Summary: Study of intermediate means of transport (IMT).

Country Report 1: Burkina Faso

IMT Study Recommendations

• Identify transport and travel as a priority sector in rural areas.
• Reduce gender gaps in access to IMTs. Although the study pointed out some of the factors affecting gender use of IMTs, it will be necessary to carry out a study to identify the underlying causes of the limiting or increasing factors of women's access to IMTs.
• Meet some of the transport needs through reducing the amount of time and energy used to secure services by locating infrastructure facilities such as schools, health centers and markets closer to communities.
• Promote the use of improved stoves and any other appropriate technology that can reduce the consumption of firewood and the amount of time needed to secure it.
• Enhance the profitability of income generating activities for women to increase their financial capacity and autonomy.
• Improve the use of IMTs through a participatory approach to raise awareness of communities of ways IMT can enhance the quality of living.

Case Example: Daily Household Travel in Rural Burkina Faso

The mother and daughters are in charge of fetching around 20 liters of water three times each day. Each trip takes an hour. They also collect firewood two or three times a week. The mother can carry about 25 kilograms and her daughters can carry about 10 kilograms of wood as they walk one and a half hours back to their village.

The entire family engages in farm work. The mother and daughters walk 30 minutes to the fields. The father rides a bicycle and arrives in 1-15 minutes.

Women walk to provincial market centers; men ride bicycles. To access commercial transport, people have to walk ten miles to the main road.

In villages with no schools, the girls and boys have to walk one hour to reach the nearest school. To reach medical care people have to either walk 10 to 20 kilometers or travel by bicycle. Carts are used for medical emergencies.

Summary: Gender workshop for planners and implementers; gender study of rural transport needs; community transport pilot project.

Country Report 2: Cameroon

Pilot project developed in response to research on gender and rural transport, participatory project design; managed by a women's group.

Positive Outcomes:

• During the cotton season the Banaye Women's Group rented out three carts to cotton producing men after they completed their domestic work. Each cart transported 3, 4 or even 5 bales of 100kg each, making as much as 500kg per trip. Such loads are usually carried by 10 men or 20 women.
• Gathering of firewood by carts.
• Women prioritized their needs and organized into a functioning group.
• Fund established to resolve village's transport problems.
• Time-saving for women; transportation activities are less strenuous.
• Trips to health centers by women and children are easier and more frequent.
• Women and the poor can now move more loads, particularly their produce.
• Travel and transport is now more possible and much easier for women and the poor.

Case Example: Women's Use of Bicycles in NW Cameroon

Women who have regular access to bicycles in the Plateau Zone are economically independent and hold a privileged status. With the economic crisis traditional values are changing. Attitudes about women riding bicycles are increasingly positive. Most women over the age of 45 use bikes for travel. Young girls use bicycles for transporting goods. Women and girls believe that bicycles make their lives easier. The heavy locally made iron carriers for bicycles are stronger than those made in factories. Women carry loads of 50 to 70 pounds on their bicycles. Most women find it difficult to keep their balance on bumpy paths.

Summary: Pilot for horse cart transport project.

Country Report 3: Cote d'Ivoire

• Designed as a rural transport initiative to increase mobility of populations in general, and of women in particular, through the use of appropriate IMTs.
• Community participation.
• Capacity building in several areas was strong:
  • Gender and transport
  • Driving
  • Maintenance
  • Community participation
  • Feeder road maintenance
  • Project management

Positive Outcomes:

• Skill development and employment opportunities.
• More agricultural produce can be transported to market more easily and cheaply.
• Increased income generation and poverty alleviation.

Summary: IMT study for Ethiopian Road Authority.

Country Report 4: Ethiopia

Study Findings:

• Men and women see a great need for animal-drawn carts because the settlement pattern is scattered and market centers and other services are distant.
• Women and men are interested in using animal-drawn carts if supplied on long term credit.
• Although some traditional thinking could discourage some women from operating animal drawn carts, most men and women suggested that there would not be much problem if women operate and use animal-drawn carts by themselves, since women take care of animals in the household.
• Breaking down the rural isolation can enhance the local income-generating opportunities and open access to markets and social services, in a context of high rates of poverty and low food security.
• The study suggested guidelines for implementation and monitoring of a project to increase the use of the IMT.

Study Highlight: Lack of Transport is a Health Risk in Ethiopia

In districts with no clinics, people must travel more than 10 miles to reach health care professionals because there are no roads passable by motor vehicles. The risk is greatest for children, pregnant women and the elderly. People use locally made wooden stretchers to carry seriously ill people to clinics. Maternal mortality from delivery complications is highest in rural areas without roads or clinics.

