Resolving the Gender Empowerment Equation in Humidtropics System research by Tegbaru

Resolving the Gender Empowerment Equation in Humidtropics System research

Humidtropics

ByAmare Tegbaru, Paula Kantor, Holger Kirscht & Per Hillbur

Resolving the Gender Empowerment Equation in Humidtropics system research

• Humidtropics seeks to transform the lives of the rural poor in the humid lowlands, moist savannas, and tropical highlands in the tropical Americas, Asia, and Africa. It is based on the premise that “intensification of agricultural systems offers the best potential for poverty reduction, especially for women and other vulnerable groups, and meeting world food demand using an integrated systems approach

• Aim: – Explore how the Humidtropics System Research program can reconcile the

dualistic social and technical agenda of a CGIAR Research Program

– By incorporating transformative social, economic and political objectives– and bringing women and men to the center of desired changes in both social and

gender relations and agricultural outcomes.

• Key argument: – The paper argues that the empowering dimension of the Humidtropics, is quite

distinct from that of commodity focused value chain approaches and other traditional gender approaches within agriculture which have separated gender and development from system thinking.

Resolving the Gender Empowerment Equation in Humidtropics system research

• Key argument:• Gender empowerment in Humidtropics system research requires:

– transformation of social and gender relations and – an approach that transcends disciplines and sectors establishing

symbioses and coherence between the social and technical agenda in order to influence innovation and change as collective processes in complex systems.

• Outline: the paper is divided into the following sections– Part Two: Towards a More Inclusive Analytical framework discusses

systems use in the social and biophysical sciences – Develops a broader, more inclusive concept of “system” and system

theoretical to reconcile the social and technical divide and broaden the interpretative framework within which to incorporate the distinctive gender strategy.

– Requires a move beyond more traditional reductionist approaches to historically oriented and politically informed transformative system conceptual approach

Resolving the Gender Empowerment Equation in Humidtropics system research

Part Three lays out the background to past CGIAR gender-related initiatives and how they have evolved within the CRP agenda;

- the origins of this agenda – the elements of continuity as well as change,

- as a precursor to assessing in Part Four how well gender integration in agricultural research fits with an inclusive farming system approach,

- and providing an alternative, more system oriented approach.

Part Five synthesizes the analysis in an effort to operationalize - ‘systemness’ within the Humidtropics context, - defining key concepts such as “agency”, “innovation” and

“empowerment” - and argue how these make sense within the systems based

research of the Humidtropics

Resolving the Gender Empowerment Equation in Humidtropics system research

• 4 Enhancing the ‘Systemness’ of Gender in Agriculture

• One among many dimensions of societal systems of classification – differentiate and define relationships

• This understanding of gender as a system of classification and social construct suggests that other complex and diverse conceptualizations of gender exist, and also change in the way gender is perceived over time

• That inform diverse approaches to integrating gender into agriculture and wider development efforts.

• Increasing interest in the complexity of systems provides openings for advancing a more complex, systemic understanding of gender within agriculture.

• Calls for a shift in gender integration approaches within agricultural research for development, from those that analyze but then accommodate the existing social system to those that seek to foster local efforts to exercise agency and transform those systems and structures at micro, meso and macro levels

Resolving the Gender Empowerment Equation in Humidtropics system research

• 5. Operationalizing Inclusive, Critical ‘Systemness’ in Humidtropics agriculture research for development

• Humidtropics sees the connections between innovation, women’s empowerment and gender equality.

• It goes beyond defining the gender action and considerations to mainstreaming into all program activities

• The Gender empowerment equation could be resolved by taking a more ‘transformative gender research approach with greater emphasis on ‘agency’, and “innovation’ in gender related program activities.

• Empowerment: an extension of agency• The role of innovation and its intersection with empowerment (1)

technology use (2) social norm change and (3) economic resilience.

Resolving the Gender Empowerment Equation in Humidtropics system research

• 6 Conclusion• Need for emphasis on the role of innovative and socially inclusive

processes in the form of actor platforms with women as key players.• Need for a shift from dependency on the paradigm of “pathway” to

that of a “Landscape Approach” • Encourage the nonlinear innovation processes of social inclusion • Encourage the framing of social and technical as integrated and

holistic, enhancing the ability of women and men to exercise their agency

• to make choices and decisions to intensify, diversify or make a shift between conservation and intensification as well as use the gained knowledge to make a joint investment in NRM

Thank you