves.

In Kafur, unlike much of Africa, women do not marketagricultural produce. Children headload goods to market,but men have the main responsibility. Only a tinyproportion of women headload (3.4% of the sample).

Women reported difficulty in making trips forwhatever reason, because they are constrained by theirhousehold duties, by the need to get permission fromtheir husbands, or a combination of the two

Both men and women expressed a desire to ownmotorised rather than non-motorised transport, but thebicycle was still popular too. Neither men nor women feltit was important to improve the situation for walking,donkeys or horses, but to improve roads for use bymotorcycles, buses and cars, in order to reduce thetransport burden (mostly the responsibility of men, as wehave seen).

The author concludes that enhancing the transportopportunities for women in the area requires asociological as much as a technological approach.There isa need to work with women regarding why it isimportant for them to have the means to travel, evenusing one of the ‘traditional’ modes.The author suggeststhe emphasis should be on social purposes of travel, suchas marriages and condolence visits.The economic aspectsshould be played down in the circumstances of men‘providing’ for their wives.This approach has the benefit ofinducing spontaneous economic use of transport modesby women without upsetting the family social structure.On the other hand, men can be educated that thewomen have better access to transport means so thatthey would be able to share the transport load moreequitably with men.

Gender issues in rural transport:Thecase of Yankatsari in the Kano ClosedSettled Zone, Nigeriaby Nurudeen Abubaker

This is a case study which takes an individual approach toassessing gender issues in rural transport in this veryancient and individual area of Nigeria. It gives a great dealof consideration to what has been written andresearched in the field of gender and development, andseeks to discover how far statements that have beenmade can be applied in the actual circumstances ofYankatsari. It takes an openly questioning tone to manydevelopment assumptions by means of a surveyinterviewing 18 women in Yankatsari from 13 households.Through this method, the author seeks to ‘test’ thetheoretical assumptions that inform the Balancing theLoad research programme.

Yankatsari is a village close to the main town of Kano.The communities of this area have been established sinceancient times and live at high density but dispersed (inthis context, dispersal does not mean isolation). Chosenby the People’s Redemption Party (1979-1983) as thesite of a model village to aid rural development, itscurrent circumstances are far from ‘model’ and most ofthe planned government interventions were neverinstigated.

The village is in a Muslim area and both purdah andpolygamy are practised.The author asserts that ‘purdah inparticular has an encapsulating effect on travel andtransport’, and essentially women’s domain is the homeand any journeys other than social/cultural or urgent


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medical are taken on her behalf.The author also statesthat over 77% of respondents were not in purdah bychoice. Other than their household and reproductiveduties.. the majority of the sell jewellery, snack foods orgroundnut oil as petty traders.The area is dominated byagriculture and farming, but the women take no part inthis for cultural reasons as outlined above.

Though the bulk of the economic pursuits of thewomen of Yankatsari are within the homestead, over 61per cent of the respondents listed some aspect of theirwork that required travel or transport. Of these however,only 27 per cent actually participate themselves in thetravelling, mostly it done for them by young males. Norespondent owned a bicycle or indeed any means oftransport and since they had never seen any womendoing such a thing, the question why not ‘simply- doesnot arise’.Technological constraints are not the issue, thereasons again are social/cultural. Fetching water is amongthe household responsibilities of women, but the majorityhave wells in their home compounds or fetch from aneighbours nearby, so it does not need to be transportedfar at all.

Travel and transport was not a priority for thewomen when asked about favoured governmentinterventions, and the communal maintenance of pathsand tracks has no place for women in Yankatsari: 100 percent of respondents said it is no business of women,citing culture, tradition, purdah and husband as reasonsfor non-participation.

The women did recognise however that improvedtravel and transport facilities would enhance access tomarkets, and for basic needs (such as healthcare), andwould also attract more business.

The author states that when the study was initiated, itwas not anticipated that purdah would be the all-pervasive element that it turned out to be in the surveyresults. From the findings, the author asserts that theprimary issues that need urgent attention are socio-cultural. First, that the socio-cultural, economic andpolitical context of being male or female in an extremelyhegemonic society like Kano, with a well-articulatedideology, in a highly centralised set-up which has been inexistence for almost a millennium, can hardly be over-emphasised. Second, that while the findings support theview that infrastructure improvements should not beunderplayed, emphasis should change and focus oninternal organisational changes.The most importantstumbling block to improvements in rural transport isattitudinal, in this case on the part of both men andwomen.

