Access to Rural Non-Farm Livelihoods - Natural Resources Institute

5.5 Access and barriers to non-farm IGAs
Barriers to successfully starting and running an IGA were identified at the initial community
meeting. These included:
• lack of capital or credit;
• poor markets and price fluctuations;
• lack of specialist training;
• lack of transport;
• lack of specialist inputs (such as for bee keeping);
• problems with customers not repaying credit; and
• a variety of problems related to farming and farming incomes (including poor weather,
pests, poor quality seeds, etc.) which were not disaggregated for the purposes of this
exercise.
Other barriers or constraints not listed at the meeting but cited by local people at other times
during the fieldwork included:
• the seasonality of agriculture, which affects businesses which sell to the local market, as
consumption fluctuates;
• lack of skills, particularly amongst older women (widows);
• old age and illness, including failing eyesight, which were cited as reasons for stopping
an IGA;
• women’s reproductive labour demands, which are especially difficult to manage when
children are ill;
• lack of time/tiredness/overwork;
• personal misfortune, such as a marriage break up, or loss of a land dispute in court and
subsequent confiscation of assets;
• poor security in more remote rural areas, causing businesses with valuable, steal-able
assets to relocate to busier trading centres, ideally with Police Posts;
• unequal/unfair distribution of NGO benefits; and
• poor/mis-understanding of credit, causing some to take on loans they are unable to
service, and others to fear it.
The barriers listed at the community meeting were ranked for importance by men and
women. The most important barriers for both men and women in accessing IGAs were the
various problems with farming and farming incomes, and lack of capital or credit to get
started and then keep an IGA running. Also important to both men and women, although
slightly more so to men, were problems of poor markets and price fluctuations. Problems
relating to lack of specialist training, lack of transport, lack of specialist inputs, and
customers not repaying credit were not commonly cited, although they appeared to be more
important to women than men 118 .
After the ranking exercise, the group identified another constraint they has omitted earlier –
lack of labour – which, although not included in the ranking exercise, was felt to be very
important.
118 See Appendix 14 for details.
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