EST Asia Forum: ReCAP addresses the role of women in developing rural transport

ReCAP were invited to organise a pre-event on the Role of Women in Developing Rural Transport, at the Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) Asia Forum in Hanoi, Viet Nam, on 28th October 2019, organised by the United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD). The pre-event explored the continuing demand for gender equality and equity in rural transport provision and was attended by some 50 delegates.

Part one of the session took stock of regional initiatives and included opening remarks by the Deputy Director General for Roads of Viet Niam, and a keynote speech by UNCRD on the Vientiane Declaration in the context of women in transport. Mr Choudhury Mohanty of UNCRD emphasised that rural poverty is a major barrier to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and that rural transport is a key enabler for achieving social and economic equity among low-income communities, and ensuring that ‘no one is left behind’. A lack of rural-urban connectivity increases gender inequality and vulnerability of rural women, and the ILO have found that extreme disparities between women and men continue to exist in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Initiatives on Empowering Women with Rural Road Maintenance in Viet Nam were presented by the Transport Development and Strategy Institute (TDSI) at the Ministry of Transport, and included the benefits of community routine road maintenance on women from vulnerable and ethnic groups, which have increased women’s incomes to 260%. TDSI also introduced their gender mainstreaming guidelines funded by the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for application in the transport sector of Viet Nam. 

During the morning session, the ReCAP programme and cluster of seven gender mainstreaming projects in rural transport were presented by the ReCAP Deputy Team Leaders, Mr Nkululeko Leta and Dr Annabel Bradbury, and the State of Knowledge paper on Gender and major transport infrastructure was also presented by Mr Holger Dalkmann from the High Volume Transport (HVT) programme. 

Ms Nite Tanzarn from the ReCAP Technical Panel introduced the Guidelines for Mainstreaming Gender in Rural Transport, which draws on lessons learnt and good practices from the seven research projects. It was observed that many good practice examples exist outside the public domain, which need investigation, and it was emphasised that further co-ordination and publication of case study material in Asia will contribute to the body of knowledge. Mr Madan Regmi from UNESCAP gave an overview of Asia’s evolving rural landscapes and gender dimensions of rural connectivity within the region, highlighting that rural women experience different types of disadvantages, for example in Asia, 58% of economically active women are in the agricultural sector, but fewer than 20% have secure tenure to agricultural land.

Furthermore, ReCAP gender mainstreaming research projects undertaken in Nepal on trail bridges, and women and disadvantaged groups in rural transport, were presented by Helvetas and WISE Nepal respectively. They explored women’s participation in the planning, implementation and maintenance of road and bridge construction activities, equal pay for equal work among women, and highlighted that the redistribution of women’s unpaid care work is crucial for meaningful engagement of women in the labour force. 

The research of both projects highlighted the resulting improvements in women’s mobility, livelihoods, and consumption patterns, but recognised that the unpaid care burden of women needs to be acknowledged, with provisions to reduce or redistribute household and farming responsibilities. Discussion followed on the lack of education, literacy and other key skills being key constraints to women’s participation in decision-making and employment in the roads and transport sector, noting that in Nepal women were often physically present but strategically absent from trail bridge user committees. Delegates also highlighted that other sectors need to be involved in the dialogue on rural access provision, for instance education, health and agriculture, all of which seek to benefit from improved connectivity.

In addition to the special session, Annabel Bradbury furthermore represented ReCAP at the donor session during the EST Roundtable Discussion, and committed supporting AsCAP country partners in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan, and building on the platform of the Vientiane Declaration on Sustainable Rural Transport adopted by EST member countries in 2017.

In order to ensure that rural access was sufficiently represented within the theme of ‘Achieving Smart and Resilient Cities through Low Carbon and Intelligent Transport Systems’ at the EST Asia Forum, selected delegates were interviewed, to get their perspectives on rural access in the context of the Forum theme. Those interviewed included the Asian Development Bank, as well as AsCAP representatives from the Department of Local Infrastructure (DoLI) in Nepal, and the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) in Bangladesh. A series of short videos depicting these interviews is available on the ReCAP YouTube channel.

For more information about ReCAP’s Gender Mainstreaming research, please contact Annabel Bradbury, ReCAP Deputy Team Leader and Transport Services Research Manager, on Annabel.bradbury@cardno.com.