Facilitating Sustainable Livelihoods for Women in Africa

In a continent assuaged by biting poverty, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, women form over 50% of a population that is under very heavy pressures from a social organizational pattern that is inherently unprepared for an inclusive information society. These women who are mostly located in rural Africa are illiterate, lack resource rights, in particular rights to land and water, as well as access to credit, agricultural extension services and technology. Critical and useful is the fact that these women play a significant role in agriculture accounting for close to 70% of all labour in agriculture in Africa.

Centre for Policy and Development (PolDeC) http://www.poldec.org/ is a non government organization that facilitates appropriate and relevant development processes and initiatives through policy and development analysis, research and documentation of global and local best practices, training, interactive information services provisioning, capacity building and advocacy.

Particularly concerned with the livehoods rights of women, PolDeC facilitates processes that foster sustainable livelihoods for women. Some of the processes include:

The Use of ICTs to Facilitate Socio-Economic Transformation

1. African Women’s Mediated Access and Capacity Building Centres in Rural Africa.

The project will commence soon.

The Centres will facilitate gendered mediated access, capacities and particiaption of rural women in the Information Society.

2. Mobile Telephony: Leveraging Strengths and Opportunities for Socio-Economic Transformation in Nigeria

A social action research project that appraised the evolution of mobile telephony services in Nigeria, with emphasis on the transformational impact of these services on livelihoods and social interactions as well as the potential for ensuring sustainable livelihoods for women in rural communities. The findings were published in book form as Mobile Telephony: Leveraging Strengths and Opportunities for Socio-Economic Transformation in Nigeria.

3. The African Women ICT Tent

A strategic, regionally inclusive and cascadable programme of engagement activities that addressed the status of women in the information society noting in particular the capacity gaps of women in access to; knowledge and use of new information communication technologies as well as the critical need for the inclusion of African women in the information society cum emerging knowledge economy.

The forum further strengthened women's capacity to engage in using new ICTs for development. A hands on training on Computing and Internet Use was held at the Bola Ige Center of the National Center for Women Development, Abuja. Copies of the handbook, Women, New Information Communication Technologies and Socio-Economic Transformation: A Beginners Handbook to the Information Society, produced by the Center for Policy and Development were circulated amongst participants for further studies and personal practical sessions on their personal computers.

4. The African Women ICT for Development Network

It is a multistakeholder group committed to enhancing women's access to new information communication technologies as well as building the capacities of women, especially rural women to use these technologies.

It is also an online discussion forum that engages partners on the most efficient use of ICTs to benefit women.

Facilitating Access to Micro Financial Services for Economic Empowerment and Sustainable Livelihods

1. Microfinance: A Tool for Women's Susutainable Livelihoods in Africa is an ongoing project.

Combining the tools of social research and the practicability of encouraging savings by women, the project is in the process of collecting articles and short reports on innovative but informal traditional financial services and fusions of both informal and formal financial services that have worked in providing women with sustainable livelihoods. The deadline for the colection of articles/short reports is 30th July 2008. Please, send by email to info@poldec.org.

The practicability aspect is the African Women Development Cooperative (AWDC) that is empowering African Women Financially.

African Women Development Cooperative is one of the gender development projects of the Centre for Policy and Development.

A response to the gender economic divide and the gender based challenges of sustainable wealth creation, AWDC aims to facilitate access to financial services, provide capacity building in financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills as well training in building enterprising businesses and sustainable livelihoods for African women.

The cooperative is a savings and loans scheme through which members pool resources together to assist each other. PolDeC is also talking to other development partners and financial institutions to advance seed grants that would constitute a revolving micro credit fund that will buffer members’ contribution and provide sufficient funds for loans to members.

Membership is open to women who are business minded and have the capacity to turn businesses around with a little push.

Registration forms can be obtained at the PolDeC Secretariat with a non refundable fee of N500. Minimum monthly contribution is N1, 000 while a member decides the maximum contribution.

Monthly contributions are paid to the cooperative account. Only registered members have access to the account name and number where they pay in their monthly contributions.