Improving Gender Outcomes in Agriculture Programming: What Can We Do? Sylvia Cabus Gender Advisor USAID/Bureau for Food Security 1a TOPS Food Security.

Improving Gender Outcomes in Agriculture Programming:

What Can We Do?

Sylvia Cabus

Gender Advisor

USAID/Bureau for Food Security1a

TOPS Food Security NetworkMaputo

September 2011

Objectives

By the end of the session, participants will:• Understand the importance of gender in agriculture

and food security• Understand what USAID is doing to integrate gender

in value chains• Understand the connections between nutrition,

agriculture, and gender• The ability to identify additional resources

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Support the incorporation of gender best practices in the development and implementation of Country Investment Plans

Use consultation as a tool for gender integration. Assess how countries use social/gender analysis to involve and help ensure meaningful participation of women and men in Focus Country’s consultative process

Develop approaches to target men and women with agricultural interventions

As an agency, our commitments are:

Promote M&E of the gender impacts of USAID investments

Improve targeting of financial services to women

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CIPS

PROGRAMS

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENTHOW DO WE?

Develop approaches to target men and women with agricultural interventions

1. Design

2. Implement3. M & E

4. Assess/ redesign

IEHA Gender Assessment• Build gender objectives into designs

(scopes with criteria) based on good gender analysis (TIPS)

• Formulate appropriate program-level indicators

• Insist on sex-disaggregated targets• Establish sex-disaggregated baselines• Work with partners through annual

work plans to ensure gender issues are identified and addressed

• Monitor performance through annual results reporting

• Change design if necessary

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PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT HOW DO WE?

Develop approaches to target men and women with agricultural interventions THROUGH AGRICULTURE VALUE CHAINS

Guidance on:

How gender issues affect agricultural value chains.

A process for analyzing gender issues in agricultural value chains.

Strategies for addressing gender issues in agricultural value chains.

Promoting Gender Equitable Opportunities in Agricultural Value Chains

A Guide to Integrating Gender into Agricultural Value Chains 5

“add women and stir” to the value chain

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Characteristics of Gender Equitable Agriculture Value Chain Programs

Value chain programs that support gender equity goals:

• Understand men’s and women’s roles and relations.

• Foster equitable participation. • Address the needs of women. • Support women’s economic advancement. • Promote gender equitable market-driven

solutions. • Design equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms. • Include men (in addition to women) in defining

the “problem” and the solution.

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Gender-equitable value chains

HOW DO WE? Develop approaches to target men and women with agricultural

interventions IN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Support women scientists in scholarship and fellowship programs (AWARD, Borlaug, Cochrane)

Competitive grants program with technical points for gender considerations

Include women in research trials Target research on crops where women are

likely to benefit

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HOW DO WE? Develop approaches to target men and

women with agricultural interventions in AGRICULTURAL INPUTS AND TECHNOLOGY

Ensure equitable membership policies for producer associations

Target women’s associations

Adjust training programs - length, timing and mobility

Community agriculture extension volunteers

Husband/wife teams as lead farmers

Farming as a family business

Literacy/numeracy training for associations

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HOW DO WE? Develop approaches to target men

and women with agricultural interventions in

VALUE-ADDED EMPLOYMENT AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Business development services to women agribusinesses

Income-generating entrepreneurial activities

Ensure female participation persists with commercialization

IEHA Gender Assessment Synthesis Report, September 2010

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HOW DO WE? Develop approaches to target men and women with agricultural

interventions inPOST HARVEST STORAGE, MARKETING AND TRADE

Securing storage for seed Market information systems

help to overcome mobility constraints

Profiling women in trade shows and fairs

Supporting institutionalization of gender issues in regional bodies

IEHA Gender Assessment Synthesis Report, September 2010

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HOW DO WE?

Improve targeting of financial services to women?

IEHA Gender Assessment Synthesis Report, September 2010

Assist women to open bank accounts or insist on joint accounts

Embedded services whereby buyers provide farmers with in-kind credit

Increase availability of banking technologies

Project-supported lines of credit from local banks and micro-financing institutions

Linking village savings and loan associations with Savings and Credit Cooperatives

Partnerships between banks and processors

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HOW DO WE?

Promote M&E of the gender impacts of FTF investments:

• establishing sex-disaggregated targets,• tracking impacts of investments on women

and men,• measuring the progress of women’s

achievements related to men’s?

IEHA Gender Assessment Lessons

Establish gender-related objectives in design phase

Insist upon sex-disaggregated baseline data collection

Focus on outcome not output

Initiate gender impact assessments14

Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Five domains to be measured:1. Women’s role in household decision-making

related to agricultural production2. Women’s access to productive capital, such as credit

or land 3. The adequacy of woman’s income to feed her family

a nutritious diet4. Women’s access to leadership roles within the

community5. Women’s and men’s labor time allocations

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Index developed in partnership with: International Food Policy Research Institute

(IFPRI) Oxford Poverty and Human Development

Initiative (OPHI) Alkire-Foster Method Piloted Summer 2011 Ready to launch by early 2012 Performance Monitoring in all FTF countries and for

Impact Evaluations

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Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Key Linkages: Gender, Nutrition, and Agriculture

• Focus on women because of their role as care givers, producers, processors of food

• Nutrition and health protocols

Customs and beliefs detrimental to child health and development

• Gender approach: involving men

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• Women as food producers

• Women as income-earning farmers

• Women as health/nutrition-care providers

• Women as nutritionally vulnerable population

• Women and men as partners in agri-nutrition efforts

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Key Linkages: Gender, Nutrition, and Agriculture

Mozambique• 90% of women work in agriculture• 62% of agriculture labor force• Many constraints:

– Only 20% of women have rights to land (2+ hectares)

– Land tenure/access is a function of kinship– Heavy workloads in addition to labor (childcare,

household)

And also opportunities- Participation in business association and

leadership roles- Access to markets- Off-farm income-generating activities 19

PROGRAMMING

OTHER IMPORTANT AREAS

Increasing options for family planning

Access to land

Improving health of (especially pregnant) women

Increasing access to fuel and water

Trafficking

Gender-based violence

Trade, labor, and manufacturing

Migration

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Thank you!

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