Abstract
This paper explores the impacts of gender mainstreaming initiatives in Tanzania's transport sector on the everyday reality of rural women's lives, including those facing multiple forms of discrimination. Using qualitative methods, including co-investigation with community members, data were triangulated from diverse sources: vulnerable women and other residents in two Tanzanian districts, road contractors, professionals engaged in supporting the country's transport programmes and staff in donor agencies. The results indicate that progress in mainstreaming has been slow. Despite government directives, few women have benefitted from employment in road construction except through two national programmes: the Village Travel and Transport Programme and the Tanzania Social Action Fund. However, most women, particularly those disadvantaged, derive benefit from road improvement, even if only as pedestrians or wheelchair users taking advantage of a smoother surface, or better travel security when vegetation is cut back. For women with the funds and independence to access the expanded transport services that tend to follow road improvements, there can be significant benefits – faster travel, improved access to farms and markets and sometimes lower transport costs. Nevertheless, women's constrained resources and prevailing cultural mores continue to militate against them directly operating transport, whether for personal or business use.
Highlights
Over the last three decades, a substantial body of evidence on women’s transport and mobility constraints and needs in Africa has accumulated (e.g. Fernando and Porter, 2002; MalmbergCalvo, 1994a, 1994b; Porter, 2008, 2011, 2014; Turner et al, 2014; Urasa, 1990)
Tanzania is no exception: section 8.1 of the National Transport Policy (United Republic of Tanzania, 2011) refers to gender as a crosscutting issue that is essential for women’s empowerment, equal opportunities and social inclusion such that gender mainstreaming is to be promoted in services, operations and infrastructure
Even a fleeting journey into rural Africa today will commonly reveal a transport landscape that is still dominated by male-driven vehicles and male passengers hurtling along major and minor roads, while women and their children trudge along poorly defined road margins, dodging traffic and balancing heavy loads
Summary
Over the last three decades, a substantial body of evidence on women’s transport and mobility constraints and needs in Africa has accumulated (e.g. Fernando and Porter, 2002; MalmbergCalvo, 1994a, 1994b; Porter, 2008, 2011, 2014; Turner et al, 2014; Urasa, 1990). With multi- and bi-lateral donor support, such evidence has encouraged the promotion of ‘gender mainstreaming’ policies and programmes in the transport sector across the continent, with implications extending from women’s employment to satisfying their needs as users of transport services. Automobility – along with the construction of the roads on which it is practised – remains, in essence, a masculine project Why should this still be the case, given the commitment to gender equality recited in so many hundreds of national policy documents?. This paper examines the place of women in the rural transport sector – as travellers, road workers and transport professionals – with particular reference to Tanzania. The paper first presents relevant background literature and details of the methodology employed This is followed by an examination of the gendered implications of road interventions, including employment practices in road construction. The concluding section reviews the interplay of power that shapes these outcomes and offers suggestions for future policy and practice
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