Uganda’s transport sector is currently defined by men driving heavily polluting internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles on poor quality roads. Motorcycle-taxis have come to be a defining aspect of the transport sector in Uganda, particularly in regional towns and rural areas.1 Women report widespread harassment in the transport sector and are vanishingly rare as motorcycle-taxi or minibus operators. While they represent less than 1% of motorcycle-taxi drivers, they have made more inroads in government roles and in mobility startups. However, official gender-disaggregated data on the sector is severely lacking, with only very limited public data on vehicle imports and registrations, workforce composition, the occasional qualitative report on women in transport, and private sector data that is not made public.
The e-mobility industry in Uganda has begun to address some of the major gender gaps in transportation but remains a long way off in gender parity in both leadership and ridership. From a brief survey of the sector, women tend to make up between 30-50% of the e-mobility startup workforce, but without known female founders or executives. Additionally, women electric motorcycle riders represent only around 2.3% of the e-motorcycle fleet, though this is higher than the less than 1% operating in the ICE motorcycle fleet.
This report is a deliverable under the project “E-Mobility as a Driver for Change - Towards a gender transformative and just transition to electric mobility” which is being implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The project aims to ensure that the introduction of, and shift to, electric mobility (E-Mobility) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will include and promote the position and interests of women, to create a more gender transformative and just transport sector. Engaging more women in the E-Mobility ecosystem can in turn help to speed up the transition to zero emission mobility systems.