The impact of road rehabilitation ontransport and accessibility in rural SobaDistrict of Kaduna State, Nigeriaby Mohammed-Bello Yunusa, E.M. Shalbu-lmodagabe andY.A.Ambi, with Aminu Yusuf and Binta Abdulkarim

This case study assesses the impact of a roadrehabilitation project in the Soba Local Government area,Kaduna State, Nigeria upon the inhabitants of oneparticular village, Lungu Taka Lafla, in the context of thedebate about whether in fact better transportinfrastructure leads, per se, to accelerated development.

There is a literature review in the first part of thepaper which critically appraises the current state of thearguments in this respect, followed by a survey of thevillage of Lungu to see what has actually taken placethere.

The Kaduna State Government decided to renovatethe road which links Soba and Ikara towns, after it hadbeen deteriorating for some considerable time.Theproject was aimed at reviving the flow of goods andservices that might have been lost owing to the poorstate of the road.

Lungu is located about midway along the length ofthe rehabilitated road, which actually touches thesettlement. It is a large village with a predominantlyMuslim population.

Among its findings, the case study highlights thefollowing:

● The poor road condition had affected access to basicservices in the study area. Ninety per cent ofrespondents to the survey reported that it hadaffected their access to medical services. Some of thespecific health problems attributed to the bad state ofthe road included premature delivery and sometimesdeath, due to the very uncomfortable journey to thehospital at some distance away.After the renovation,100 per cent of the male respondents and 92 percent of the women agreed that most medicalproblems such as these were no longer significant.However eight per cent of the women still felt therenovation had not improved the state of availablemedical services, which is attributable to the absenceof a well-staffed and equipped clinic in the communityitself.

● Before renovation, women were predominantlyresponsible for taking the sick to hospital. Afterrenovation, the numbers of men taking the sick tohospital had increased.This is probably because of theimproved transportation to a major hospital someway away.

● In terms of collecting water, this is one of the fewareas in Lungu dominated by women becausehouseholds have wells in the compound. It is mainlycarried out on foot (63 per cent), with limited use ofdonkeys, ox carts and motorcycles (men).


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● Women dominate the collection of water fordomestic uses; where men collect water it is forcommercial reasons (water vendors), or in droughtconditions when local resources dry up.With therenovation of the road, the involvement of men in thecollection of water has declined. Pre-renovation, 17per cent of male respondents collected water fortheir households, but after renovation it was only nineper cent. Females involved in water collection hadincreased from 48 per cent before renovation to 50per cent after.This is probably because the roadrenovation led to an increase in movement andactivities for males, leaving the women more soleresponsibility for the household.

■ The study population is mainly agricultural. Movementof inputs and farm produce accounts for manyjourneys. Pre-renovation, 57 per cent of farmers(predominantly men) reported they had experiencedno problems with this, while 34 per cent reportedthat the poor state of the road created immenseproblems getting to and from their farms.Thiscorresponds with the distances of individual farmsfrom the village.

■ With access to grinding mills however, the picture ismuch clearer. 43 per cent of respondents claimed thatthe poor road condition adversely affected theiraccess to the mills because of the time spent gettingto the mills and queuing when there.About 8 percent of respondents also reported losses en route tothe mill through spillage. Seven per cent reported thatthey had to pay higher transport fares to get them tothe mill on the poor road, while 6 per centcomplained of wear and tear on their means oftransport.There are few women before or after whotake grain to the mills, probably because they poundor grind the grain themselves rather than risk thejourney or queue for ages at the mill. Afterrenovation, this trend has not altered much, but thereis a slight increase in men taking produce to the mills,owing to the better road surface facilitating thetransport of much larger loads at one time.

■ It was generally agreed by all that the market wasadversely affected by the poor state of the road,because villagers could not make the journey over therough conditions with their produce to sell.Thegender pattern for the response on this matter wasuniform between both sexes, with only minorvariations.

■ In Lungu, the men are the main collectors offirewood, because the women are in seclusion. Beforethe road was rehabilitated, much of the fuelwoodtransported was by foot (29 per cent), foot anddonkey (12 per cent) and just donkey (11 per cent).This changed after renovation, when more woodstarted to be transported using motorised transport,although the bicycle and ox cart remained moreimportant at 21 per cent. Only 10 per cent were

transporting wood on foot post-renovation.■ The study found that economic activities were the

most affected by the road improvements.About halfthe sample reported a boost to economic activities, interms of employment facilities and opportunities,increased sales of farm produce at higher prices,access to agricultural inputs at lower prices, and thecost of storage and processing of agricultural producehad reduced.This has benefited the whole community,but most directly affects the men because of thewomen being in seclusion.

