Content index:

Introduction
Empowering Women through Community-Based Integrated Approach
The Need for Women Financial Services
Importance of Grouping
Problems, Initiatives and Policy Implications of Sustainable Women Development

• Women, Water and Sustainable Development
• Women, Climate Change and Sustainable Agriculture & Food Security
• Women, Climate Change and Health
• Women and Shelter
• Women &  Energy

Conclusion

Introduction

Paradoxically, however, women are rarely integrated as partners in the design, management and follow-up of development programs. They are usually systematically excluded from access to land, credit and formal training on skills and technologies that could eventually lead to easing of their daily workloads. Other factors include conflicting difficulties influenced by socio-political and outdated traditional cultural practices which increasingly impoverishes them; many wives have the status of perpetual minor or otherwise merely seen as provider of 'social security' and producers of the future labour force. Moreover, the problems they must deal with today are complicated by: exacerbating environmental degradation, pressure and loss of access to land and natural resources e.g., lack of clean water supply, and woodfuel resources and economic policies such as structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), which have made rural Africa increasingly prone to food security crises – are all new and extra burden to rural women. But these issues also involve more intricate inter-relationships with politics and socio-economic and, larger circles of influence than what rural women have been exposed to in the past. The girl-child is not spared either – in Africa she is an endangered species since she is prone to early marriage and is denied education in favour of her male counterpart. Moreover, in Kenya and many other parts of Africa, overwhelmingly most of the domestic workers are usually teenage girls.

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Women, Water and Sustainable Development

The availability of potable water, clean water for domestic and general purpose water for for crops and  trees is widely acknowledged as a problem in Africa. Clean piped water for all is yet to be realized. From the World Bank statistics, it is noted that more than a fifth of the world's population resides in areas designated as high risk areas. The risk is basically due to poor quality of water supply (or use of polluted rivers and stagnant waters) as the main cause of diseases, and hence, poor health to these people. In this type of scenario, it is a well-known fact that it is mostly the women and children who are the most affected.

In Africa, in particular, the situation is even desperate as the bulk of the population (with up to 70% in some countries) resides in rural areas where piped water is almost non-existent and to a better part a dream – and if there are any taped water, they are sparsely located that the women and at times with their children have to trek long distances, spending several hours per day just to get a few gallons of water. There are two sectors of the economy which suffer in this kind of scenario:

 1) Agriculture and Health – The unavailability of water means that there is little to be used for irrigating the farms, leading to poor crop productivity and low nutrient yields thus, contributing to poor health. Furthermore, because the women spend most of their time looking for water, there is very limited time left for them to tender their gardens, and as such when rains arrive, it always catches them unaware with their farms not fully prepared, and hence, resulting in poor harvest, and hence, poor food security that can not sustain the family food requirements. Moreover, during rainy seasons, these rural folks have a tendency to draw water for their domestic use from stagnant rain water ponds/pools. These water ponds also serve their domestic animals, which get into them in order to serve themselves, and while doing so, urinate and dump their waste making the water highly polluted and a health hazard to the people. These leads to rampant water bone diseases amongst these people, and hence, another cause to poor health. It is kind of a vicious cycle.

 2) Education – In Africa, if children are to fetch water, most of the times it will be the girls who are also as a custom, suppose to help their mothers with kitchen etiquette. This means that they will devout less time for school work, leading to a high dropout rate among them. To some extent, boys are also affected, particularly those from families without girls off-spring. This is a bad scenario for Africa's future socio-economic development, in terms of human resource development. In view of this, GREEN AFRICA Network will undertake the following measures in order to help alleviate water problems in rural Africa:

1. Introduction of simple water drawing technologies that are affordable and workable e.g., use of renewable sources of energy like solar and wind powered water pumping systems.

 
2. Initiate water projects for domestic use and irrigation

 
3. Use of demonstration irrigation farm-plots next to water points.

 
4. Form women self-help projects to co-ordinate the digging of water wells, and walling of small water springs and rain water whenever available.

 
5. To encourage women to form women groups in order to fabricate and sale water tanks made from either concrete or corrugated iron sheets depending on the local weather conditions.

