Beyond Modernization : A Gender-Geographical Interpretation of Development Performance in African Urban Spaces
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Urban market modernization projects in African cities are often celebrated for their architectural achievements, yet their actual performance can fall short once confronted with the everyday practices, mobility constraints, and gendered experiences of traders especially women. Drawing on Gender Geography and fieldwork conducted in the modernized C2D markets of Bafoussam and Bertoua in Cameroon, this article shows how spatial design, accessibility gaps, and exclusionary governance reproduce inequalities that undermine development effectiveness.The analysis reveals that successful development depends not only on funding or technical expertise, but on integrating gendered lived realities as central pillars of multisectoral projects. Markets function as microcosms of wider urban society, concentrating inequalities, negotiations, and solidarities within their daily rhythms. A gender-geographical lens therefore provides a critical diagnostic tool for rethinking modernization processes in African intermediate cities.
