Rural Women ’ s Economic Contribution towards Community Development in Rural Communities of Kano State , Nigeria

The study aims to identify the economic activities of rural women and to examine the contributions they made to community development through their involvement in economic and developmental activities. Economic activities are gaining prominence in most developing countries in the world. In addition to their involvements in economic activities, they also engage in domestic chores such as home management. They play an active role in a trade transaction, agriculture, sewing and knitting, handcraft and creative art. Although this study employs a mixed methodology that is the combination of quantitative and qualitative approach, the discussion is more on qualitative with 11 respondents were selected for interview focus group discussion (FGD). A total of 380 women respondents were selected for a questionnaire survey at the study area, which were analyzed by Descriptive analysis. The findings indicate that rural women contribute to community development by providing work opportunities to the members of the community; they also help through imparting skills acquisition to members of the community, they also provide necessary commodities to the community members. From the analysis, it shows that women are good partners to economic development of every society, in general, they become important agents of addressing rural communities and their development, and they carried productive roles and contributors to community development through participation in economic activities. It is recommended that government as well as the non-governmental organization should provide basis for assisting and supporting rural women, through the provisions of funds in forms of cash and machineries,provision of literacy, vocational centers, and adequate public amenities.


Introduction 1.
In the present world of millennium developmental goals, socioeconomic community development can never be achieved without rural women's effort.The economic contribution and role of rural women in every community is an indicator of the modernization of the national economy.The entire community development process should be more on the active participation of rural women economic activities.Women are less able than their counterpart in economic and developmental opportunities because they faced with much burden of household work that includes childbearing activities, domestic chores and also rearing of small livestock.The extra workload is unpaid and confines the capacity of women to participate and engage in economic activities.However, the nature of tasks required women to stay near the home, which limits their option to work for wage earn.Furthermore, scarcity of time makes many women set up cottage industries such as handcraft and creative art that are often characterized by low returns (Lanjouw & Lanjouw, 2001).Although norms differ in terms of culture and religion; as a result it is estimated that rural women spent 85-90% of their time in household food processing and preparation (Fontana & Natalia, 2008).
During the past, some policies, programs and project were designed and established to assist low-income women in the third world countries like Nigeria, which focused on the significant roles of rural women participation and contribution in economic and developmental process.Since 1950, interventions were made to change the level of economic and social progress of rural people particularly women's roles as contributors to the community they live in (Moser, 1993).Those interventions serve as the anti-poverty approach or reduction of poverty wish to improve and advance rural women's productivity because it views their poverty as a matter of under development.In Nigerian rural communities, women have direct contact with the natural environment and resource as they gather essential items for everyday needs.Therefore it is important to include women in both the planning process of different economic and developmental organization, so as to maintain the alarming rate of community development through involving all the members of the community in which almost half of them are women who previously being ignored.
Community development recognizes the use of natural resources through developmental potentialities (Adams, 1995), and the natural resources are treated as factors of production, which need to be use and maintained just like labor and capital.The objective is to improve rural women's welfare, and providing facilities, environment for their active contribution to economic and community developments.Therefore, the local language should be used as a mechanism for mobilizing rural women to their functional facilities and practice to the contribution they made to the community development through their participation in economic activities.Although government at national level has funded programs such program like Better Life for Rural Women (BLP) in 1987, Family Support Program (FSP) in 1989, andFamily Economic Advancement Program (FEAP) in 1994.All these programs are to improve the condition, feature and well-being of family and rural women in general.But still the contributions of rural women in economic and community development is not actualized because of the neglect of women folk in the development process and it results in the waste of resource to the society.
Traditionally women's roles are confined to household chores, farming activities and other trade transaction that, in general, engage them for a longer hour than men (UNDP, 2004).Besides rural women have limited access to educational and employment opportunities.The problem encountered by rural communities in Kano state, Nigeria is the need to encourage them and their potentialities for their well-being development (Afolabi, 2004).In Nigerian societies rural women are culturally deprive to participate fully in economic activities due to religious, social norms, and belief that women are suborder to be at home for only domestic chores, whereby women are not allowed to go out for any business transaction.Azikiwe (2008) reveals that social norms, inadequate incentives, ignorance, poverty, illiteracy and cultural institution against women in most societies in Nigeria are barriers to the advancement of rural women.Religion, culture, and education, are factors that leads to the little participation of rural women in economic activities in Kano state, Nigeria.This is because it comes with the seclusion that women are not allowed to go out for any business transactions, they remain at home to oversee the activities of the house.This practice is called purdah keeping women in the house; the fact here is that mixing between women with non-family members of the opposite sex is prohibition in Islam, so the aimed is creating a pure environment for preventing the negative consequences of such mixture.
The acceptance and practice of purdah creates a social gap and reduce the economic contributions made by rural women in Kano state to the household and community development.It has become a standard assessment for men economic dominance and success over women, and it is believed that a man is adequately well-off sufficient, and able to meet his family and his wife's need without their intervention (Coles & Mack, 1991).