However, it is important to note that the dynamics of population growth and redistribution are complex and only beginning to be understood. The UN "medium variant" population projections suggest that between 1990 and 2020 population will increase by 49% from 5.3 to 7.9 billion with large regional variations such as in Sub-Saharan Africa where a 124% increase is projected (T. Dyson, "Population and Food", Routledge: London 1996).

It is hoped that a better understanding of global biogeochemical systems and the links between them, the physical climate system, and agriculture will enable future societies to greatly increase food production, thereby increasing the overall standard of living in a world limited by food supply. However, society is unique in the global ecosystem in that it posses the ability to increase its food supply by altering land use from forest and shrubland, for instance, to cropland. Sustainable growth is thus linked to available area and productivity of land being converted permanently to productive agriculture. This process has a direct effect on environment, and hence, climate change. In Africa, most of the domestic activities e.g., subsistence farming, woodfuel gathering, water etc. are part of women work, and as such, women bore the brand of shortages of these commodities.

Let us take, for example, Kenya which is a country within Sub-Saharan Africa. The population of Kenya is currently around 29 million, and is increasing at a growth rate of over 3% per annum. As earlier indicated over 12 million Kenyans live below poverty line. Further, 23 per cent of children under five years of age malnourished and it is on the increase.  Kenya is mainly an agricultural country. 80% of the women in Kenya live in rural areas. Between 90 and 95% of all rural women in Kenya are farmers. Agriculture is the backbone of country's economy. Primary and secondary agricultural goods make-up 70% of the country's export earnings and 75% of the labour force is involved in the agricultural sector. The primary contribution of women comes through their work as small-scale farmers. In cases where these are in short supply – then it is the women and children who are the most affected. Hence, to cater for its growing population, Kenya needs to plan very carefully in such a way that it can be able to provide and sustain adequate health, food and water security for all her citizen in the next decade and beyond.

At GREEN AFRICA Network, we believe that the only way to make agriculture sustainable is through making better use of the available physical and human resources. Since it is a well known fact that women are the biggest producer of food (e.g., 80% in Africa, 60% Asia, and 40% Latin America) it is important that more human resources is invested in women development. Other factors are through minimizing the use of external inputs, by regenerating internal resources more effectively, or by combinations of both.

In order to help in achieving sustainable agriculture, increased food production, and hence, food security, GREEN AFRICA Network will encourage community-based farmers by undertaking the following measures:
 

1. Encourage women to maximize on food and other better money-earning cash crop farming.

1. The target and mode of agricultural extension workers will be trained and encouraged to be women friendly and more acceptable to indigenous farming methods. We will also encourage more women to train to become extension workers, trainers and also to be able to make policy decisions at a higher level.

 
2. Educate women on the need to conserve the environment through agroforestry in order to protect against deforestation and soil erosion, and hence, loss of farming land leading to low crop yield.

 
3. Encourage women to become land owners in order to gain security of land tenure, and hence, control of their destiny.

 
4. Avoid indiscriminate use of agrochemical which  usually ends up polluting the environment by polluting the water streams and soil and, instead do more of organic farming.

 
5. Encourage rural farmers to form co-operative unions to help in purchase of farm inputs and selling of excess farm produce. This will help them to both get faire  deal in all their transactions with the outside world.

 
6. Initiate labour and energy saving techniques e.g., farming methods which can help women farmers to save time in weeding or clearing of land.

 
7. The full participation of farmers and rural people in the process of problem analysis and solving, at all stages of technological development, extensions and finally the technology transfer.

 
8. Encourage communal food production as another type of initiative to counteract the problem of food security through activities such as: purchase of plots, livestock keeping through zero-grazing, vegetable and fodder gardens etc.

 
9. Train rural farmers on the need:
• For incorporation of natural processes such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixing, and pest-predator relationships.
• To minimize the use of external and non-renewable inputs that  damage the environment or harm the health of farmers and consumers.
• Initiate a detail analysis of the farming activities to include better farming methods, sale of produce and its processing e.g., oil seeds, dairy farming, growing of fodder and processing of animal feeds through establishment of their  viability as a potential business opportunity in the rural community economy.
10. To acquire more equitable access to productive resources, opportunities and greater productive use of local knowledge, and practices.