Summary: Study on making IMTs accessible to Northern rural women.

Country Report 5: Ghana

• Women in the rural areas of Northern Ghana have extremely limited mobility beyond their immediate settlement due to low population densities, dispersed settlements and the high cost of motorized transport. There is a real need for IMTs especially for women, who bear most of the transport responsibilities. Women do not have sufficient resources to meet basic human needs or to acquire IMTs.

Recommendations:

• Gender Awareness Raising to ensure that women's access to IMTs is not limited by socio-cultural ownership rules and IMT construction fits their needs.
• Further research into current design technology to reduce cost without compromising quality or efficiency.
• Appropriate Transport Policy: All the activities on the promotion of IMTs have been implemented to suit specific project objectives with no focused strategy to ensure expanded use.
• Easier Acquisition of IMTs for women through: Group-based long-term credit, short-term credit (supported by economic activity or provided by private individuals), subsidies or donations, non-credit one-off procurement.
• Group ownership to facilitate shorter term payment.

Case Example: Ghana Women's Group Uses Donkey Cart to Increase Farm Production

The Kologo Zongo women's group is engaged in production of maize, millet and other crops. They purchased a donkey cart on credit from the local government through a project to facilitate the movement of inputs and products to market centers in order to increase the level of production. The women expect to increase their production and get higher returns using their cart so they can repay their loan. They also use the cart for domestic chores.

Summary: Pilot project for mangrove river transport project.

Country Report 6: Guinea

• A gender-mixed group of farmers became the owners and operators of a boat and two mangrove transport trucks.

Outcomes:

• Members of the group and the local population in general have benefited from reduction of much of their transport burden at a lower cost than previous transport services.
• Women in the locality are demonstrating better management skills, have increased their income and are more exposed to information on markets and opportunities in other areas.
• Operation of the boat has resulted in a consistently increasing income for the group.
• They are paying off the loan for the motor, establishing a group fund, setting aside funds for repairs and paying the captain's salary.

Summary: Best practice toolkit for engendering community-based infrastructure development and maintenance (Nkone river bridge), workshop, study of women in self help infrastructure projects.

Country Report 7: Kenya

• Members of the local communities identified footpaths and footbridges that needed to be rehabilitated, giving priority to those more frequently used by women and children.
• Capacity building participatory training workshop sessions conducted on: Group dynamics and community mobilization, labor-based methods for roads and bridge maintenance, problems and solutions analysis, gender issues roads repair and maintenance, community action planning.

Lessons Learned:

• Importance of following up rural infrastructure development projects with maintenance plans to ensure sustainability.
• Lessons learned from the participatory development of plans to repair and maintain the Nkone Bridge and rural roads present a useful set of guidelines to promote similar local transport projects.
• Participatory development is a learning process that develops and promotes new methods and changes prevailing attitudes, behaviors, norms, skills and procedures in the development agency and in the local community.
• The community must learn to shed expectations of hand-outs and dependency on outside-led activities.

Study Highlight: Women and Children Lead Daily Traffic on Nkone Bridge in Kenya

* Figures represent the average number of people/or means of transport per day.

Summary: Workshop on integration of women in rural road construction/rehabilitation/management.

Country Report 8: Madagascar

• The goal of the workshop was to sensitize project staff, contractors, NGOs, university teachers and students, administrators, and other relevant stakeholders about the gender dimensions of transport projects and the importance of female involvement.

Lessons Learned:

• Objective was unclear in terms of which women were to be integrated -- professionals participating in project implementation or rural dwellers who will benefit from easier transport conditions.
• The workshop presented an urban-biased approach with most representatives coming from the capital city and no views of local women regarding their constraints.
• The project seemed to view integrating women into the project as an end in itself and not as a means to the end of ensuring that gender considerations are incorporated into development efforts.

Proposed Integration of Women in Madagascar's Road Development Project Cycle

Sensitization and Project Design

• Creation of rural road users' associations.
• Woman on executive board of one association.

Assessment and Supervision

• Supervision of work by a woman engineer.
• Road and Roadway Work (excavation of roads, cleaning roadways)

• Women carry materials and nails.

Maintenance

• User associations.

Summary: Gender workshop for policy makers; study of promotion of IMT ownership for women and men.

