Potholes and pitfalls: The impact of rural transport on female entrepreneurs in Nigeria

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe role of transport in stimulating economic development in developing countries is well documented. However the specific impact of rural transport policy and provision on female entrepreneurs is less well known. Drawing upon the experiences of a group of growth-focused female entrepreneurs receiving support from a national programme, this research explores how they use transport for their business activities, transport barriers that they are subject to and ways in which these barriers are being surmounted. To this end it uses the findings from telephone surveys, supported by in-depth interviews to generate data about their business and transport behaviours. It identifies that many of the women feel that the current transport situation is having a negative impact on the success of their businesses, and has affected their ability to recruit employees, service customers and deliver goods. Whilst the women had a very poor understanding of transport policy, many of them felt that the main issue is the poor quality of the roads. In the short term initiatives to support the specific needs of women would be highly valuable in helping these entrepreneurs to successfully grow their businesses. In the long term a significant amount of investment is required to improve rural transport to meet the needs of female entrepreneurs.

Geographies of transport III

“…Something similar is happening in research on what are often touted as African, Latin-American and (South-)Asian transport phenomena – Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) (Casas and Delmelle, 2014; Vermeiren et al, 2015) and the very poor access to employment, healthcare and other services experienced by low income households and particularly poor women from peripheral locations in rural areas (Naybor et al, 2016; Seedhouse et al, 2016) or rapidly expanding cities (Hernandez and Rossel, 2015; Alberts et al, 2016; Maia et al, 2016; Oviedo Hernandez and Titheridge, 2016). Much more than mere transfer is going on in these studies, as exemplified by the ways in which thinking on livelihoods is deployed (Alberts et al, 2016; Naybor et al, 2016), attention is directed towards informal modes of transport and motorbikes (Vermeiren et al, 2015; Naybor et al, 2016; Maia et al, 2016) and care is taken not to impose researchers’ ‘own parameters of distance and place on the participants, but rather to let those evolve from their own perceptions’ (Maia et al, 2016: 137).…”

“…Nonetheless, many of the concepts and ideas used to frame the issues at stake remain undeniably western. The framework of transport-related social exclusion, originally developed for the UK context, is deployed rather easily (Casas and Delmelle, 2014; Oviedo Hernandez and Titheridge, 2016); Hägerstrand’s time geography is relied upon (Hernandez and Rossel, 2015; Naybor et al, 2016); and travel time is unreflexively framed as a cost (Hernandez and Rossel, 2015), a waste (Seedhouse et al, 2016) or something to be sped up (Vermeiren et al, 2016), especially if economic development is to be stimulated (Seedhouse et al, 2016).…”

Developing survey-based measures of gendered freedom of movement for use in studies of agricultural value chains

“…During the 1990s in Egypt, as the job market transformed dramatically and travel times to places of work increased for wage-earning and salaried employees, women experienced a considerable decrease in access to wageearning and salaried employment compared to men; this finding was partially attributable to women's inability to make longer commutes as a consequence of social norms around women's freedom of movement (Assaad & Arntz, 2005). Women entrepreneurs in Nigeria, who are often more limited than men in their ability to travel on poor roads, experience limitations in their ability to access the goods and services that could help them grow their businesses (Seedhouse, Johnson, & Newbery, 2016). Women who work as agricultural extension agents are less likely then male agents to own bicycles or motorcycles, which are necessary for visiting farmers, which may be a limitation for both women agents and their clients who are more often women (Kiptot, Karuhanga, Franzel, & Nzigamasabo, 2016).…”

Meeting Young People’s Mobility and Transport Needs: Review and Prospect

“…This tends to be particularly important because of consequent delays to evening meal preparations, possibly coupled with male suspicions of the reason behind their delay. The unreliability of transport is a common but under-reported factor constraining young women's trade and entrepreneurial aspirations in both rural and urban sub-Saharan Africa [81,82]. This uncertainty/unpredictability may encompass not only concerns about how long the journey may take, but whether the journey can be done at all.…”