 
11. On the need for self-reliance among farmers and rural communities through building strong rural social organizations and dynamic rural economies.

 

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The role of women in health can be divided into two broad categories: The first deal with health of rural grass-root women throughout their lives and, the second encompasses women's role as the gatekeepers to family and child welfare. Most known diseases tend to afflict women than their male counterpart. For example, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, lack of appropriate contraception and childbirth are facets of widespread, but neglected crisis in women's reproductive health. Apart from lack of access to proper medical facilities in rural areas, women health problems is compounded by conflicting difficulties influenced by social, economic, cultural and political factors. Cultural as in the case of a community in Kenya, where women must be inherited when their spouse dies even under suspicious circumstances e.g., AIDS/HIV cases. Hence, it is important that status of  African women and their decision-making powers should be improved, so that they can play crucial roles in influencing their ability to receive adequate reproductive healthcare and other benefit in order for them to play leading roles in national development of their respective countries. In order for this to be realized, GREEN AFRICA Network will closely work with various government agencies, NGOs and other concerned parties in improving the status of women in Africa by undertaking the following measures:

1. Encourage building of community healthcare centres  and baby-friendly clinics in rural Africa.

 
2. Help in providing training of traditional birth attendants and community health workers to help strengthen community level health education.

 
3. Training and sensitizing women to participate in health and population activities including maternal child care, child survival  and family planning services.

 
4. Initiative to increase the coverage, quality and access to primary healthcare services, as well as target the most common preventable and/or treatable diseases, such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and major childhood illnesses.

 
5. Encourage women to seek  family planing education leading to fewer children, and hence,  improved health of mother and child. Small family is easy to feed, clothe and educate.

 
6. Training of rural women in planning, distribution of information, and effective communication techniques. Participation in health information management offers enormous opportunities for African women to take appropriate control of their health and future health challenges.

 
7. Educated women and girls on the importance of reproductive healthcare education.

 
8. Educate women on the need for clean environment in order to improve on public healthcare by encouraging them to build latrines and waste pits.

 
9. Help set-up community village pharmacy which can cater for the the needs of the community at grass-root level.

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In order to alleviate poverty and improve standard of living conditions in the rural areas, GREEN AFRICA Network will initiate the following projects that will help towards finding solutions to the above problems through ways that involve womenfolk's at the rural community level:

 
1. Pottery making, including the manufacturing of liner mouldings for jikos using the local resources, sisal products etc. Baskets and handcarts making; stone cutting, tree nurseries  etc. And loan schemes through their local co-operative societies to help set-up and sustain production of these items.

 
2. Initiate production of cheap roofing ceramic material and brick production to improve on the shelter and sanitation.

 

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The dependence on biomass contributes to a wide range of economic, health, and environmental problems. The health impact of biomass cookers most likely exceeds that of all other air pollutants combined. Indoor biomass smoke resulting from traditional cooking methods contains respirable particulates, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde and hundreds of other organic compounds, which have serious health implications on inhabitants. Other cook stove fuels, such as coal generate some or all of these pollutants, as well as nitrogen and sulphur dioxides. Charcoal is another biofuel used by most urban dwellers in Africa. For example, most traditional charcoal Jikos (Cookstoves), burn charcoal fast and wastefully and in the process produces carbon monoxide which causes headache and dizziness and can result in quick death.

Furthermore, indoor pollution from biomass burning have been linked to acute respiratory infection (ARI) – which is the most passive cause of chronic illness in Sub-Saharan Africa – in particular pneumonia, eye infections, burns, cancer, and adverse pregnancy outcomes like still births, neonatal deaths, and low birth weight. It can also ultimately result in cor pulmonale, a condition of right heart failure.

