The Failure of Rural Transport Planning and Policy to Support Women’s Entrepreneurship
Abstract
This report explores the failure of rural transport planning and policy to support women entrepreneurs in rural Nigeria. It was undertaken by Plymouth University in conjunction with Pan-Atlantic University and Integrated Transport Planning Ltd. The report comprises of a number of chapters. Chapter 2 begins with a literature review which is used to set the scene in terms of the context within Nigeria and specific issues relating to rural transport, gender and women entrepreneurs. Chapter 3 provides a brief overview of the methodology that was used for this work, before chapter 4 summarises the survey of Nigerian women entrepreneurs that formed the first part of the original research and reports the findings from some more in-depth interviews with a sub-sample of the survey respondents. Next, chapter 5 provides a discussion of the results before chapter 6 presents the conclusions to the research, and chapter 7 makes some recommendations. Overall, the research identified that transport planning and policy is failing to support Nigerian women entrepreneurs (and others) due to poor roads, a lack of transport availability, high costs, unreliable and infrequent services, long journey times and security issues. Further, women are more keenly affected by some of these issues because of a range of additional gender, cultural and religious reasons. Action is needed to improve the transport system and ensure it takes account of the unique needs of women, and supports them in their business endeavours.
Citation
Anon. The Failure of Rural Transport Planning and Policy to Support Women’s Entrepreneurship. Crown Agents, (2014) 79 pp.
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