GREEN AFRICANetwork
Networking Rural
Africa Communities in
in Sustainable
Development Programs
Policy
Document on Overall Sustainable Women Development for
Socio-economic Development of Rural Africa
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
Conclusion
Introduction
Africa, especially, the Sub-Shaharan Africa has emerged to be the least
progressive region of the world, economically and socially, apparently
being consistently bedevilled by the vices of poverty, under-nutrition,
malnutrition and poor health, to name a few. This situation is brought
about because of the indebtedness, the economic structural adjustments,
the AIDS/HIV scourge, raising poverty, deteriorating general infrastructures
and environmental degradation. The economic condition of rural Africa is
even worse. As such the rural environment provides a unique opportunity
for combined integrated approach to community-based developmental work,
mainly geared towards sustainable utilization and conservation of indigenous
resources. In this setting, the diffusion and application of new technology
transfer have a direct observable local impacts on enviro-socio-economic
opportunities and community development initiatives. However, lack of active
economic development at the rural level has meant that rural people can
not fend for themselves in terms of adequate food, education and proper
healthcare facilities. In Kenya, for example, 40% of its population of
over 29 million people live below poverty line. (Absolute poverty can be
defined roughly, as a condition of life so limited as to prevent the realization
of the potential of the genes which one is born.) Nationally, women population
comprises over 55% of Kenya's population. About 80% of Kenyan's live in
rural areas, and 70% of them are women. At the rural level, women are the
main social and labour forces – they prepare the land, work the fields,
feed and meet other family needs. Further, over 85 per cent of all rural
women contribute to sustainable national development through their work
as small-scale farmers, providing the bulk of the Kenya's food supply,
see Table 1. For this reason, their role and status becomes a key critical
factor in enviro-socio-economic and policy development in Kenya.
|
Workload
|
% Share
|
|
Workload
|
% Share
|
| Clearing land |
5 |
|
Processing |
90 |
| Turning soil |
30
|
|
Marketing |
60 |
| Planting |
50 |
|
Carrying of water & fuel |
95 |
| Weeding & hoeing |
75 |
|
Domestic animal care |
55 |
| Harvesting |
65 |
|
Hunting |
10 |
| Carrying crops home |
85 |
|
Cooking & family care |
95 |
| Storing |
80 |
|
Small-scale farmers |
85 |
Table 1 :In Africa women perform the lion's share of household
systems tasks.
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.
Return to content index
Empowering Women
Through Community-based Integrated Approach
We at GREEN AFRICA Network believes that women's traditional tasks, experiences,
knowledge, and concerns about problems and community needs are essential
in solving crucial and critical enviro-socio-economic problems, and as
such must be consolidated and harnessed via an integrated approach (IA),
for the future socio-economic development of rural Africa. In this approach,
we seek to work with rural women in order to enhance their productive capacity,
through capacity building via integrated training on the use of new and
appropriate technology transfer, on techniques in improved farming methods
for sustainable agricultural development, leading to increased food production
and food security; help them to acquire food preservation techniques; assist
them to have quality domestic water supply, improved cook-stoves and fuel
for cooking and use of renewable energy sources; and finally to assist
them to form co-operative movements so that they can get access to credit
facilities to enable them start-up small-scale enterprises. The IA programme
also provide: group training, advise and assistance for improvement of
rural community project design and management, in order to promote long
term accountability and sustainability of the projects. It is also helping
to develop better and sustainable methods for transferring knowledge and
skills to the rural people living within the community, and hence, help
to reduce expectation and over dependency on outsiders. As such, the ultimate
aim of this (IA) programme is to increase the diversity of enterprises
with the rural women farmers, thereby equipping and empowering rural grass-root
women groups to take control of their indigenous resource base and finally
there destiny. Moreso, it will raise their legal awareness and general
status leading to their participation as full partners in national
policy development.
Return to content index
The Need for Women
Financial Services
Small-scale low-income rural women entrepreneurs require quick, accessible
and simple financial services. Small loans make a difference to the lives
of low-income rural women. Opening up for low-income women entrepreneurs'
to get access to financial information and markets and everything else
changes. These women are the ones who will in the end change the realities
of their families, of their communities, and any institution that works
with them, will be changed too, for the better in terms of loan repayment
or good inter-relationship, as women tends to be very good in money matters.
