CGIAR GENDER Platform journal articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/115219

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Uncovering the Intersections of Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality in Climate Adaptive Capacities in Climate Hotspots for Women in Zambia
(Journal Article, 2024-12-16) Kihoro, Esther; Lecoutere, Els; Mishra, Avni
Climate change risks exacerbating gender inequalities in agrifood systems; hence, the importance of understanding how women’s empowerment and gender equality of climate adaptive capacities relate. Using primary gender-disaggregated intrahousehold data collected in climate hotspots in Zambia, this study shows a positive relationship between women’s empowerment in the household and intrahousehold gender equality in access, knowledge and adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices. Showing that different dimensions of women’s empowerment – gender norms, access to resources and group membership – relate differently with gender-equal adaptive capacities, the study emphasizes the importance of a contextual analysis, unpacking the prevailing key constraints to gender equality, and the need for simultaneous investments in women’s empowerment and gender-equitable access to climate information services and climate-adaptive practices.
Using a sustainable food systems framework to examine gender equality and women’s empowerment in aquatic food systems
(Journal Article) Adam, Rahma; Dam Lam, Rodolfo; Lozano, Denise; McDougall, Cynthia; Rajaratnam, Surendran; Ouko, Kevin; Manyungwa-Pasani, Chikondi; Forsythe, Lora; Rossignoli, Cristiano
This article aims to generate novel insights by examining gender dynamics within aquaculture and small-scale fisheries, employing a gendered agrifood systems conceptual framework to comprehensively analyze gender equality and women’s empowerment in aquatic food systems. To do this, it evaluates 202 articles using a scoping review methodology. Though additional literature from 19 articles was pulled in to provide the context. The findings are that aquatic foods value chains and food environment are negatively impacted by gender disparities in terms of women’s agency, access to and control over resources, gendered social norms, and policies and governance. This hampers the ability of women to engage in and benefit from aquatic food systems. This results in gendered disparities in dietary outcomes, low achievements in relation to gender equality and women’s empowerment, and less adaptive capacity in relation to developing resilient livelihoods. The article acknowledges the importance of developing and leveraging women’s agency and bargaining power, strengthening their access to and control over key aquatic food systems resources, tackling harmful gender norms, developing gender-sensitive data collection and analysis to inform evidence-based policymaking, and implementing gender-responsive and gender-transformative policies and strategies to create an enabling environment for these interventions to succeed. Investment in multi-level, and multi-layered, gender-responsive and gender-transformative approaches are needed to co-develop – with women and their organizations – positive, gender-equitable norms to strengthen women’s agency and decision-making at a variety of levels, ranging from individual to policy level.
Adolescents’ capabilities and aspirations across gender and generations in Amhara, Ethiopia
(Journal Article, 2022) Gebre, B.; Lecoutere, Els; Jones, N.
Insights into the role of changing historical-political-cultural contexts and social norms in shaping adolescent girls’ and boys’ futures contributes to an understanding of human development at the intersection of gender and youth in low- and middle-income countries. This study investigates the capabilities and aspirations of adolescent girls and boys and their evolution in Amhara against the background of three successive political regimes that governed Ethiopia over the last 90 years, the Haile-Selassie imperial regime (1930–1974), the socialist military Derg regime (1974–1991), and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (1991–2019), each with their own institutions, structures and infrastructure, and gender- and age-related relations and norms. The study adopts a capability approach with a gender and generationing development lens as a framework and relies on qualitative data collected through community- and mixed-generation group discussions. The study illustrates that, even if institutional and structural barriers became less stringent over time, cumulative gender- and age-related obstacles – some rooted in beliefs, norms, traditions and relations – hindered the expansion of adolescents’ capability success, consistently more so for girls than boys. (The threat of) gender-based violence pervasively constrains girls’ capabilities success and aspirations in spite of more formal protective institutions.
