Cooperative Agreement on Settlement and Resource Systems Analysis: Women in Rural-Urban Exchange; Implications for Research and Intervention Identification

摘要

The report presents an applied research framework called 'rural-urban exchange' (RUE). It is a practical tool for identifying interventions that foster exchange between farms and towns, so as to increase returns to farming while simultaneously promoting employment and enterprise opportunities in local towns. Women's roles in agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa have been fairly well documented. Women make important labor contributions to both food and cash crop production. However, because of the smaller incomes typically earned by women in comparison to men, women's direct impact on the cash economy has often been viewed as insubstantial. The study demonstrates both conceptually and empirically that as a result of their expenditure patterns, women make significant economic contributions to the town building process within rural African regions.