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10 December 2025
Listening to Women: Shaping Rwanda’s inclusive E-Mobility future
The transition to electric mobility presents both opportunities and challenges for Rwanda’s inclusive development agenda. While the electric motorcycle (e-moto) sector is rapidly growing as a pillar of the green economy, women and other marginalised groups remain largely excluded due to financial, cultural, and institutional barriers. Hearing directly from women moto taxi drivers is key to understanding the real-world barriers they face, and ensuring that solutions are practical, targeted, and truly inclusive.
To this end, the Rwanda E-Moto Project held consultations with women e-moto operators to gather insights to inform the project’s Rebate Program, which will be led by the Rwanda Green Fund (RGF). These consultations discussed challenges and gathered insights on what is needed to develop inclusive solutions and reinforce women as key ambassadors of the E-Moto Project’s efforts to increase the participation of women in the sector.
The RGF, with facilitation support from Rwanda Electric Mobility (REM), Global Clearing House for Development Finance (GlobalDF) and ICLEI Africa, consulted with 58 women e-moto taxi operators, and the following key insights were uncovered:
- Women face multiple barriers when obtaining a driver’s licence: The high cost of training and limited study time due to household and childcare responsibilities lead to repeated test failures. In addition, a lack of female riding trainers results in women having to rely on male trainers, and several drivers noted that male trainers harassed them. Training and tests are also done on ICE motos, which are harder to use, despite women undertaking training with the intention of operating e-motos.
- Cultural norms: Families often discourage women from riding, seeing it as a “man’s job.” Some women lack financial support for training and childcare, and further dependence on their family or spouses for access to collateral limits their access to finance.
- Safety and harassment concerns limit women’s mobility and income: No women ride at night due to risks from drunk passengers, harassment, and accidents, and renting out motos is also seen as unsafe due to potential damage, fines, misuse, and lost earnings.
Additional insights:
- Female respondents say passengers who have tried women drivers prefer them because they drive more safely.
- Referrals are strong: many women joined the e-moto taxi business after being introduced by friends, indicating the viability and growth potential of the sector as an income-generating activity for women.
- Female drivers are enthusiastic about the potential of this project and are eager to participate in activities like the consultations.
Overall, the consultations provided a strong foundation for shaping the next steps of the E-Moto Project. Stakeholders identified potential women participants through existing community networks and explored different models for involvement, including options beyond direct operation. Key training, eligibility and support needs were highlighted as essential for women to participate safely and successfully.
Building on these consultations, the Women’s E-Moto Workshop was held on 6 October 2025. The workshop brought together women moto taxi operators, sector leaders, banks, cooperatives, and e-moto companies to highlight the barriers that continue to limit women’s participation in the moto sector and to co-design practical, actionable solutions. These discussions generated clear insights, solution pathways, and emerging commitments that have directly informed the E-Moto Project’s Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) Action Plan. The outcomes will also guide how the project communicates and advances women’s empowerment across the e-moto ecosystem.
Practical pathways for an inclusive e-mobility transition
During the workshop, stakeholders proposed and signalled readiness to support a range of concrete, women-focused solutions, including:
- Gender-responsive training models, featuring women trainers, mentorship, flexible schedules, and licensing processes aligned with e-moto technology.
- Flexible, accessible financing, with reduced collateral requirements, lower interest rates, streamlined application processes, grace periods, and guarantee-based loans.
- Improved maintenance ecosystems, including expanded repair hubs, training opportunities for women mechanics, and fairer repair terms that reduce income loss.
- Targeted recruitment pathways for women with licences, those awaiting tests, and new entrants, including bicycle taxi operators transitioning to e-mobility.
- A centralised Operators Platform to share clear information on rebate eligibility, approved e-moto models, financing options, cooperatives, training centres, and nearby repair services.
This project sits at the intersection of finance, multilevel governance, low-carbon mobility and GESI, which is a practical demonstration of the value of combining technical assistance and financial support, a Mitigation Action Facility approach. By placing GESI at the core of its work, the E-Moto Project is ensuring that Rwanda’s transition to electric transport is equitable, people-centred, and truly transformative. The commitments and solutions emerging from this workshop will guide the next phase of implementation, helping ensure that no woman, no rider, and no community is left behind as Rwanda accelerates toward a cleaner, greener mobility future.