Addressing gender inequalities and strengthening women's agency to create more climate-resilient and sustainable food systems
(Journal Article, 2024-03-15) Bryan, Elizabeth; Alvi, Muzna; Huyer, Sophia; Ringler, Claudia
Climate change affects every aspect of the food system, including all nodes along agri-food value chains from production to consumption, the food environments in which people live, and outcomes, such as diets and livelihoods. Men and women often have specific roles and responsibilities within food systems, yet structural inequalities (formal and informal) limit women's access to resources, services, and agency. These inequalities affect the ways in which men and women experience and are affected by climate change. In addition to gender, other social factors are at play, such as age, education, marital status, and health and economic conditions. To date, most climate change policies, investments, and interventions do not adequately integrate gender. If climate-smart and climate-resilient interventions do not adequately take gender differences into account, they might exacerbate gender inequalities in food systems by, for instance, increasing women's labor burden and time poverty, reducing their access to and control over income and assets, and reducing their decision-making power. At the same time, women's contributions are critical to make food systems more resilient to the negative impacts of climate change, given their specialized knowledge, skills and roles in agri-food systems, within the household, at work and in their communities. Increasing the resilience of food systems requires going beyond addressing gendered vulnerabilities to climate change to create an enabling environment that supports gender equality and women's empowerment, by removing structural barriers and rigid gender norms, and building equal power dynamics, as part of a process of gender transformative change. For this to happen, more research is needed to prioritize structural barriers that need to be removed and to identify effective gender transformative approaches.
Supporting women's empowerment by changing intrahousehold decision making: A mixed methods analysis of a field experiment in rural south-west Tanzania
(Journal Article, 2023-11-13) Lecoutere, Els; Lan Chu
In rural sub‐Saharan Africa, patriarchal social norms and customs often lead to unequal resource access, decision‐making power, and intra‐household power relations between women and men co‐heads of smallholder farm households. Household methodologies are gender‐transformative approaches that aim to achieve gender equality and empower women by improving intra‐household gender relations. Evidence of the impact of such approaches on women's empowerment is still scarce.We assess the effects of a programme that introduces participatory intra‐household decision‐making to challenge gender relations within households on women's empowerment. The programme was delivered to monogamous couples who head smallholder coffee‐farming households in rural south‐west Tanzania.We combine (quasi‐)experimental quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the programme's impact on women's empowerment and how that impact fits with women's valued domains of empowerment and individual pathways to empowerment.Awareness‐raising couple seminars, the programme's least intensive intervention, increased women's access to livestock. Intensive coaching in participatory decision‐making increased women's control over household coffee income—a priority for women. Couple seminars increased women's highly valued involvement in strategic farm decisions—intensive coaching increased it further. Access to personal income, however, valued by women for independent decision‐making for their households' wellbeing, did not change.Gender‐transformative approaches that challenge domestic gender relations can increase women's access to household income and resources, and increase their participation in farming decisions. Such approaches need to be complemented by interventions to increase women's human capital, knowledge of enterprises, and personal resources. Catering for women's diverse pathways towards empowerment may increase their effectiveness. Challenging deep gender norms requires long‐term engagement and trust between change agents and communities.
Fostering an enabling environment for equality and empowerment in agri-food systems: An assessment at multiple scales
(Journal Article, 2024-03-15) Lecoutere, Els; Achandi, Esther L.; Ampaire, Edidah L.; Fischer, Gundula; Gumucio, Tatiana; Najjar, Dina; Singaraju, Niyati
Inequalities by gender and intersecting sources of social differentiation in access to resources, exercise of agency, and desirable outcomes persist in agri-food systems in low- and middle-income countries. Despite decades of development and theoretical assessment efforts calling for multiscale approaches to addressing inequalities in agri-food systems, common approaches remain specific to a scale rather than holistic. In this paper, we make the case that achieving lasting equality and empowerment in agri-food systems requires transformative change. This depends on fostering an enabling environment by relaxing ‘deeper’ – often inter-related – institutionalized constraints to equality and empowerment across multiple nested scales of the state, markets, communities, household, and individuals. Based on a review of recent literature focused on agri-food systems in low- and middle-income countries, we present newly emerging thinking and a status update of key structural constraints to equality at different scales – rooted in policy and discriminatory, formal and informal, social and economic institutions, including norms. We give examples that show how structural constraints to equality at different nested scales are interdependent and mutually reinforcing; demonstrating the need for holistic approaches tackling constraints at multiple scales to foster transformative change in agri-food systems. We recommend designing holistic policy and development programs that combine strategies for relaxing constraints to equality and empowerment at multiple scales using inclusive processes of tailoring and prioritizing. To inform the design of such programs, we present recent evidence of effective or promising strategies for addressing structural constraints to equality that relate to policy, market systems, collectives, and norms.
