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Balancing the Load
The Balancing the Load programme
was initiated in 1996 with the aim of filling in the gaps in our
knowledge about how gender relations affect women and men's access
to goods and services and influence the provision of transport
infrastructure and services. The immense volume of analytical
work emanating from the gender and development programmes of universities
and development agencies world-wide seems to have hardly permeated
the consciousness of transport providers, planners and policy
makers including those working on rural transport issues. At the
same time although gender analysis was rapidly becoming integrated
into rural development work, planners and practitioners still
rarely addressed the issues of access and mobility. The Balancing
the Load programme aimed to bring these two groups together.
IFRTD chose to implement the programme using
a networked research methodology
to maximise the participation of men and women working with rural
communities, establish dialogue between those working on gender
issues and those working on rural transport, and create opportunities
for networking among them. Balancing the Load aimed to raise the
profile of the issues rather than explore them exhaustively. The
programme carried out 40 case studies in Asia and Africa and shared
the findings with a wider audience through regional and international
seminars and through the publication of the full case studies
in a book; Balancing the Load; Women, gender and Transport
(2002)
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