Country Report 9: Malawi

• Two-day workshop for Principal Secretaries to increase gender awareness and formulate an action plan for addressing gender imbalances in rural travel and transport informed by a study of IMTs and pilot project.

Lessons Learned:

• Need for empowerment of local people to enable them to own and maintain means of transport.
• Sensitization on gender issues relating to rural travel and transport solves problems.
• Need for Institutional frameworks to coordinate implementation of rural travel and transport.
• The three components of GRTI activities were effectively interrelated and progressively improved the gender-responsiveness of the RTT program:
  
  
  • The workshop built upon the existing positive position of the Government towards gender equity to apply the experience of correcting gender imbalances in traditional sectors to the transport sector. This created a more conducive policy framework for project development and implementation.
  • The workshop contributed to sustainability of gender mainstreaming in the transport sector.
  • The study provided information to facilitate the pilot project to promote the ownership and use of appropriate IMTs to meet the identified transport needs of the rural women and men.
  • Provision of credit removed a major constraint to achieve this goal.

Policy Highlight: Makokola Declaration on Gender [Excerpts]

We, the Principal Secretaries of Ministries and Departments of the Government of Malawi:

• Place gender firmly on the agenda of all development initiatives;
• Support all processes of amending the Constitution, repealing and reforming all laws and changing social practices which still subject women to discrimination;
• Enhance access to quality education by girls and boys and removing gender stereotyping in the curriculum, career choices and professions;
• Promote women's and men's full access to, and control over productive resources such as land, livestock, markets, credit, modern technology, formal employment and a good quality of life in order to reduce poverty among women and men.

Summary: Study of women's rural transport problems, workshop on findings for government stakeholders.

Country Report 10: Nigeria

Recommendations

• View local suggestions in terms of available resources and sustainability:
  
  
  • Concentrate on lower scale transport services locally 'owned' and maintained, such as women's groups' motorized boats.
  • Encourage private sector provision of long-distance services but do not allow exploitation by monopolistic practices.
• Women's group membership enhances access to resources and services by overcoming gender imbalances in decision-making.
• Closer water and firewood sources and grain mills would reduce women's transport needs.
• Research is needed to develop improved IMTs.
• Raise awareness and encourage greater involvement of women in community life.
• Conduct a survey of local interventions before designing a strategy:
  
  
  • to avoid duplicating or conflicting activities
  • work with existing governmental and non governmental programs.
• Pilot projects need to focus on what can be implemented in a relatively short period of time and long term interventions required for sustainability.

Summary: Pilot bike project.

• Improved bicycles were sold to rural women and the money from the sales used to set up a revolving loan fund to promote ownership of IMTs among rural women in Senegal. This resulted in improved biking ability, savings in time and money and increased income generation.

Recommendations

• Review bike allocation criteria and avoid the impression that it is easy to acquire a bicycle.
• Increase level of training of all stakeholders to show how bicycles can benefit participants, including people from other localities.
• Further train mechanics in bicycle care and maintenance.
• Encourage beneficiaries to open bank accounts and make regular deposits for payments for a bicycle.
• Reduce price of spare parts.

Summary: Gender mainstreaming training manual, gender analysis of transport surveys.

Country Report 11: Senegal

• Aim was to identify and build awareness of the best practices of integrating gender into rural transport in the sub-region based on a study of policies and projects in Senegal and Guinea. Found that transport projects rarely take gender differences into account despite major constraints to women's access to transport. Prepared good and bad cases of gender integration in community development projects.

Recommendations

• Identify and measure the evidence of inequality, gaps and discrimination between men and women in the transport sector in terms of access, participation and control of resources.
• Analyze the causes of the identified inequality, gaps and discrimination using gender disaggregated data, taking into account social distinctions such as social status, age, ethnicity, professional memberships and urban or rural residence.
• Analyze the various factors influencing the economic situation of women at micro and macro economic levels and identify their advantages and disadvantages.
• Get tools and guides for drafting strategies and programs to reduce and eventually eliminate gender inequality in the transport sector.
• Ensure the effective participation of women in planning and the integration of gender at all levels, including design, identification, planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

Case Example: Senegalese Women Use Transport to Increase Income

In Ziguinchor, a group of women in Santa Yall addressed the problem of high transport fees and rotting produce by purchasing a canoe and a truck through assistance from GTZ. They were able to increase their income significantly by transporting their own produce.

With the help of an NGO, a group of women in a shanty town in Kaolack purchased a donkey and a cart to reduce the burden of collecting water. They used the cart to sell water to other women. After water was installed in their area, they used the cart to collect refuse.