In conclusion, the report points out that after renovation,access to medical and education facilities were increased,participation in social event for men and women haveincreased, and the economic activities of both male andfemale respondents was adversely affected by the badstate of the road previously and had correspondinglyimproved after renovation.The poor state of the road ledto increases in cost and travelling time for grinding millsand market facilities located outside the village, now bothmuch improved.The renovation of the road led to anincrease in fuelwood collection and more use ofmotorised transport, and changes in domestic refusecollection from women to men, who make fertiliser fromit now they can transport it in bigger loads.

The recommendations which conclude the studyinclude:

● The need for regular maintenance of the road in ruralareas

● The need to increases or improve the means of travelon these roads with particular emphasis on the use ofanimals which are under utilised in the area

● The provision of services in the community or nearerto it to reduce the burden of travelling

● The need to work out strategies for communityinvolvement in the maintenance of the roads, ratherthan reliance upon the public sector.

Tell the World: incorporating women’sviews on accessibility and ruraltransport in Ghana into distanceeducation material and Internetcommunicationby Jeff Turner

This case study takes the form of recounting the keypoints from a series of papers that were presented at aworkshop during the GHACLAD conference (GhanaComputer Literacy and Development Conference 1998).The workshop aimed to raise the profile of ruralwomen’s voices in Ghanaian national transport policydebate by facilitating interaction with representatives ofthe professional transport community.

It is now well-established that there are genderdifferences in the travel patterns in the rural, urban,developing and developed worlds. It is also known that


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the voices of women have not been systematicallyincluded by the transport community in either thetraining of professionals, the participation of users, or thedesign and planning of systems, services and equipment.There is therefore a need to promote the voices of ruralwomen users in the formal policy arena.

The first paper summarised is ‘Managing the Time:gender participation in education and the benefits ofdistance education’ by Dr. Margaret Grieco.This paperpointed out how a recent audience survey in Ghana hadunderscored the importance of distance education as amore flexible option for spreading educationalopportunities, especially to the less advantaged orremotely located audiences.

Of special mention was access by women.The paperpointed out that critical gender issues such as timemanagement, task overload, and multiple tasks, andmobility constraints stifle women’s access to educationalopportunities, even when facilities are available.Theconsequence of these constraints on girls’ education washighlighted. It asserted that because women cannot go toeducational facilities, it behoved development workers todevise more appropriate and affordable ways to takeeducation to women.

Another key point was the need to enable thecurrently voiceless, vulnerable groups in society to maketheir own case.The potential of using technology toamplify these voices was highlighted as viable wayallowing women in particular to broadcast their situationin their own voices, to audiences all over the world.Thiscould take place through a website and through video-based presentations.The paper stressed that with thespread of telephone usage, the Internet offers the bestconsistent opportunity for communication.

The second paper summarised is ‘Gender and RuralTransport: the distance education of professionals andNGOs’ by Jeff Turner.This paper points out theimportance of paying attention to gender analysis in ruraltransport policy planning. It also highlights the differencesin transport needs, and therefore modes of travel bywomen and men, informed by the different roles theyperform. It indicates that the complex roles of womencause them to travel more often and for differentactivities, so that they need the kind of support thatfacilitates their effective role performance.

The need for sensitisation on gender roles in thetransport sector and the appropriate actions requiredwere touched upon, but the information needed for aproper appreciation of these issues is unavailable becauseof a scarcity of materials and data.The important role oflocal resource people in providing the right knowledge atboth the basic (local knowledge) and technical (research)levels through participatory approaches was identified asthe best strategy for gathering the requisite informationand moving forward.The important role of informationtechnology in facilitating this whole learning process wasacknowledged.

The third paper summarised is ‘Rural transportdifficulties in Ghana: health and water’, by Mrs MercyAckumey.This paper presented field data on the lives ofwomen in the Sekyere-Odiumasi district of Ghana. Itdescribed the several tasks which women have toperform daily, the scarce time they have to perform eachof them, and the consequences of these restraints onother aspects of their lives. For example, owing to thelack of good roads and access to transport for cartingproduce from farms, this task, which ought to beachievable in two hours, in fact takes six hours ofheadloading.The rainy season poses the most difficultchallenges, since without extra help much farm producegoes to waste through spoilage.