Better income for women leads to more food on family table, more girls
go to school and women's empowerement is improved. However, there is a
need to develop simple and cost-effective ways of assessing its ultimate
impact on the overall general well being of the rural communities. Forming
community-based women group, and networks of Community-Based Organizations
(CBOs), and NGOs, is the best way of implementing this our integrated approach
(IA) to sustainable women development.
Return to content index
Importance of Grouping
In Sustainable rural development programmes, the participation of target
groups, in all phases, is a prerequisite for the successful implementation
of projects, through ways that involve rural communities as stake holders,
in order for them to derive direct benefits from it. Women's impact could
be more easily achieved through groups and networks that call for visibility
and recognition. Groups are good forums for giving or receiving information.
Each member in a community has something to offer. In groups, members are
free to share problems affecting them. GREEN AFRICA Rural Network (GARN)
with the help of local theatre groups, have since developed entertaining
and instructive dramas and songs, centred on folklore and meaningful proverbs,
as means to achieve better communication and information flow with target
groups. These have proved very instrumental in passing over very difficult
issues like AIDS/HIV awareness campaign. GARN is currently working with
grass-root women groups in various part of Kenya, to tap their indigenous
knowledge and skills to generate income for them. Below we present various
issues that affect women in rural Africa.
Return to content index
Problems,
Initiatives and Policy Implications of Sustainable Women Development
Women, Water
and Sustainable Development
Water is important for civilization and sustainability of life and socio-economic
development. It is around water resource point that human settlement and
other activities centred on bio-systems prosper – via agricultural production
through irrigation, industrialization, and hence, economic prosperity of
the area.
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:
-
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.
-
Initiate water projects for domestic use and irrigation
-
Use of demonstration irrigation farm-plots next to water points.
-
Form women self-help projects to co-ordinate the digging of water wells,
and walling of small water springs and rain water whenever available.
-
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.
Return to content index
Women,
Climate Change and Sustainable Agriculture & Food Security
As the century draws to a close, agricultural development faces unprecedented
challenges. By the year 2020, the world will have 2.5 billion more people
than today. Currently, 700 million to one billion people do not have access
to sufficient food. This include some 200 million children who are underweight
and suffering from malnutrition. For example, it is a widely accepted belief
that the home of malnutrition is found in Sub-Saharan Africa where 30%
of children are malnourished, while almost half of the world's malnourished
children are found in only three of the South East Asia countries – Bangladesh,
India and Pakistan. Hence, it is widely accepted that over the next twenty-five
to fifty years, food production will have to increase substantially.
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:
-
Encourage women to maximize on food and other better money-earning cash
crop farming.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Encourage women to become land owners in order to gain security of land
tenure, and hence, control of their destiny.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Initiate labour and energy saving techniques e.g., farming methods which
can help women farmers to save time in weeding or clearing of land.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
To acquire more equitable access to productive resources, opportunities
and greater productive use of local knowledge, and practices.
-
On the need for self-reliance among farmers and rural communities through
building strong rural social organizations and dynamic rural economies.
In conclusions, we can say that sustainable agriculture is a system which
seeks to integrate the use of wide range of pest control techniques, nutrient
cycling techniques, agroforestry, soil, use of Integrated Paste Management
(IPM) techniques and water management technologies. The ultimate of this
programme is to increase the diversity of enterprises with the rural farming
communities, combined with increased links and flow between them. By-products
or wastes from one component or enterprise become inputs to another. As
natural processes increasingly substitute for external inputs, so the negative
impacts on the environment is reduced – leading to sustainable agriculture,
with increase in food production, and hence, food security.
Return to content index
Women, Climate Change
and Health
Climate change have been found to have a direct impact on human health.
Recently, there have been considerable debate within scientific community
concerning the influence of weather on the emergence of communicable diseases.
A number of conclusions have been proposed, but very little is known with
certainty about the meteorotropic involved. On one hand, it is clear from
the variety of infectious diseases involved, that it is highly unlikely
that one particular meteorological factor influences diseases in
general. On the other hand, for a given clinical entity, some meteorological
factors cause a local and/or general impairment in the human body's resistance
to infection. Other factors affect the ease of disease spread. These latter
factors have to be divided into at least three important headings i.e.,
effect of weather and climate on the social and/or cultural behaviour of
human being, effect on the development of pathogens and effect on the airborne
transmission of these infectious agents.
