Access to agricultural resources and services
Land. Although women comprise 60% of those economically active in agriculture, they own only 25.5% of the cultivable land. Most of this (70.4%) is owned by single, widowed or divorced women. The majority of women only have land use rights, and most are dependent on a male (husband or chief) to access land. Approximately 60% of women cultivate plots of less than 1 ha. Married women must also work on their husband's land, and generally do not receive any benefits from this work.
Livestock. Data collection needed
Forestry. Data collection needed.
Water. The majority of rural households do not have access to a safe drinking water supply. In the rural areas of the south, about 70% of the population obtains its water from a spring, 16% from rivers and nearly 10% from wells, while in the rural areas of the north 40% get their water from springs, 40% from the river and 12% from wells.
Credit. Women have very little access to credit from commercial or development banks. From 1987 to 1989, women obtained only 17% of the credit granted by banks.
Because of the difficulty that small farmers have in accessing traditional sources of credit, the Rural Credit Bank of the Congo (CRC) was created in 1989 to extend loans to rural, semi-rural and pert-urban areas. Loans are granted only through village savings and loan associations. Of the 71 loans given by this bank, only 9 (12.7 %) were granted to women, primarily in the urban areas.
The Women's Mutual Savings and Credit Fund (CFCM), established in 1992, is a project assisting women micro-entrepreneurs primarily in urban and pert-urban areas, although some loans have also gone to women in agriculture.
Extension services and agricultural training. Women's enrolment in agricultural technical secondary schools rose from 34% in 1984 to 53% in 1989, and in agricultural vocational centres from 46% in 1984 to 51% in 1989.
There are 10 extension centres in the country which reach 13.6% of the population engaged in agriculture. As these extension services are directed to food crops (cassava, groundnuts, maize), women comprise 55% to 64% of those reached.
However, a World Bank and UNDP financed National Project for Extension and Applied Agricultural Research, covering 10 regions, utilizes mainly male extensionists (91.2%). The recent creation of a Rural Promotion Service with a women's component within the Directorate for Research-Development, Training and Extension of the Ministry of Agriculture, is contributing to improving this situation.
Agricultural Extension Staff by Position and Gender, 1989
Source: Agricultural Extension and Farm Women in the 1980s, FAO, 1993
