What does the Conference have to offer

 

Great Speakers

The Conference brings together one of a kind speakers and industry pioneers  to share their incites.

Networking

The vast variety of experiences and opportunities available ensures you’ll walk away with countless new connections.

New People

Create, collaborate and connect with your peers. Meet others in the same field, facing similar challenges in the transport industry.

Have Fun

Conferences are always more fun with friends, and this one is no exception. Attend for a once in a lifetime experience.

Conference Themes

The 2021 Women and Transport Africa Conference will focus mostly on road transport in urban and peri-urban areas.
The conference themes align with the following sustainable development Goals:

Gender Equality

Ending all discrimination against women and girls is not only a basic human right, it’s crucial for a sustainable future; it’s proven that empowering women and girls helps economic growth and development. But although there are more women than ever in the labour market, there are still large inequalities in some regions, with women systematically denied the same work rights as men. Sexual violence and exploitation, the unequal division of unpaid care and domestic work, and discrimination in public office all remain huge barriers. Climate change and disasters continue to have a disproportionate effect on women and children, as do conflict and migration.

Affordable and Clean Energy

Between 2000 and 2018, the number of people with electricity increased from 78 to 90 percent, and the numbers without electricity dipped to 789 million. Yet as the population continues to grow, so will the demand for cheap energy, and an economy reliant on fossil fuels is creating drastic changes to our climate. Expanding infrastructure and upgrading technology to provide clean and more efficient energy in all countries will encourage growth and help the environment. 

Clean Energy

Decent work and economic growth

Over the past 25 years the number of workers living in extreme poverty has declined dramatically, despite the lasting impact of the 2008 economic crisis and global recession. In developing countries, the middle class now makes up more than 34 percent of total employment – a number that has almost tripled between 1991 and 2015. The SDGs promote sustained economic growth, higher levels of productivity and technological innovation. Encouraging entrepreneurship and job creation are key to this, as are effective measures to eradicate forced labour, slavery and human trafficking. With these targets in mind, the goal is to achieve full and productive employment, and decent work, for all women and men by 2030

Sustainable cities and communities

 More than half of us  live in cities. By 2050, two-thirds of all humanity—6.5 billion people—will be urban. Sustainable development cannot be achieved without significantly transforming the way we build and manage our urban spaces.The rapid growth of cities—a result of rising populations and increasing migration—has led to a boom in mega-cities, especially in the developing world, and slums are becoming a more significant feature of urban life.Making cities sustainable means creating career and business opportunities, safe and affordable housing, and building resilient societies and economies. It involves investment in public transport, creating green public spaces, and improving urban planning and management in participatory and inclusive ways

Sustainable City
Climate Conditions

 Climate Action

There is no country that is not experiencing the drastic effects of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions are more than 50 percent higher than in 1990. Global warming is causing long-lasting changes to our climate system, which threatens irreversible consequences if we do not act.

Conference Objectives

 

The broad objective of the conference is to stimulate and highlight new research, interventions and trends on women, children, and PWDs and mobility issues in Africa. The specific objectives are: 

  1. To bring together civil society, policymakers, city authorities, researchers, academicians, practitioners and students amongst other stakeholders from the African region to discuss and highlight solutions to the longstanding issues relating to women, children and PWDs and transportation; and 
  2. To support and give a platform to practitioners to share their experiences, challenges, and inform policy, research, and interventions. 

Women use public transport more than men. There travel partners also differ since women travel longer distance than men and thus spend more time commuting. Our Mobility of Care Assessment of Nairobi’s Public Service Vehicle (PSV) Sector report reveals that women make more care and household-related trips, taking longer, numerous and more complicated trips per day in comparison to their male counterparts.

Transport is a traditionally male-dominated sector, both from an employment point of view and for the values it embodies. Few women are employed in the public transport sector making them massively under-represented.  In Kenya, the situation is even dire at below 10% as indicated in a recent gender equity assessment by Flone Initiative in selected SACCOs in Nairobi. 85% of women in the matatu sector work as conductors. According to International Labour Organisation (ILO), poor working conditions render the transport sector unappealing to women, most notably concerning working time, shift-working (24/7), and the location of employment (e.g. on-board a vessel at sea, driving a truck long distances from home) makes it difficult and at times impossible to reconcile work and family commitments. Jobs in the transport sector are highly gendered and unequal.  As a result, women’s voices are all too often neglected when it comes to transport planning and the pursuit of decent work in this sector. Transport is still regarded as ‘no place for women’ in many countries/sectors around the world. Women in the transport sector often find themselves stuck in lower-paid/lower status jobs with few, if any, opportunities for career development.

With the advent of COVID-19, 52% of women in the public transport sector in Kenya have lost their jobs as a result of matatu owners closing down their business due to restrictions imposed to contain COVID-19. This has resulted in an 83% reduction in their daily earnings as they now take home between 100 and 200 Kshs after a days’ job as touts in matatu stages. 55% of them being single parents, most of them are unable to provide for their families. Some who are servicing loans from savings and credit cooperative societies (SACCOs) are likely to default. As a mitigation measure, they are considering moving to cheaper housing, skipping meals and suspending their monthly savings. Being a sector dominated by men, some of their male colleagues take advantage of the situation and ask for sexual favours in exchange for jobs. 

Violence against transport workers is one of the most important factors limiting the attraction of transport jobs for women and breaking the retention of those who are employed in the transport sector. Violence manifests itself both in the form of physical and psychological violence. It ranges from physical attacks to verbal insults, bullying, mobbing, and harassment, including sexual and gender-based harassment. Most women who use public transport feel exposed to physical or verbal aggression, sexual harassment and other forms of violence. 73% of PSV operators in Mombasa County have heard or witnessed cases of sexual harassment within public transportation spaces. 87% of them took no action when they saw or experienced sexual harassment. The unfortunate reality is public transportation is neither planned nor designed from a gender perceptive.

As urbanization increases, densely populated areas will face transportation issues. The number of vehicles on the roads will double and triple, resulting in increased congestion on our streets, increased environmental pollution and increased CO2 emissions. We risk sinking deeper into the pit hole of the challenges highlighted above.

Bureaucratic red tapes and a general lack of good will to embrace technological innovations as well as failure to implemented brilliantly formulated policies aimed at addressing these issues leaves us in a state of tokenistic public participation. Indeed, there is usually wide gaps between formulated policy and technological goals and the achievement of these goals as a result of ineffective implementation.

Conferences in numbers:

 
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