The paper highlighted how trade-offs are made intime allocation to different roles. For instance, theperformance of women’s productive role in agricultureinterferes with her role as health provider for the family.Without enough time to trek to the nearest clinic, theailments of family members, including her own, aretreated with self-medication which is often inappropriate.Health care is usually not easily accessible and so mostpregnant women postpone trying to get to the clinic.Without transport, women with children make thejourneys with the children on their backs. making thejourney harder going still. Many pregnant women die ontheir way to the health centres, since decisions to takethem there are often made only as a last resort.

With regard to water supply, the paper noted thestrain women face in their role as water providers fortheir families.This is complicated in the dry season whenwater sources dry up and women have to travel to moredistant sources.

Proposals made by the paper include the following:

● Use of mobile clinics;● Mobile vans to educate and distribute information on

drugs and medicines;● Education for contraceptive usage;● Provision of radio sets at vantage points;● Women should be consulted about the siting of

boreholes, so that their journeys can be reduced.

The next paper summarised is: ‘Women in Agriculture:Their access to technology and credit’, by Mrs LorraineOsei-Mensah.This paper presented a study about 80women farmers, conducted in the Akim Abuakwa area ofGhana.The paper made the point that these womenmake a vital contribution to the economy, and made acase for enhancing their access to credit and farmingtechnology to improve production. It noted that most ofthe women were ready to cultivate more but haddifficulty accessing credit and modern farming technology.The situation is partly because of the women’s lack ofeducation and partly because of their poverty.

Another important role highlighted by the paper wasthe processing and distributive role of women. It notedthat these vital roles are hampered by the lack of


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transportation which constrains mobility, and thereforetheir ability to cart produce both from farm to village andon to markets.The paper described how women stay upat night to wait for the only vehicle which calls at theirvillage at dawn on a specific day, and missing this meanswaiting a whole week usually before the (perishable)produce can be moved.The monopoly enjoyed by thesedrivers often means they raise charges as and when theyplease, and often over-charge for goods carted.

The final paper summarised in the case study is‘Gender, transport and agriculture in rural Ghana’, byRosetta Tetebo.This paper highlighted the enormous roleplayed by women in Sub-saharan Africa and Ghana inparticular, in ensuring the food security and nutritionalwell-being of their households, through production,processing, marketing and storage. It raised the point thatin order to make agriculture the ‘prime mover’ in Africaneconomies, the constraints experienced by women mustbe addressed.

The paper also stated that there is technological biasagainst women, and any solutions must recognise this. Itcalled for better post-harvest management, for betteraccess to resources, particularly education and trainingfor women through distance learning and mobile units toincrease income-earning opportunities, and in marketingagricultural production. It also called for bettertransportation to allow better access to markets, creditand farm inputs.

From the presentations at the GHACLADconference, a website has been put together. It isdesigned for transport professionals and policy makersand it is linked to other sites of interest in the transportfield. It can be accessed at http://www.art.man.ac.uk./transres/ghacladO.htm


64

Issues for Users and Community-LevelInstitutionsRoad Rehabilitation in Nigeria

● Community involvement at planning stages ofinfrastructural development more likely to lead tosustainable maintenance and resourcing;

● To understand needs of women and impact ofinterventions made on women in specific culturalcontexts, e.g. Purdah, it may be necessary to usewomen in interviewing and follow-up;

● The impact of transport interventions is heavilyinfluenced by culture;

● The benefits of transport interventions depend onwho is involved and has control over economicactivities in the area of intervention;

● Road rehabilitation, together with increased transportprovision, can bring overall benefits to a region. Roadrehabilitation alone cannot.

Boda Bodas in Uganda

● Decentralisation and ownership of the road networkcan lead to better maintenance and mobilisation ofresources given adequate technical and othersupportive inputs;

Reaching Rural Women in Tanzania

● In planning dissemination campaigns to reach women,appropriate media should be used which reachesthem and enables them to communicate their ownuser needs;

● IMTs can relieve women’s transport burden, but whoowns and controls the IMT can heavily influence thedegree to which their problems of accessibility arealleviated;

● Need to make available and popularise a range ofIMTs;

● Need to sensitise communities, and particularlywomen that IMTs can be used for domestic purposes;

● In seeking to resolve perceived transport problems(for example long distances to the marketplace),practitioners and planners should look at non-transport solutions (for example local processing ofsurplus foods).Tools such as accessibility planning,integrated planning and time analysis could be usefulin seeking appropriate solutions.

