Challenging chains to change: Gender equity in agricultural value chain development

This book (KIT, Agri-ProFocus and IIRR. 2012, 337 pages) explains how development organizations and private entrepreneurs have found ways to improve the position of women in value chains – especially small-scale women farmers and primary processors. It outlines five broad strategies for doing this: (1) working with women on typical “women’s products” such as shea, poultry and dairy, (2) opening up opportunities for women to work on what are traditionally “men’s commodities” or in men’s domains, (3) supporting women and men in organizing for change by building capacity, organization, sensitization and access to finance, (4) using standards and certification to promote gender equity, and (5) promoting gender-responsible business.

The book draws on dozens of cases from all over the world, covering a wide range of crops and livestock products. These include traditional subsistence products (such as rice), small-scale cash items (honey, vegetables) as well as export commodities (artichokes, coffee) and biofuels (jatropha). The book includes a range of tools and methodologies for analysing and developing value chains with gender in mind.

By bringing together the two fields of gender and value chains, this book offers a set of compelling arguments for addressing gender in value chain development. It proposes an analytical framework that builds on both fields. It outlines five strategies for development organizations and enterprises to ensure that women can participate in value chains as full partners and decision-makers. The overall result is to improve value chain performance, with both women and men able to enjoy the benefits.

FANRPAN - WARM STORY - Women Accessing Realigned Markets (WARM)

1 Sept 2012. The WARM project seeks to strengthen women farmers’ ability to advocate for appropriate
agricultural policies and programmes.

The project uses an innovative tool, Theatre for Policy Advocacy, to engage leaders, service providers and policymakers, encourage community participation, and research the needs of women farmers.

Objectives

• To provide a platform for communities to dialogue on issues that affect women farmers' access to input markets.
• To empower women farmers to playa more active role in driving the development agenda.
• To align development research agenda to women farmers' issues.
• Align input supply institutions and programmes to women farmer needs.
• To bring women farmer concerns into national and regional policy debates

Empowering Women Farmers through Theatre

The WARM project seeks to inform, empower and mobilize women farmers to express their needs through a culturally appropriate medium: Theatre for Policy Advocacy (TPA), a form of participatory theatre that allows women to engage their communities in developing solutions to their problems. View Project Brochure

Sithembile Ndema is a program manager for Food and Natural Resource Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) in Southern Africa. Sithembile manages FANRPAN’s WARM (Women Accessing Realigned Markets) project, which uses theater to empower women farmers in southern Malawi and Mozambique. The production facilitates community discussions about the issues addressed in each performance. Sithembile was also a contributing author to State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet.

[15 minutes video] Posted 1 Sept 2012 by AgriConnectVideos

Related:
17th September. UK parliament. London. The Montpellier Panel released their new briefing paper ‘Women in African Agriculture: farmers, mothers, innovators and educators’, at a meeting hosted and chaired by Heidi Alexander MP.

In the briefing paper, the Montpellier Panel call for an urgent and transformative focus on the needs and perspectives of women in smallholder agricultural policy in sub-Saharan Africa.

Women play crucial roles as farmers and businesswomen in smallholder agricultural production, as mothers managing household nutrition, and as innovators and educators. Indeed these roles span across the entire value chain.

This briefing highlights the findings of a programme ‘Women Accessing Re-aligned Markets’, led by the Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) from 2009-2012, and other practical approaches to inclusive agricultural development.

Related: 

What Works for Women. Proven approaches for empowering women smallholders and achieving food security

Action Aid March 2012

Nine international development agencies have produced this briefing to share the lessons learned based on their experience of promoting gender equality and working with women smallholders and rural women over many decades. This paper concludes with a number of recommendations for policy makers on measures to help close the gender gap in agriculture.

First Global Conference on Women in Agriculture

Dr. R.S. Paroda (at the right), Executive Secretary, APAARI and Co-Chair, 
International Organizing Committee presented the glimpse 
of synthesis report based on the deliberations held during 
the conference. Dr. Paroda informed the audience that 
second GCWA will be held in 2015 in Africa.

13 - 15 March. New Delhi. India. a dream team of World Food Prize laureates, government ministers, farmers, agriculture researchers, gender experts and community development organizations were in New Delhi, India for the first ever Global Conference on Women in Agriculture. It is sponsored by the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), along with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the Asian-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI). A Global Conference on Women in Agriculture (GCWA) was organized with participation of researchers, policy makers, women farmers and other stakeholders from different regions of the world.

The OBJECTIVES were:

• To discuss and deliberate the prevailing and emerging gender issues in agriculture and food systems and the lessons learned for future sustainable development,
• To take stock of evidence on experiences in enhancing role of women in agriculture,
• To understand the mechanisms and approaches adopted by the international organizations, regional fora, countries and civil society for empowering women and addressing gender issues in agriculture, and
• To collate lessons on strategies for strengthening gender research in agriculture to make technology generation and dissemination, agricultural planning and policy making gender sensitive and disseminate them through an edited book and develop a Framework for Action.

Related:

IFPRI's recent gender work includes the book “Engendering Agricultural Research, Development and Extension” and the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index.

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), a new tool developed by IFPRI, the US Government’s Feed the Future initiative, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, measures the empowerment, agency, and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector. The WEAI is a composite measurement tool that allows researchers to identify women who are disempowered and understand how to increase autonomy and decisionmaking in key domains. For additional information on IFPRI’s gender research please visit the thematic page on gender and the Gender and Food Policy News blog.

IFPRI senior researcher, Ruth Meinzen Dick on the book, "Engendering agricultural research, development, and extension."

Finding solutions on how to empower African women scientists

On March 7, at the House of Parliament in London, UK, the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for Development hosted a parliamentary briefing which focused on finding solutions on how to empower African women scientists.

It has been found that if African women farmers and agricultural scientists had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30 percent, raising agricultural output and reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17 percent. Therefore, efforts must be made to fully engage and empower them.

In an effort to further this agenda and lobby the UK government to reach women in their agricultural research and investment work, these organizations are urging the government to support more public and private sector partnerships in favour of women.