Abstract

This paper summarizes the experiences of rice women farmers in Nigeria who were directly and indirectly affected by the bio-fuel and solar energy system projects under the much touted agricultural transformation agenda (ATA) initiated by the current Nigerian government. However, some of these women suffered displacement because their rice farms were converted to the government’s green energy project sites. Others were humiliated by flood that washed away their farm land. Although the flood issue was attributed to climate change impact, a gender issue was still raised because these rural poor women could not raise their voice even to express their opinion and neither were they compensated for their farm land. The study capitalized on the economic, social, political and cultural implication of such displacement and conducted a situational analysis of how these women rice farmers whom some of them are not even formally educated are using mobile phones and some who are literate enough were signing up on the internet for email communication and social networking. This was done in order to demonstrate how such technologies can be used to facilitate wider audience communication and also registering their opinion in the public domain. Findings of this study support the result of similar studies in other countries where gender issues were raised towards unfriendly government policies. It shows that adoption of such ICT components was not only part of women empowerment strategy; rather it further opened a window for capacity building towards green economy

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