Nkone river bridge

● Successful interventions need to be shared● Initiatives should involve community organisations

Impact of IMTS in Zimbabwe

● Introduction of IMTs can encourage greater sharing oftransport tasks and savings in time;

Impact of Feeder Roads in Sudan

● Donor initiatives (even when working withgovernment) should benefit communities;

● In poor communities – how much contribution canyou expect from the communities?

Issues arising from other case studies

● Community initiated activities are more likely to thrivethan imposed activities (for example community-initiated groups taxing themselves to pay for theirown development in Nigeria as opposed to imposedgroup ownership of IMTs).

● Community organisations should sensitise women tounderstand the scope of their transport constraints aspart of a broader strategy to encourage demand-ledtransport interventions.

● There is need to facilitate linkages betweencommunity groups to share information andexperiences, and to encourage linkages to othernetworks.

Issues for Transport PractitionersRoad Rehabilitation in Nigeria


● Transport interventions bring about changes in tasksof household members (positive and negative);





● Planners need to understand the travel needs ofwomen users if they are to make appropriate gender-sensitive interventions;

● Transport technologies should be designed withcomplete understanding of the needs of womenusers;

● Local manufacture and adaptation of IMTs can bemore responsive to the local, social and culturalrequirements of users;


● In planning dissemination campaigns to reach women,appropriate media should be used which reachesthem and enables them to communicate their own

Issues from African Case Studies


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user needs;● IMTs can relieve women’s transport burden, but who

owns and controls the IMT can heavily influence thedegree to which their problems of accessibility arealleviated;


● Need to sensitise communities, and particularlywomen that IMTs can be used for domestic purposes;


Nkone River Bridge

● The provision of better (improved) roads andtransport facilities can alleviate transport burden orbalance the burden between men and women

● Successful interventions need to be shared● Initiatives should involve existing community

organisations● Technical assistance in the design of community based

works is crucial.● Local government capacity building is necessary to

support community initiatives

Policies in Uganda

● Indicators for effectiveness of such policies need todescribe actual advancements for women

● Need for practical strategies to translate policies intopositive interventions.

● There is need to provide adequate funding forgender-responsive rural transport planning andoperationalisation.

Impact of IMTs in Zimbabwe


● Low cost interventions can only be accessed by thosewith resources – they are still inappropriate for thosewomen without resources

● Practitioners should be encouraged to exploredifferent options for women and men to accessfinance to acquire IMTs (e.g. subsidised massproduction, loans)

● Introduction of IMTs is likely to be successful ifsupported by income generating activities

● IMTs should enable women to save time for othersocial and economic activities.


● Organisations that work with communities should useparticipatory techniques in identification of needs,prioritisation and planning of development

programmes as a strategy for capacity building andcoming up with more integrated programmes toaddress community needs.

● Planning of transport programmes should be sensitiveto the needs of women and men in any community.

● The success of interventions is based on availableresources within the community (communities’ abilityto contribute manpower, revenues, cost recovery?)

● In poor communities – how much contribution canyou expect from the communities from the success ofyour initiatives?


Transport problems can be resolved by integrated non-transport interventions, for example:

● Distance education in Ghana;● Credit facilities and mobile banks;● Increasing food production and supply in rural Nigeria

provided impetus for road infrastructuredevelopment;

● Tele-centres and community radio in South Africa;● Food processing adding value to agricultural products;● Reviving periodic markets through advertising in

Ghana;● Improved sanitation and refuse dumping in Burkina

Faso;● Build the capacity of transport practitioners to design

and make available transport options;● Options for reducing transport costs for communities

living far from paved roads, for example, incentives foroff-road operators in Zambia provides duty-freeincentives to such operators;

● Community initiated activities are more likely to thrivethan imposed activities (for example community-initiated groups taxing themselves to pay for theirown development in Nigeria as opposed to imposedgroup ownership of IMTs);

● Transport practitioners should look at thecomplementarity of modern modes of transports andIMTs in seeking solutions to transport problems;

● Incorporate safety considerations in design oftransport facilities for rural travellers: provision offunds for enforcement is paramount;


Issues for PolicymakersRoad Rehabilitation in Nigeria


● Transport interventions bring about changes in tasksof household members (positive and negative);


66


● The impact of transport interventions is heavilyinfluenced by culture;




● Decentralisation and ownership of the road networkcan lead to better maintenance and mobilisation ofresources given adequate technical and othersupportive inputs;

● Local manufacture and adaptation of IMTs can bemore responsive to the local, social and culturalrequirements of users;

● Policymakers have a role to play in supportingappropriate transport interventions (for example byproviding finance, shaping import requirements,setting standards for safety of transport devices,bringing in technical expertise to support andstrengthen local initiatives);

● IMTs can be successfully introduced and owned bywomen users if adequate systems of supportaccompany the intervention (for example communitydevelopment, capacity building, sensitisation etc.)


