Access to Rural Non-Farm Livelihoods - Natural Resources Institute

traditional low profit, low barrier activities, which complement but fall far short of basic
farming incomes, and which are often undertaken by households in distress. In particular,
increased dependency and the high numbers of widows and orphans in the area resulting
from AIDS deaths have pushed some into engaging in more non-farm IGAs than in the past,
as households without access to male labour in particular find it more difficult to make a
satisfactory living from farming. However, even these “traditional” activities are more
common than in the past as a result of increasing local consumption.
Barriers to accessing profitable non-farm IGAs include poverty in its most basic sense,
relating to lack of start up capital, but also to continued under-capitalisation of businesses and
their failure to expand or even persist as proceeds are used to cover basic household needs
instead of being reinvested or used to access better markets. Some of these barriers can be
overcome by working in groups, but these, of necessity, exclude the poorest, who are usually
unable to meet the investment/membership criteria. General poverty also leads to low levels
of consumption and limited local markets which are subject to marked seasonal fluctuations,
constraining the profitability of many enterprises, and it is also a part of the problems
customers have in repaying credit.
Institutional weakness in the village is an important constraint to the development of the nonfarm
economy. There are few local institutions with much impact on day to day life, and
those that exist are weak or do not function as they should. Inadequate security in more
remote rural areas is a constraint to continuing with businesses beyond a certain size, which
are forced to relocate to busier trading centres – prevention of theft is of paramount
importance as confidence in the police’s ability to apprehend suspects and the judicial
system’s ability to subsequently convict the guilty is minimal. There are few NGOs operating
in the village and of those that are, there is a perception that benefits are not distributed
equally or fairly. Finally, there are no MFIs based in the village – past credit schemes in the
area seem to have had problems both with their extension/information services, such that
potential clients have been unnecessarily deterred, and with their selection of clients, such
that high numbers have defaulted and ended up in prison, not an ideal outcome for a
development initiative.
Reproductive labour demands constrain women’s abilities to participate in other activities of
all kinds, and concerns about satisfactorily combining childcare and IGAs were voiced by
several women – the burden of childcare is also often exacerbated by the high number of
orphans and the high incidence of widowhood. In addition to reproductive and domestic
labour, women also undertake much of the farm labour, and women, far more than men, cited
lack of time, or tiredness, or overwork as a barrier to starting a new IGA or as a constraint to
an existing one. Women are also particularly affected by lack of access to adequate transport,
as they do not use bicycles due cultural norms and the difficulty of riding ungeared bicycles
in the hilly terrain of the village, and are thus constrained to moving their produce and
products on their heads, often while also carrying a baby, or to paying for transport. Because
of their weaker position in society women also often suffer more in economic terms than men
from personal “misfortune”, and find it more difficult to recover from setbacks, affecting
their abilities to accumulate start-up capital and to keep working capital in existing
businesses. Households headed by women are generally less able to produce significant
quantities of crops for sale than those with access to male labour, and such women often turn
to relatively low barrier, low profit IGAs to supplement their incomes – opportunities for
remarriage are limited as women outnumber men. Some widows and divorcees do undertake
relatively profitable non-farm IGAs, but successful widows are at risk of exploitation by their
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