Gender Mainstreaming in Sweetpotato Breeding in Uganda: A Case Study
(Journal Article, 2023-12-15) Ssali, R.T.; Mayanja, S.; Nakitto, M.; Mutiso, J.; Tinyiro, S.E.; Bayiyana, I.; Okello, J.J.; Forsythe, L.; Magala, D.; Yada, B.; Mwanga, Robert O.M.; Polar, Vivian
Purpose: In Uganda, sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam) is typically a "woman's crop", grown, processed, stored and also mainly consumed by smallholder farmers for food and income. Farmers value sweetpotato for its early maturity, resilience to stresses, and minimal input requirements. However, productivity remains low despite the effort of breeding programs to introduce new varieties. Low uptake of new varieties is partly attributed to previous focus by breeders on agronomic traits and much less on quality traits and the diverse preferences of men and women in sweetpotato value chains.To address this gap, breeders, food scientists, and social scientists (including gender specialists) systematically mainstreamed gender into the breeding program. This multidisciplinary approach, grounded in examining gender roles and their relationship with varietal and trait preferences, integrated important traits into product profiles.Results: Building on earlier efforts of participatory plant breeding and participatory varietal selection, new interventions showed subtle but important gender differences in preferences. For instance, in a study for the RTBFoods project, women prioritized mealiness, sweetness, firmness and non-fibrous boiled roots. These were further subjected to a rigorous gender analysis using the G+ product profile query tool. The breeding pipelines then incorporated these gender-responsive priority quality traits, prompting the development of standard operating procedures to phenotype these traits. This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article Conclusion: Following an all-inclusive approach coupled with traininig of multidisciplinary teams involving food scientists, breeders, biochemists, gender specialists and social scientists, integration into participatory variety selection in Uganda enabled accentuation of women and men's trait preferences, contributing to clearer breeding targets. The research has positioned sweetpotato breeding to better respond to the varying needs and preferences of the users.
The status of women’s empowerment in the aquaculture sector in Kenya
(Journal Article, 2024-03-21) Adam, Rahma; Subian, Farha; Njogu, Lucy
Purpose Women’s empowerment remains a key development challenge in Kenya. The purpose of this study is to attempt to understand the status of women’s empowerment and the key contributors to their disempowerment in Kenya’s aquaculture sector. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 534 male and female fish farmers from 300 households drawn from six counties in Kenya (Kakamega, Kisumu, Kisii, Kiambu, Meru and Nyeri). The Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI) was adapted to Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Fisheries and Aquaculture Index (A-WEFI) to suit the aquaculture and fisheries sub-sector. The adapted A-WEFI was then used to estimate and the status of women’s and men’s using five domains of empowerment (5DE) and a gender parity index (GPI). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Cramer’s V and sensitivity analysis as test statistics. Findings About 86% of the men and 80% of the women were classified as empowered. The mean score of the 5DE was 0.93 and 0.95 for women and men, respectively. In addition, 82% of the households achieved gender parity, suggesting that for such households, empowerment of men was no greater than that of women. Overall, the results suggest no major differences between the empowerment of women and men. Findings suggest areas of improvement in empowerment: when observed separately, women report lack of agency in production, resource, time-use and allocation and leadership. Originality/value This paper adapts the A-WEAI to the fisheries and aquaculture context, in bid to bridge the gap in standard women’s empowerment measurement methods in this area. Also, there are limited empirical studies on the multifaceted empowerment of women in aquaculture in Kenya. The findings are meant to serve as a point of reference for policymakers, as they develop gender-responsive intervention programmes, and in implementing gender mainstreaming in Kenya.