Background of the Study 2.
Studies conducted regarding the economic contribution rural women made to community development that involves their participation in different forms of economic activities for their family and societal development.Such economic activities involve Agriculture, Trade transaction, food processing, hairdressing and weaving, Sewing and Knitting, and handcraft and creative art.Rural women in Nigeria have little benefits compared to men regarding Education, Employment opportunities, personal income, Assets and land tenure.Over 50% of women in Nigeria live in a rural community where they draw their livelihood and highly struggle for surviving.They engage in peasant farming and house gardening as their major occupation (Alemayehu 2014).Mirakzadehand (2011) examine rural women as half of the rural population, have an important role in economic activities which leads to the entire development of a community, therefore in order to achieve rural community development an attention to women that involves in economic and developmental activities with men is required.In explaining the important role women made, the world conference on the United Nations decades of women was that two-third of the total workforce done by women in the world are rural women who live in rural communities with poor social amenities (Khatami, 2004).But still the value of the economic activities of rural women in the area of sustainable development is not well recognized.Women's participation and their role in economic structures is an indicator of the modernization of the national economy and economic development, community development strategies should be based on a more active participation of rural women in economic activities.Providing the fact that women make the half of the population in rural communities, are considered the major manufacturers of food and income for rural households which is the important aspect of agricultural production all over the world.Ajani et al., (2013), in a research pointed out that rural women's economic activities can be promoted in several ways because their potentialities as agents of change to community development through their participation in economic and income generating activities are untapped, but, their theoretical and practical knowledge to the environment and resource is not given due consideration.Bashir et al., (2014) examines the microfinance as a strategy for poverty reduction and a prime to achieve sustainable community development.It gives an opportunity for poor rural women to starts from small scale business to plan for the future, through investing in their children's education and health.The concept of microfinance provides low-income family as well as women with small loans to help them engage in productive activities or expand their businesses.Handragama et al., (2013) put more light on the economic contribution rural women made to community development in developing countries where they constitute a large part of the workforce, particularly in agricultural production.Despite the fact that domestic chores are vitally associated with women in all societies, they are involved in non-domestic and wage earning activities for the well-being of their family and community development in general.The researcher further emphasizes that the role of women in economic activities is necessarily important in low-income families whereby the husband alone can afford all the responsibilities of the family.Participation of women in economic and development activities is significant, today women play major roles in the economic development of a country.Their participation in economic activities differs in each socio-cultural setting.Under a dominant patriarchal planning, managing and socio-economic condition, women, have become second citizens in the country.Although women actively participate in economic and developmental activities all over the globe, each nation experience women's subordination, for this reason.Therefore, a proper organize planning strategies required for the women subordination.
In a research work on women and development process Faith U. Ekong, ( 2013) examine the economic contribution of rural women as way of national development, they save as the major source of capital of the country and principal market for domestic manufacturers, they are responsible for over 50% of all productive activities, (80% of food production in Africa, 60% of food production in Latin America), but yet they are indignant as a result of great poverty, ignorance, and poor health condition.The researcher further assesses that 75% of the population live and work in rural areas lacks the basic amenities such as potable water, electricity, and motorable roads.Anne and Mary (1998), in a study legitimized the idea of productive partners in agriculture and other economic activities, discovering and documenting the various roles played by rural women as farmers, and agricultural professionals.Besides working on farms, rural women in Nigerian societies also participates actively in non-agricultural activities as various trade transaction, such as hand and creative art, but despite the important role rural women play in economic activities they are hardly given any attention in the area of training and visitation by community development agents, extension agent or any government officials with improved technologies.Banks hardly grants them loans and they are hardly reached with improved seeds, fertilizer and other inputs (Damisa & Yohanna, 2007).Rural women have worked side by side with men in agriculture with some marked division of labor, the men performed the tasks of felling trees, gathering and burning of bush, and making ridges while women were involved in planting of seeds particularly foods crops, harvesting, transporting, processing and selling of farm products (Lawanson, 2008).
Adebowale B. (2014) pointing out the economic contribution rural women made to the community development through handcraft as the traditional way of making pots, it is one of the oldest vocations in Nigerian rural communities.Like other traditional creative, it has survived competitions rising from modernization of the production process and transmission of substitutes such as plastics, and metallic products.Nigeria has many ways of making a traditional pot, in most of Africa it is occupation mainly done by women.Hand-made pottery is an aspect of the traditional technology of a given community, and it represents their attempt at exploiting their natural environment, and its materials for survival.It symbolizes the ideas, value system, and views of the people.Any meaningful pottery studies must take cognizance of the natural environment, as well as the society that produce and use the pottery wares, it has been observed that every stage of pottery production has unique cultural input that differs from one center to another and in some cases individual to individual, it is a traditional way of making pots by the use of hand and a mother to daughter vocational skill transfer.

