TITLE:
Enhancing Participation of Women in Cross-Border Trade: The Need for Childcare Facilities as a Complementary Border Infrastructure
AUTHORS:
Mary Mbithi, Wanjiru Gichuhi, Rachael Keeru, Carolyne Manga, Gideon Muendo, Brian Mutune
KEYWORDS:
Cross-Border Trade, Women Participation, Regional Integration, Childcare, Care Giving, Border Infrastructure, Public Policy
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.14 No.6,
June
23,
2026
ABSTRACT: This study presents the findings of a needs assessment for childcare undertaken around the border towns of Busia and Namanga in Kenya. The study, which is based on feminist economic theory and uses the mixed-method approach, utilizes both quantitative and qualitative data collected in 2021. About half of the women involved in cross-border trade, who had children below four years of age, expressed a need for childcare, with the main challenges being limited availability, high costs, and low quality. As a coping strategy to lack childcare, women traders either went to work with their children or left their children with relatives or friends. Child caregiving responsibilities affected cross-border women traders’ concentration on their business as they opened their business late, closed early, missed work or worried, and spent time on the phone to address child caregiving-related difficulties during business hours. Furthermore, child-caregiving responsibilities negatively affect traders’ profit margins and engagement in productive activities. The study concluded that there is a need for quality and affordable childcare among women involved in intra-regional trade and that women involved in cross-border trade consider childcare as an important factor contributing to the productivity and performance of their businesses, as well as to participation in intra-regional trade. It is concluded that childcare is an important infrastructural facility for enhanced participation of women in cross-border trade and that government policies, including the development of markets and other border infrastructure aimed at facilitating cross-border trade, need to include childcare as part of border trade facilitation infrastructure. Further, the study recommends that because women form a large proportion of small-scale informal traders in urban centers, as governments develop market infrastructure to support small-scale traders, they need to include childcare as part of these structures.