Where women in agri-food systems are at highest climate risk: A methodology for mapping climate-agriculture-gender inequality hotspots
(Journal Article, 2023-11-06) Lecoutere, Els; Mishra, Avni; Singaraju, Niyati; Koo, Jawoo; Azzarri, Carlo; Chanana, Nitya; Nico, Gianluigi; Puskur, Ranjitha
Climate change poses a greater threat for more exposed and vulnerable countries, communities and social groups. People whose livelihood depends on the agriculture and food sector, especially in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), face significant risk. In contexts with gendered roles in agri-food systems or where structural constraints to gender equality underlie unequal access to resources and services and constrain women's agency, local climate hazards and stressors, such as droughts, floods, or shortened crop-growing seasons, tend to negatively affect women more than men and women's adaptive capacities tend to be more restrained than men's . Transformation towards just and sustainable agri-food systems in the face of climate change will not only depend on reducing but also on averting aggravated gender inequality in agri-food systems. In this paper, we developed and applied an accessible and versatile methodology to identify and map localities where climate change poses high risk especially for women in agri-food systems because of gendered exposure and vulnerability. We label these localities climate-agriculture-gender inequality hotspots. Applying our methodology to LMICs reveals that the countries at highest risk are majorly situated in Africa and Asia. Applying our methodology for agricultural activity-specific hotspot subnational areas to four focus countries, Mali, Zambia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, for instance, identifies a cluster of districts in Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions in Bangladesh as a hotspot for rice. The relevance and urgency of identifying localities where climate change hits agri-food systems hardest and is likely to negatively affect population groups or sectors that are particularly vulnerable is increasingly acknowledged in the literature and, in the spirit of leaving no one behind, in climate and development policy arenas. Hotspot maps can guide the allocation of scarce resources to most at-risk populations. The climate-agriculture-gender inequality hotspot maps show where women involved in agri-food systems are at high climate risk while signaling that reducing this risk requires addressing the structural barriers to gender equality.
Measuring women’s empowerment in agriculture: Innovations and evidence
(Journal Article, 2023-09-15) Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Cole, Steven M.; Elias, Marlène; Faas, Simone; Galiè, Alessandra; Malapit, Hazel J.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Myers, Emily; Seymour, Greg; Twyman, Jennifer
This paper addresses women's empowerment in agriculture, innovations in its measurement, and emerging evidence. We discuss the evolution of the conceptualization and measurement of women's empowerment and gender equality since 2010. Using a gender and food systems framework and a standardized measure of women's empowerment, the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), we review the evidence on “what works” to empower women based on impact evaluations of a portfolio of 11 agricultural development projects with empowerment objectives and a scoping review of livestock interventions. We then review the evidence on associations between empowering women and societal benefits--agricultural productivity, incomes, and food security and nutrition. We conclude with recommendations for measurement and policy.
Changes in women’s empowerment in the household, women’s diet diversity, and their relationship against the background of COVID-19 in southern Bangladesh
(Journal Article, 2023-02) Lecoutere, Els; Berg, Marrit van den; Brauw, Alan de
The COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh, associated public health measures, and people’s reactions were projected to have caused job losses among women, a decline in women’s empowerment and reduced women’s diet diversity. Using a November 2020 telephone survey to re-interview adult female respondents of a November 2019 in-person survey, contrary to expectations we find that more women found than lost jobs, and women’s diet diversity increased over the year partly marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. We did not find evidence of a decline in women’s involvement in food purchase decisions, nor women’s autonomy over use of household income. The change in women’s outside employment is neither statistically related to changes in women’s involvement in food purchase decisions, changes women’s autonomy over use of household income, nor changes in women’s diet diversity. Change in women’s involvement in food purchase decisions is positively related with change in women’s diet diversity and change in women’s autonomy over income use is negatively related with change in women’s diet diversity.
A One Health approach to plant health
(Journal Article, 2022-09-29) Hoffmann, Vivian; Paul, Birthe K.; Falade, Titilayo D.O.; Moodley, Arshnee; Ramankutty, N.; Olawoye, J.; Djouaka, R.; Lekei, E.; Haan, Nicoline C. de; Ballantyne, Peter G.; Waage, Jeff
One Health has been defined as an approach to the pursuit of public health and well-being that recognizes the interconnections between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment. In this opinion piece, based on a webinar of the same name, we argue that a One Health perspective can help optimize net benefits from plant protection, realizing food security and nutrition gains while minimizing unintentional negative impacts of plant health practices on people, animals and ecosystems. We focus on two primary trade-offs that lie at the interface of plant health with animal, ecosystem, and human health: protecting plant health through use of agrochemicals versus minimizing risks to human health and antimicrobial and insecticide resistance; and ensuring food security by prioritizing the health of crops to maximize agricultural production versus protecting environmental systems critical for human health. We discuss challenges and opportunities for advancement associated with each of these, taking into account how the priorities and constraints of stakeholders may vary by gender, and argue that building the capacity of regulatory bodies in low- and middle-income countries to conduct cost–benefit analysis has the potential to improve decision-making in the context of these and other multi-dimensional trade-offs.