Research Objectives 3.
1. To identify the economic activities of rural women towards sustainable socioeconomic development in Kano state Nigeria.2. To examine the contributions of women in community development through engaging in economic activities in a rural setting in Kano state, Nigeria.

Significance of the Study 4.
In Nigeria, rural women contribute to the development of their communities through their involvement in different forms of economic activities.But the little emphasis is given to the economic contribution of rural women that constitute 60% of the population.Results of the present study can remind the government as well as non-governmental organizations that community development process can achieve and move faster with the involvement of women in economic and developmental activities.

Methodology, Data Collection and Analysis 5.
Although this study employs a mixed methodology that is the combination of quantitative and qualitative approach, the discussion is more on qualitative.The population of the study involves rural women in Kano state.Three local government areas where selected which covers 35,278 women ranging from Wudil, Garko, and Gezawa local governments (National population census, 2006).A sample of 380 respondents was used in the survey questionnaire and 11 respondents for the interview.Moreover, to examine the economic contributions of rural women to community development, interview and questionnaire survey were applied as data collection instruments.The items of the questionnaire are related to various economic activities engage by rural women, mode of their occupation or business, source of capital, and some problems faced by the rural women in the contributions to community development.
However, the administration of the questionnaire is done when most of the respondents are at the women center located in each local government through the co-operation of the coordinators of the centers.All the interviews were conducted in local language Hausa and later translated into the English language by the researcher.The translation was reviewed and corrected by a professional with good command over both languages involves.Moreover, the data obtained through the questionnaires were analyze through descriptive statistics, as frequency distribution and percentage.
Results and Discussion 6. Table 2 shows that 39.4% of the respondents belongs to age group 21-30 years, while 38.4% belongs to 31-40 years, 10.6% fall within 41-50 years, while the remaining 11.6% were above 50 years.The observation here is that age plays a significant role in determining the economic contribution of rural women to community development because the result shows those women between the age of 21-30 and 31-40 years falls within the age barrack of working force or active population.As a result the women participation will be high because the highest frequency of the respondents are within the stage of workforce and have the capacity to establish entrepreneurship, because there is no much burden and tension on them unlike those that are above the age of the labor force.This is inline with some research findings which revealed that, regardless of race, older women are more likely to be poor.Recent data reveal that women age 65 and older are nearly twice as likely to be poor compared to older men (Lee & Shaw, 2008), because of their inbility to engage in enterpreneuship activities.Marital status, 77.3% of the respondents were married, 17.2% are divorced women while 5.5% are single.The study has found out that households that are predominantly occupied by married women have a greater concentration of business activities.This reason helps to show that marital status does not hinder rural women to engage actively in small-scale business activities.Mode of occupation, 34.2% of the respondents engaged in a trade transaction, 26.8% participated in sewing and knitting, 22.6% in agriculture while 16.3% were involved in handcraft and creative art.Research findings reveal that rural women that participate in economic activities fall in the trade transaction.Research results of the interview from R7, R8, R10, and R11 shows that, the various economic activities engaged by women include trade transaction that involved buying and selling of goods and services, agricultural production that include poultry keeping, and rearing domestic animals like sheep, goat, and cow.Furthermore involvement in handcraft and creative art that include sewing and knitting, making of local and modern embroidery, setting of cottage industries where mats, baskets, small boxes, maikwatashi, and beads setting are processed.Hand-made pottery that is known as traditional way of making pots, it is one of the oldest vocations in Nigerian rural communities.Like other traditional creative, it has survived competitions rising from modernization of the production process and transmission of substitutes such as plastics, and metallic products (Adebowale, B. 2014).