● In planning dissemination campaigns to reach women,appropriate media should be used which reachesthem and enables them to communicate their ownuser needs;

● IMTs can relieve women’s transport burden, but whoowns and controls the IMT can heavily influence thedegree to which their problems of accessibility arealleviated;



Nkone River Bridge

● The provision of better (improved) roads andtransport facilities can alleviate transport burden orbalance the burden between men and women;

● Voices of users is valuable in making a case to policymakers;

● Initiatives should make existing communityorganisations;

● Technical assistance in the design of community basedworks is crucial;

● Local government capacity building is necessary tosupport community initiatives.

Policies in Uganda

● Gender-responsive and gender-responsible policiesand institutional structures are useful starting pointsfor gender sensitive transport interventions;

● Indicators for effectiveness of such policies need todescribe actual advancements for women;

● Need for practical strategies to translate policies intopositive interventions;

● There is need to provide adequate funding forgender-responsive rural transport planning andoperationalisation.

Impact of IMTs in Zimbabwe


● Low cost interventions can only be accessed by thosewith resources – they are still inappropriate for thosewomen without resources;

● Practitioners should be encouraged to exploredifferent options for women and men to accessfinance to acquire IMTs (e.g. Subsidised massproduction, loans);

● Introduction of IMTs is likely to be successful ifsupported by income generating activities.


● Organisations that work with communities should useparticipatory techniques in identification of needs,prioritisation and planning of developmentprogrammes as a strategy for capacity building andcoming up with more integrated programmes toaddress community needs;

● Planning of transport programmes should be sensitiveto the needs of women and men in any community;

● Construction of feeder roads guarantees otherbenefits of the community, for example, health andsanitation, education, boost economic activities;

● Interventions should complement already existingprogrammes;

● The success of interventions is based on availableresources within the community (communities’ abilityto contribute manpower, revenues, cost recovery?);

● Donor initiatives (even when working withgovernment) should benefit communities;

● Sustainability – successful interventions shouldconsider capacity building as a strategy for ensuringthe sustainability of community initiatives;

● In poor communities – how much contribution canyou expect from the communities from the success ofyour initiatives?


67


Transport problems can be resolved by integrated non-transport interventions, for example:

● Distance education in Ghana;● Credit facilities and mobile banks;● Increasing food production and supply in rural Nigeria

provided impetus for road infrastructuredevelopment;

● Tele-centres and community radio in South Africa;● Food processing adding value to agricultural products;● Reviving periodic markets through advertising in

Ghana;● Improved sanitation and refuse dumping;● There is need to build and strengthen the capacity of

transport practitioners to design and make availabletransport options;

● Options for reducing transport costs for communitiesliving far from paved roads need to be considered, forexample, incentives for off-road operators in Zambiaprovides duty-free incentives to such operators;

● Community initiated activities are more likely to thrivethan imposed activities (for example community-initiated groups taxing themselves to pay for theirown development in Nigeria as opposed to imposedgroup ownership of IMTs);

● Community organisations should sensitise women tounderstand the scope of their transport constraints aspart of a broader strategy to encourage demand-ledtransport interventions;

● Incorporate safety considerations in design oftransport facilities for rural travellers: provision offunds for enforcement is paramount;



IFRTDIFRTD

IFRTDc/o Intermediate TechnologyNew Premier House150 Southampton Row2nd FloorLONDON WC1B 5ALUnited Kingdom

Tel: +44 20 7278 3670Fax: +44 20 7278 6880Email: [email protected]: http://www.gn.apc.org/ifrtd

The International Forum for RuralTransport and Development is aglobal network which aims toovercome the physical, economicand social isolation of the rural poorin developing countries. The goal isto improve the accessibility of ruralcommunities by developing ruraltransport systems which respond totheir needs and potentials.

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