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:
-
Encourage building of community healthcare centres and baby-friendly
clinics in rural Africa.
-
Help in providing training of traditional birth attendants and community
health workers to help strengthen community level health education.
-
Training and sensitizing women to participate in health and population
activities including maternal child care, child survival and family
planning services.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Educated women and girls on the importance of reproductive healthcare education.
-
Educate women on the need for clean environment in order to improve on
public healthcare by encouraging them to build latrines and waste pits.
-
Help set-up community village pharmacy which can cater for the the needs
of the community at grass-root level.
Return to content index
Women and Shelter
As is already mentioned, poverty eradication is the most important factor
in humankind. Another factor in human life is to be able to leave in a
proper shelter. However, with no proper active economy – rural people live
in poor condition and lack proper shelter. The UNDP Human Development Report
of 1996, treats housing as the key social welfare need for all human beings
in terms of human development. It further observes that a country can enjoy
a very high level of economic growth and even industrialization, and still
be very poor in making it possible for her people to live in proper and
descent houses.
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:
-
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.
-
Initiate production of cheap roofing ceramic material and brick production
to improve on the shelter and sanitation.
The aim of the above projects will be to contribute towards independence
and sustainability of the rural community women groups. Income-generating
schemes, provide the means and incentives to ameliorate living standards.
We believe this will make the group members more confident of the future
and represent the best way to meet the general economic objectives of the
rural people through improved quality of life and provide education for
their children.
Return to content index
Women & Energy
Biomass fuelwood is the most affordable form of energy for rural inhabitants,
and it has been persistently the commonest energy option for these people.
Wood, charcoal and agricultural residues completely dominate the energy
supply scenario accounting for 74% of the total energy supply in most developing
countries. Africa is no exception where the challenge for most rural women
is to find adequate supplies of fuelwood. For example in Kenya, wood provides
over 95 per cent of fuel to over 80 per cent of the country's rural households,
being also the basic fuel for low income urban households, who consume
on average 2 kg of wood a day. Apart from their technologies being relatively
inefficient, considerable time is spent by women and children in rural
areas collecting daily fuel needs. Moreover, the use of rural children
to fetch firewood has led to their poor performance in school, leading
to higher dropouts, when compared to their urban counterparts.
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:
-
Promote the production of improved charcoal stoves known as Kenya Ceramic
Jikos (KCJs).
-
Encourage and train local charcoal producers to use improved charcoal kilns
for efficient charcoal production and
-
Encourage change to use alternative energy sources like biogas, solar energy,
wind energy where possible.
Further reading for this section:
-
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.
-
Bradley P. N. (1991) “Woodfuel, women and woodlots: the foundation for
a woodfuel development strategy for East Africa” (Macmillan Ltd. Hong
Kong)
-
Kammen D. M. (1995) "Cookstoves for the developing world", Scientific
American, 273, 72 - 75.
-
Khamati, B., (1987), “Improving Cookstoves.” Kengo Wood Energy Training
Series, (KENGO, Nairobi, Kenya).
-
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.
-
Mutere, A (1996), “Domestic Air Pollution in Kiambu District (Kenya)”.
Wood
Energy News, December, 1996/April 1997
-
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.
-
Smith K. R. (1993) "The health impact of cookstove smoke in Africa,"
in
African Development Perspectives Yearbook, 3, Oesterdiekhoff, P. (Ed).
Return to content index
Conclusion
In conclusion we can say, without any reasonable doubt, that the realization
of sustainable women development will lead to promotion and empowerement
of rural women – an effort that will have a clear impact from rural-to-national
development, through more manageable population growth rates and enhanced
human welfare, leading to improved quality of life from rural, national
to international level.
For further information contact:
Information Services Department
GREEN AFRICA Network
PO Box 58396, Nairobi, Kenya.
Tel/Fax: -
Email: info@greenafrica.org
Return to content index
Home
| Policy
| Research
| Projects
| Publications
| Cont-Us
| Cutting-Edge
| feedback
This
page was last updated on: June 02,
2009.
Copyright
1993-2009 GREEN AFRICA
Network. All Rights Reserved
Web site designed
and managed by KMEDIA International