Economic Activities of Rural Women Towards Sustainable Socioeconomic Development
According to R9, R10, and R11: "Marketing of product is done at home and at the weekly market that exist once a week".
This indicates that rural women that engage in different economic activities which is usually done at their various houses, some take their product to market for sale while few take it to neighboring communities for sale.It had been observed that the nature of market existence is usually daily, followed by weekly basis, while few of the respondents exist their market monthly, this is course by the nature of the business, occupation like rearing of goat, sheep, cow, fishery, and poultry.Agriculture as an occupation engage by rural women have a fair frequency according to the result of the questionnaire and interview from the respondents, as an occupation it involves so many activities like rearing of domestic animals such as sheep, goats and cows, and poultry which include production of eggs and broilers, processing and selling of the agricultural commodities such as clearing of land, clearing of rice, beans and groundnut, and also selling the raw and dried agricultural products.This finding is online with the view of Amin et al., (2009) and Riaz (1994); however involvement of rural women in agricultural and non-agricultural activities with the household activities is appreciable.More ever their contribution is unpaid and dominated by their counterpart, it concludes that women play a vital role in making a family food secure and involve in various stages of production and storage of agricultural products.The productive role done within agricultural field by women has been ignored and not much attempt has been made to bring up the value of such activity, while the rural women thus participation heavily in activities such as clearing of land, removing of rice and groundnut and also prepare store and sell agricultural commodities like fresh vegetable and maize, rice, beans, millet in their various houses.
The findings reveals that the primary economic activities performed by rural women are trading, food processing, sewing, and knitting, rearing of domestic animals like sheep, goat, cow and poultry, handcraft and creative art.This is online with the view of Osuala (1991), and Ijere (1999), in a research work observed that women earn income through a range of economic activities.The researchers argued that women are the backbone of agricultural and economic production in Africa.Flann and Oldhan (2007), emphasize this point by observing that women perform a lot of economic activities for the purpose of generating income for their family upkeep.Such activities will be in the form of production, distribution, trading and food processing.This finding is also online with the view of Adeferison (1987), pointed out that the major economic activities that directly add to the income of women include fish production and processing, marketing, meat selling, hairdressing, fashion designing, soap making and mat production.The researcher argues that in most cases, the women use this income to supplement household upkeep, pay rent, school fees and training children.These activities undertaken by the women provide an avenue for them to contribute to family and community maintenance and development.There is an improvement in the standard of living and the development of their productive capacities.
R10 from the interview session emphasized that: "I engage in rearing of such domestic animal goat and sheep, I use the income in taking good care of my children's education and have a decent living".
R9 put more light that: "This occupation has been long in my family over 50 years, before in the olden days we make use of cotton and simple thread in making men and women embroidery, making different designs in interior decoration such as praying mat, carpet, and pillows.Nowadays with the introduction of modern technology different machines were used for a variety of interior decorations that save time and energy.This occupation saves as the pride of women folk in this community, where women, as well as girls, engage in designing and decorative materials that earn them much profit at hand".
The result of the present study, therefore, identify the major economic activities engage by women in rural communities Kano state as Agriculture, Trade transaction, Sewing and Knitting, and Handcraft and creative art.It reveals that Age and Marital status of women plays an important role to the community development.The study has found out that households that are predominantly occupied by married women have a greater concentration of business activities.It asks why the married women should engage themselves prompted to trade when they have their husband to provide them with their needs.The most obvious reason given by them is that of looking after their children's need, to satisfy their personal problem and to assist their husband and parent if the need arise.Those reasons, therefore, prompted married women that are participating in economic activities to have the highest frequency.As for widows living on their own, they state that since they need to provide for their basic needs, their engagement in economic activities is highly justifiable.
Unmarried girls stated that, they help their parent's in terms of their clothing and some basic needs for their usage, even though some of them engage in economic activities for their personal satisfaction like preparing for marriage.
Among the old widows respondents mostly engaged in economic activities not really to earn something but rather to avoid sitting idle because they survive through trades in spite of old age.It shows that rural women were not psychologically defeated in case they lose their husband.In case of divorced women, they are still active in economic activities that show that they do not allow the frustration of divorce to have an effect on them.This reason helps to show that marital status and Age does not hinder rural women to engaged actively in economic activities for their economic, societal and entire community development.Results of questionnaire reveals that (98.7%) of the respondents contribute to the community, (61.6%) of the respondents employ laborers to work for them, while (61.4%) are involved in community-based group, and (61.4%) agreed that their group offers contributions to the community members.The interview from official officer, community leaders, husbands as well as the women involve the economic activities and the questionnaire survey data reveals that rural women actually gives contribution to the community members from their business through provision of food, educating community by teaching others way of business more especially those engage in handcraft and creative work, providing the community members with household and petty commodities, assisting community which provision of meat, chicken and egg through poultry, sewing and knitting different design of cloth include embroidery, baby and children sets, and also for both male and female garment, they also provide various handcraft equipment such as Kwatashi, small boxes, baskets, and beads setting.

