 |
|
|
|
 |
|||
It is difficult for adult rural women to attain and retain literacy skills.
In 1999, IFAD financed the ten-year innovative Sahelian Areas Development Fund Programme in Mali. The programme was divided into three phases. The first of these phases was evaluated in late 2002 prior to the onset of the next phase. The evaluation generated some useful findings, including findings on literacy training among rural women. These findings underline the need for careful planning in literacy activities so as to ensure benefits.
Women in the Sahel, as in many rural areas, have numerous obligations and few rights. Although they cannot own land or other major assets, they carry out much of the agricultural work (estimated at over 70% among the Bambara people). The Fulani claim that their women do not cultivate; they ‘only’ do the seeding, the replanting of millet sprouts and part of the harvesting. Women can own livestock, mainly small stock, which is an important form of savings for them. In addition to farm tasks, women, as usual, take care of the children, do housework and spend considerable time in the collection of firewood and water. These last two tasks can take up to 25% of their time. In sum, women carry heavy workloads.
The Sahelian Areas Development Fund Programme strategy placed considerable emphasis on capacity-building, which included literacy training. Functional literacy, especially among women, was made a precondition of approval of a village microproject under the village infrastructure development fund. A course for ten persons, including the members of the project management committee, was provided at the village level. At least two of these ten trainees were to be women. The programme design had taken account of the difficulties women, in particular, face in attending long courses. Therefore, the courses were to be held at the village level. The design also proposed arrangements to help the women who had enrolled so that they could perform their household tasks during the training period and suggested a small per diem as an incentive for the women to attend. It is not known how thoroughly these facilitating measures were implemented in practice.
However, the evaluation found that it was difficult for women to take 45 days off for an intensive literacy course. The supervision of the project had already noticed that, sometimes, unmarried girls were delegated instead. The mixed men and women classes proved to be an additional constraint. Men did not like to be in the same class with women, and women did not learn as well in a mixed class. In the presence of men, women did not dare ask for explanations on points they did not understand. This retarded their progress. The evaluation found that less than half the women who signed up for the literacy programme completed it successfully (35% of the enrollees in Ségou and 54% in Koulikoro).
Post-literacy attention is needed. It is not easy to retain literacy skills in rural areas where there is very little chance to use them on a regular basis. The evaluation found that people were requesting refresher courses. Additionally, it noted the need for publications in the local language.
If women are to benefit in such situations, the organization of literacy campaigns and courses will have to take careful account of social and cultural factors. Men and women will need to be taught separately, and women’s classes will need to be scheduled over a longer period of time, taking advantage of less intensive periods in their regular workloads and times of day when they can attend. Post-literacy is always an essential aspect under such conditions.
Adapted from: Development Researchers Network, République du Mali: La Participation des Beneficiaires dans le Cadre de la Première Phase du FODESA, Rapport Final, Rome: IFAD, January 2003.