Summary: Gender analysis of transport survey instruments and recommendations for survey guidelines.

Country Report 12: South Africa

Used a gender analytical framework to assess the design, methodology and analysis in seven survey reports, identified problems and recommended actions.

Problems Identified and Action Recommended:

• Problem: When gender is not specified in the conceptualization, development and implementation of policies, programs or projects, it receives little or no attention.
  
  Proposed Actions:
  • Mainstream gender-sensitivity issues into every aspect of an organization's / program's / project's priorities and procedures (including survey instruments).
  • Provide gender sensitivity training for policy makers / planners in institutions charged with rural development.
• Problem: Little relevant and accurate gender-sensitive travel and transport information to aid decision-making and planning in rural areas.
  
  Proposed Actions:
  • Strengthen information base for planning by designing and implementing gender analytical frameworks.
• Problem: Survey interviewers level of gender awareness influences the way they ask questions.
  
  Proposed Actions:
  • Provide gender sensitivity training for male and female interviewers.
  • Develop and disseminate a "good practice" typical rural transport questionnaire that can be adapted to fit specific circumstances.
  • Develop a gender-sensitive manual for training enumerators and implement on a pilot basis.

Summary: Workshop on M&E for village travel and transport projects, gender study of VTTP.

Country Report 13: Tanzania

• Participatory approach created a sense of ownership and accountability.
• Labor based technology is an effective approach in maintenance of community roads and has imparted technical skills particularly on bridge construction.
• Skills gained from the paid labor helped youths to acquire employment.
• Maintenance of water sources and milling machines reduced women's time and effort in accessing such services.
• Mobilization of self-help activities at the community level requires a high degree of coordination and linkage between different development programs.
• Continued capacity building is required for local communities to manage activities, to promote accountability and to ensure sustainability.
• Formalize institutional arrangements from the community to the national level.
• Tailoring credit schemes to community needs can make IMT usage a reality.
• Improvement of markets and marketing may catalyze community participation in improving and adopting technologies.
• Teams should include a sociologist to identify opposing beliefs and address them at the early stages of the project to encourage gender balance and voluntarism.
• Concerted efforts are needed to ensure equity between women and men in VTT activities.
• Undesirable effects such as deforestation, other ecological degradation or the spread of pandemic diseases such as HIV/AIDS should be prevented through community training, awareness raising campaigns.

Gender Analysis: Promoting Women's IMT Use in Tanzania

Obstacles to IMT Use in Tanzania	Strategies to Promote IMT Use in Tanzania
Women lack information on IMTs IMTs are expensive.	Establish/strengthen women's groups. Set up special funds for IMTs for women's groups. Target women for special demonstrations / training on the use of IMTs.
Traditional beliefs and practices prohibit women's use of bicycles.	Focus gender awareness training on ownership and use of IMTs. Visit areas where men and women are successfully using IMTs.
Available IMTs not suitable for women or sandy and uneven terrain. Lack of local capital for IMT manufacturing and repair. VTTP funds do not provide credit for local production and service. Source: GRTI Tanzania Country Report	Ensure that District Council / VTTP promote training and assistance for local artisans for IMT production and servicing. Modify IMTs to suit users' needs and the terrain.

Summary: Donkey use case study.

Lessons learned:

• Negative effects of politicizing development programs: Politicians used the project as a political tool with each one claiming responsibility for the project to gain votes in elections. The project would have been a failure if NGOs and CBOs had not intervened.
• Pre-intervention study is important: No study was conducted. Various important aspects of donkey use were overlooked.
• Need for training in the use of donkeys: A major problem was death or loss of donkeys. Project participants did not have an animal culture. Women, in particular, lacked skills in managing donkeys and were not using them to full capacity.
• Need for supporting equipment: Donkey carts were not common and only two local artisans could repair them. Most donkey owners preferred to improvise by making their own harnesses, collars and yokes for the donkeys.

Summary: Workshop for engineers on gender responsive policies and best practices in transport.