Contributions of Women in Community Development through Engaging in Economic Activities
It also shows that rural women make contribution to their community from their business by employing laborers to work for them and pay them wages at the end of the day, this reduces the level of unemployment in the community because it like the women provide job opportunity for people living in the community.This is the most significant contribution rural women made to the community members, because there is a great unemployment situation in rural areas whereby people as well as youth are capable and willing to do work but has no job at hand.There is a decrease in the rate of unemployment in the community due to the high involvement of women in economic activities; the men do the majority of work for wage reward.The women established the business while the men were employed to do the work.
As giving by R8 from the interview session: "I have people that work for me like taking the product to the market and even to neighboring communities, no they are community members, and I pay them as they work for me.How can a person work for free, you have to pay for every work done to you".
And for those that do not employ laborer give their reasons as the business is small scale so they cannot afford to hire any worker because the capital is little, others state that the cost of production is high if they employ laborers and pay them wage they might end of getting no profit, others state that there is no much work in the production process, so they need no assistance from laborers.
R4 states that: "Yes, not even I, people believe that women give a contribution to the development of the community.They do through assisting their husband in taking good care of their children's education and other essential needs, they also contribute to providing the community members with necessary commodities they need such as agricultural product, and they also contribute by training others skills acquisition such as cottage industries where handcraft and creative art is processed.Despite the cultural and religious belief that women are supposed to be at home, they are not allowed to mixed with men, but nowadays they perform their business at their various houses and even in the weekly market without mixing with their counterpart.And we encourage them to go for education and training that will help them in acquiring different skills and knowledge".
The contribution of women regarding handcraft and creative art is appreciable; it has been observed that the cottage industry where handcraft and decoration are made save as teaching\learning environment.A place where women usually gathered free for an exhibition, during that time several designs will show from different people this help the younger once gain an opportunity to learn and acquire various skills acquisitions such as interior decorations, making of maikwatashi, small boxes, basket, carpets, setting of beads, local and modern embroidery, and sewing and knitting different children's, male and female garment.They impart the skills to other without intention of getting any reward in return; they provide all essential material and environment free, they do this just to maintain the dignity of their local industries and help to promote the younger once in sharping their brains to cope with the modern situation and indeed promote their quality of life and standard of living.These cottage industries save as the pride of women living in rural areas.
R1 and R2 in line with this point emphasize that: "Now a day's people are even saying that women have to be involved not only in economic activities but in other community development activities like politics, decision making, and leadership because of the double role they play as homemakers and at the same time community developers".
Women are the back bone of every community; they serve as mothers, wives, leaders and also participate in economic activities for their self-reliance, taking good care of their children, and the development of the entire community members.They are good partners of economic development of their family, and the entire community members in general.They contribute significantly to the economic development of their family and the community.Rural women have become key factor in their community, they become important agents of addressing rural communities and their development, and they carried out productive roles and engage in community development through their participation in economic activities.They have lots of advantages by involving in economic activities, their husbands, children, parents, relatives and the community members received benefit from the proceed of their economic activities, and they are respected and have a good identity and position in the community.
From the research finding, it has been observed that rural women are involved in an association called women contribution group which members of the group participate in contribution of money each month, they make this union for the purpose of assisting the group members with capital, credit for those that need it, they also help community member with money when the need of such arise like ceremonial events, and other activities that needs assistance and support.
As pointed out by R9: " We make this association which the aim of improving the quality of life and standard of living of rural women, so as to make them feel they are equal as every members of citizens.We contribute 200 naira per month, we use that money for a union investment, partnership business, giving out capital to the members of the association, and assisting in community based activities".
R10 also give more light: "This women association serve as the way women stand on their fit for self-reliance, we initiate capital for ourselves, investment personal and partnership business, and also showing other members of the community how to make good use of resource by imparting acquisition skills such as sewing and knitting, hand craft and creative art, and poem and socialization for ceremonial event".
R3 a community leader emphasizes that: "Formation of women association which is sometimes called Adashi helps to encourage and motivate the women to put more effort on community development activities, coming together in a union makes them well socialized and compete in the global situation.They can comfortably embark on many forms of money making ventures that are needed in the society as long as they are empowered to do so".
Formation of this group help the rural women takes their destiny at hand; do not wait for government and nongovernmental organization to bring assistance.Observation here is that rural women does not allow the frustration of isolation hamper them, they established such association for the betterment of themselves, by creating earning opportunities, capital formation, socialization and improving quality of life.
Findings of the present research reveal that rural women are competence as their male counterpart when it comes to economic and developmental activities.The final contribution of rural women made to the development of their community implies to the famous trade of weaving mats, which are mostly used in prayers by Muslims, it brings about blessing from Allah and this is why the business is continuing to prosper in return.And also for those who could not afford the imported and expensive beds or praying carpets tries to meet their needs with their beautifully designed hand-woven mats.According to other respondents they contribute to the community through their products, they contribute through their participation in agriculture for the provision of food to the populace as well as meal processing where they help those who could not afford to prepare certain meals for their consumption to acquire such meal at their convenience.

