Balancing the Load

Increasing women's opportunities for micro-enterprise is a vital step in overcoming poverty, and in rural areas, access to markets and transport is a necessary means to achieving that ends. Yet, as this unique investigation into the relationship between gender and rural transport graphically shows, transport policy makers and providers have paid almost no attention to gender equity, and gender researchers in development have seldom examined the crucially important role which transport plays in women's lives.

Priyanthi Fernando is the Executive Secretary of the International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD).

Gina Porter, a geographer by training, has worked in the Nigerian universities for ten years and is currently based in the Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, where she is Senior Research Fellow.