Country Report 14: Uganda

Lessons learned:

• In the transport sector, strategies to address the National Gender Policy include:
  • Creating employment opportunities for women.
  • Promoting women's equal access to job opportunities.
  • Developing entrepreneurial skills of women.
  • Improving working and workplace conditions.
  • Involvement of women in road programming and monitoring.
• Gender Guidelines for District Engineers was released in March, 2002. This manual gave explicit directions on how gender mainstreaming could be accomplished to include women at each level of road construction, rehabilitation and maintenance.
• The plan also included gender sensitization from the level of contractors and engineers to the level of the local community, ensuring participation of women in decision-making and in work groups as well as the provision of necessary facilities.
• Under GRTI a one-day workshop was organized in March, 2003, for sensitizing and strengthening the capacity of District Engineers, primarily males, to prepare gender responsive plans and promote gender issues in the implementation of road works in their localities.
• Conclusion: Gender sensitization workshops must be very practical and participatory so that it is easy for the participants to apply gender dimensions after the workshop.

Summary: Situation analysis of gender and transport; workshop to discuss findings with policy makers, workshops on gender awareness and transport, monitoring and evaluation framework.

Country Report 15: Zambia

Study Findings:

• Women's concerns are not addressed in most rural travel and transport programs.
• Transport policy does not go far enough to incorporate women's issues.
• Governments need to identify gender issues and create awareness among stakeholders.
• About 70% of rural travel is to carry out domestic activities. This is mainly the responsibility of women.
• No framework for incorporating gender issues in transport programs.

Key Recommendations in the Gender Action Plan:

• RTTP National Steering Committee should include more NGOs in sub-committees to implement GRTI activities to draw on their gender mainstreaming experience.
• Strengthen linkages between Government and NGOs, especially those dealing with women's issues.
• Strengthen role of Gender Focal Points to enable them to influence policy formulation and planning in their respective ministries.
• Earmark national funds for improvement of RTT activities and their gender dimensions.
• Implement policy measures to increase women's access to credit facilities and also to IMTs.

Engendering the RTTP Monitoring and Evaluation System

• Ask questions about key gender issues in the various stages of an RTT project cycle. Questions provided for project identification, project implementation, and short and long term gender impact evaluation.

Summary: Situation analysis of gender and transport; workshop to discuss findings with policy makers, workshops on gender awareness and transport, monitoring and evaluation framework.

Ministry of Local Government and Housing

• Review rules and regulations to ensure gender awareness.
• Ensure gender representation in coordination committees.
• Use gender sensitive monitoring and evaluation indicators.
• Gender sensitize staff involved in program planning and budgeting.
• Train trainers on gender and RTT issues.
• Use gender-sensitive training materials.
• Formulate RTT-specific gender guidelines.

Ministry of Works and Supply

• Sensitize planners to select rural roads that will facilitate travel by both women and men.
• Sensitize local authorities on gender issues.
• Ensure gender balance in employment opportunities.
• Provide gender sensitive guidelines for decentralized planning activities.
• Develop gender sensitive guidelines for decentralized planning activities.

Summary: Situation analysis of gender and transport; workshop to discuss findings with stakeholders; baseline survey; workshop on gender sensitization in rural transport.

Country Report 16: Zimbabwe

• Examined transport burden, IMT use, and impact of transport projects.
• Identified strategic gender needs:
  • Gender equality in access to and control over IMTs.
  • Gender equality in division of labor and share of RTT burden.
• IMT accessibility constraints for women:
  • IMTs are designed mainly for men's tasks.
  • Transport service providers do not see women producers and traders as a market for special services.
  • Planners and implementers of transport projects do not promote participatory planning to get inputs from user-groups such as women producers and traders.

Impact of RTT projects

• Fomal Roads:
  • Increased transport operators and trips.
  • Procurement of agricultural inputs and marketing of produce in cities easier for those close to roads.
  • Employment of women and men in labor-based and small-scale contractor executed road construction, rehabilitation and maintenance injected cash into the local economy.
  • Do not alleviate the RTT burden at village level or to address gender inequalities in the share of the RTT burden.
• Informal Infrastructure (Paths, Tracks, IMT promotion):
  • Smoother, quicker movement of people and transportation of goods.
  • Use of IMTs enables women and men to transport bigger loads over a shorter time.
  • Reduces women's RTT burden; does not redistribute burden between women and men.

Study Highlight: Mismatch in Rural Transport in Zimbabwe

Problem: There is a mismatch between the outward bound motorized transport services on formal roads (based on cost-benefit analysis) and the inward bound travel and transport activities in rural communities.

Recommendations to Planners:

• Adopt participatory development planning to ensure that women and the poor identify their travel and transport needs.
• Enhance synergy between transport and non-transport solutions to RTT needs through coordinated multi-sectoral planning by government, donor agencies and NGOs.