Conclusion 8.
Women are the back born of every community they serve as mothers, wives, leaders and also participate in economic activities for their self-reliance, taking good care of their children, and the development of the entire community members.The analysis and findings reveal that the contribution of rural women to community development through their participation in different forms of economic and income generating activities is significant.
It has been observed from the results of the present study that rural women in the selected local government areas of Kano state, Nigeria, plays a significant role in developing their community members by employing people to work for them and pay them at the end of the day which reduces the level of unemployment in the community.However they contribute in developing the community in form of education and training for various occupations, for example the cottage industry where hand craft and creative art is processed trained many people with the skills that will help them engage in economic activities that will earn them income.Those that are professionals in sewing and knitting also trained the younger ones how to design clothes for men, women, and children that includes local and modern embroidery.Here participation as a concept within community development and the foundation principle of community development is closely linked to the notion of human right; in terms of women economic activities, participation is an attempt to utilize the existing resources in order to achieve certain objectives (Oakley et al., 1991).
Government should provide funds in terms of simple loans and simple machines to be used by collage industries as well as in agricultural activities.There is also need to provide more public amenities as electricity, water and public toilets to all rural communities of Kano state, Nigeria so as to boost the productivity capacities of those rural women that engage in economic and developmental activities.
Women's education should be encouraged because no matter the amount of facilities provided for women in conducting their occupation will be a waste when there is no adequate knowledge of how to use the machines.
The respondents advised those engaged in economic activities to hold it and accept whatever they gain.They also request the government to help them with a better organization that will give them full attent

Table 1 :
Respondents Involved in Interview Session

Table 1
shows the number of respondents involved in an interview session, where R1 is an official officer from ministry for rural and community development.R2 an official officer from community development department ministry for local government, R3, R4, and R5 are community leaders from the study area.R6, R7 and R8 are husbands from the study areas; While R9, R10, and R11 are women that participate in economic activities from the study area.

Table 2 :
Distribution of Respondents by Age

Table 3 :
Distribution of Respondents by Marital Status

Table 4 :
Distribution of Respondents by Mode of Occupation

Table 5 :
Distribution of Respondents According to their Contributions to Community Development