Since, women by tradition are responsible for domestic cooking and are in the kitchen for longer hours than  men, they are more vulnerable to the health impacts of indoor smoke emissions, and by extension small children who stay by their mother's side while they cook. ARI is the leading health hazard to children in developing nations, and in the general population results in an estimated 4.3 million deaths per year. Preliminary studies in rural Kenya have shown that 38% of women below 60, who use the traditional three-stone fireplaces had ARI. While for the children, 59% were found to have acute respiratory diseases. In the Gambia, for example, a study of 500 children found that girls aged below five who were carried on the backs of their mothers as they cooked in the smoky huts, had six times higher risk of ARI. Despite this indoor pollution menace to women and children, domestic cooking is not even recognized as an occupational health hazard. Professor M R Pandey, cardiologist and President of the Nepal Heart Foundation, attributes this to the low political and economic status of the women in developing countries. However, the use of the redesigned cookstoves can have a dramatic effect on the energy usage, the environment, ecosystems and community health.

By now it should be clear that there is a need for improvement to the current traditional cookstoves. The new stove should be able to reduce all the harmful effects of the traditional cook-stove. It should be environmentally friendly i.e., be able to save on fuel and time, be clean and smokeless and without other harmful indoor pollution. All these parameters must be incorporated into the new stove. The new stove is found in the name of Kenya Ceramic Jiko (KCJ).

GARN is currently working with rural women group on the production of the KCJ and its inner ceramic lining. The fabrication process for the ceramic lining is similar to the ceramic clay-pot traditionally used for cooking and water cooling and, are undertaken under the same programme. A complete KCJ jiko cost US$ ~4-5. The ceramic liner must be replaced every 6 - 8 months under normal use, at a cost of US$ 0.5 - 1.5/KCJ. Homesteads which adopted KCJ jikos reported a saving of between 30- 40 per cent in wood and charcoal use, and a reduction of ~90 per cent in smoke emission.

GARN holds regular training workshops, follow-up protocols and a network of support services country-wide for community-based women groups and other CBOs, in the use and adoption of the new energy technologies, including continuous analysis and upgrading of these energy saving and environment friendly devices. Income generation from the commercialization of the improved jiko is currently is currently under way. We also undertake studies on the impact of the “new” technology transfer, demonstration and its implication on the rural people's quality of life. In other renewable energy systems, GARN is currently undertaking development, production and promotion in rural Kenya of solar PV and thermal ovens, biogas, wind-power and to a limited extend small-hydro power schemes.
 

To help alleviate the above problems, GREEN AFRICA Network in conjunction with other NGOs and Government bodies will strive to do the following at the rural community level:

1. Promote the production of improved charcoal stoves known as Kenya Ceramic Jikos (KCJs).

 
2. Encourage and train local charcoal producers to use improved charcoal kilns for efficient charcoal production and

 
3. Encourage change to use alternative energy sources like biogas, solar energy, wind energy where possible.

1. K V O Rabah, "Community-Based Integrated Approach To Overall Sustainable Women Development Of Rural Kenya." Utopia Communities and Sustainability, Sixth International Communal Studies Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 7-9 July 1998.
2. Bradley P. N. (1991) “Woodfuel, women and woodlots: the foundation for a woodfuel development strategy for East Africa” (Macmillan Ltd. Hong Kong)
3. Kammen D. M. (1995) "Cookstoves for the developing world", Scientific American, 273, 72 - 75.
4. Khamati, B., (1987), “Improving Cookstoves.” Kengo Wood Energy Training Series, (KENGO, Nairobi, Kenya).
5. Kinyanjui, M. M, (1996), “A Study on the Influence of Improved Stoves on Acute Respiratory Infection, Conjunctivitis and Accidental Burns”. Wood Energy News, December, 1996/April 1997.
6. Mutere, A (1996), “Domestic Air Pollution in Kiambu District (Kenya)”. Wood Energy News, December, 1996/April 1997
7. Rabah, K. V. O.; Mwangi, W.J.; Ndirangu, N. R., (1995), “A Study of Indoor Air Pollution from Biomass fuel”. University of Nairobi, Department of Research Report.
8. Smith K. R. (1993) "The health impact of cookstove smoke in Africa," in African Development Perspectives Yearbook, 3, Oesterdiekhoff, P. (Ed).

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Conclusion

For further information contact:
Information Services Department
GREEN AFRICA Network
PO Box 58396, Nairobi, Kenya.
Tel/Fax: -
Email: info@greenafrica.org

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