Understanding gendered trait preferences: Implications for client-responsive breeding programs
(Journal Article, 2022-08-30) McDougall, Cynthia; Kariuki, Juliet; Lenjiso, Birhanu Mergesa; Marimo, Pricilla; Mehar, Mamta; Murphy, Seamus; Teeken, Béla; Akester, Michael J.; Benzie, John A.H.; Galiè, Alessandra; Kulakow, Peter A.; Mekkawy, Wagdy; Nkengla-Asi, Lilian; Ojango, Julie M.K.; Tumuhimbise, Robooni; Uwimana, Brigitte; Orr, Alastair
Client-responsiveness is a foundation for effectiveness of public sector breeding programs in agriculture, aquaculture and livestock. However, there remains a considerable lack of clarity about what this means, specifically in terms of how programs can be gender-responsive. This study contributes to addressing that need. It does so through sharing higher-level insights emerging from the combined experiences of eight gendered trait preference cases from across nine countries in Asia and Africa. The cases spanned crops, fish and livestock. This study inquires into the nature of gendered trait preference information that can be generated, if there are systematic gendered preference differences and how to understand these, and implications for breeding programs seeking to be more gender-responsive. Key findings include that while not all data are immediately usable by programs, the information that is generated through mixed method, intersectional gender preference assessments usefully deepens and widens programs’ knowledge. The study evidences differences in trait preferences between women and men. It also reveals that these differences are more complex than previously thought. In doing so, it challenges binary or homogenous models of preferences, suggesting instead that preferences are likely to be overlapping and nuanced. The study applies a novel ‘Three models of gendered trait preferences’ framework and sub-framework and finds these useful in that they challenge misconceptions and enable a needed analytical nuance to inform gender-responsive breeding programs. Finally, the study highlights implications and offers a call to action for gender-responsive breeding, proposing ways forward for public breeding programs, teams and funding agencies. These include investments in interdisciplinary capabilities and considerations for navigating trade-offs while orienting to sustainable development goals.
Hiding or pleasing: Spousal disagreement among Ugandan maize farmers
(Journal Article, 2023-01-02) Van Campenhout, Bjorn; Lecoutere, Els; Spielman, David J.
To gain a better understanding of intrahousehold bargaining processes, surveys increasingly collect data from co-heads individually, especially on decision-making, asset ownership and labour contributions. However, answers provided by co-heads to the same set of questions often differ substantially. Recent research suggests that while some of this disagreement is due to random measurement error and cognitive bias, part also reflects non-overlapping information sets. We document differences in answers between male and female co-heads in monogamous smallholder maize-farming households in Uganda. We first confirm that not all disagreement can be explained by measurement error or bias. Using a field experiment, we then test if disagreement is due to information asymmetry between male and female co-heads. We also test an alternative explanation where discord is attributed to co-heads’ tendency to respond in line with prevailing gender norms and social customs. While the interventions did seem to reduce discord in survey response about decision-making, we do not find that information asymmetry nor reporting in line with gender norms and customs are the primary drivers of disagreement.
Empowering women in dairy cooperatives in Bihar and Telangana, India: A gender and caste analysis
(Journal Article, 2021-09-15) Ravichandran, Thanammal; Farnworth, Cathy Rozel; Galiè, Alessandra
Assessing women’s empowerment, participation, and engagement in aquaculture in Bangladesh
(Journal Article, 2024-10) Njogu, Lucy; Adam, Rahma; Farnworth, Cathy Rozel
Women’s empowerment and gender equality are key goals for development and human rights. However, a significant gap still exists in achieving these twin goals. Formulating appropriate strategies for women’s empowerment requires first understanding context-specific patterns and sources of disempowerment. We use data collected using a questionnaire survey from 1653 households in Rangpur and Rajshahi districts in Bangladesh. Guided by an analytic tool that measures women’s empowerment, inclusion and agency (the project level Women’s Empowerment in Fisheries and aquaculture Index (pro-WEFI)), and using seven empowerment indicators, we provide findings on the status of women’s empowerment, participation, and engagement in aquaculture in Bangladesh. Results show that women were highly involved in making household decisions, mainly jointly with their husbands. However, data suggest a substantial gap in women’s access to financial services, in participation in aquaculture activities, and in access to and control over productive capital and remuneration for aquaculture labor. Finally, despite some women achieving adequacy on some indicators, most women in fish farming households in Bangladesh lack adequacy on many of the selected indicators.

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