Subsistence production: a sign of market failure. Commercialization cannot be left to the market. Household effects of commercialization. Nutrition effects of commercialization. Policy action needed.

In this paper, the authors describe the adaptation and validation of a project-level WEAI (or pro-WEAI) that agricultural development projects can use to identify key areas of women’s (and men’s) disempowerment, design appropriate strategies to address identified deficiencies, and monitor project outcomes related to women’s empowerment. The 12 pro-WEAI indicators are mapped to three domains: intrinsic agency (power within), instrumental agency (power to), and collective agency (power with). A gender parity index compares the empowerment scores of men and women in the same household. The authors describe the development of pro-WEAI, including: (1) pro-WEAI’s distinctiveness from other versions of the WEAI; (2) the process of piloting pro-WEAI in 13 agricultural development projects during the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, phase 2 (GAAP2); (3) analysis of quantitative data from the GAAP2 projects, including intrahousehold patterns of empowerment; and (4) a summary of the findings from the qualitative work exploring concepts of women’s empowerment in the project sites. The paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned from pro-WEAI and possibilities for further development of empowerment metrics.

The 'Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook' provides an up-to-date understanding of gender issues and a rich compilation of compelling evidence of good practices and lessons learned to guide practitioners in integrating gender dimensions into agricultural projects and programs. It is serves as a tool for: guidance; showcasing key principles in integrating gender into projects; stimulating the imagination of practitioners to apply lessons learned, experiences, and innovations to the design of future support and investment in the agriculture sector. The Sourcebook draws on a wide range of experience from World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and other donor agencies, governments, institutions, and groups active in agricultural development. The Sourcebook looks at: access to and control of assets; access to markets, information and organization; and capacity to manage risk and vulnerability through a gender lens. There are 16 modules covering themes of cross-cutting importance for agriculture with strong gender dimensions (Policy, Public Administration and Governance; Agricultural Innovation and Education; Food Security; Markets; Rural Finance; Rural Infrastructure; Water; Land; Labor; Natural Resource Management; and Disaster and Post-Conflict Management) and specific subsectors in agriculture (Crops, Livestock, Forestry, and Fisheries). A separate module on Monitoring and Evaluation is included, responding to the need to track implementation and development impact. Each module contains three different sub-units: (1) A Module Overview gives a broad introduction to the topic and provides a summary of major development issues in the sector and rationale of looking at gender dimension; (2) Thematic Notes provide a brief and technically sound guide in gender integration in selected themes with lessons learned, guidelines, checklists, organizing principles, key questions, and key performance indicators; and (3) Innovative Activity Profiles describe the design and innovative features of recent and exciting projects and activities that have been implemented or are ongoing.

Research objectives and policy setting; Conceptual framework and research design; Changes in land tenure patterns; Comparison of the corn and sugar production systems; Food expenditures and calorie intakes; Heights and weights of prschools children.

Women’s participation and empowerment in value chains are goals that concern many development organizations, but there has been limited systematic, rigorous research to track these goals between and within value chains (VCs). We use the survey-based project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) to measure women’s and men’s empowerment in the abaca, coconut, seaweed, and swine VCs in the Philippines. Results show that most women and men in all four VCs are disempowered, but unlike in many other countries, Filipino women in this sample are generally as empowered as men. Pro-WEAI results suggest that respect within the household and attitudes about gender-based violence (GBV) are the largest sources of disempowerment for both women and men, followed by control over use of income and autonomy in income-related decisions. Excessive workload and lack of group membership are other important sources of disempowerment, with some variation across VCs and nodes along VCs. Across all four VCs, access to community programs is associated with higher women’s empowerment, and access to extension services and education are associated with higher men’s empowerment. Our results show that, despite the egalitarian gender norms in the Philippines, persistent gender stereotypes influence men’s and women’s empowerment and VC participation.

Agricultural commercialization is often pursued as an important driver of agricultural transformation in low-income countries. However, the implications it can have on gendered outcomes are less understood. While agricultural commercialization creates opportunities to increase income, this may come at the expense of change in women’s decision-making agency and control over resources. Understanding the interactions between agricultural commercialization and gender outcomes is thus critical for policymakers aspiring to achieve agricultural transformation while promoting gender equity and the evidence on the links between the two in the context of Africa is scarce and mixed. We use three rounds of Ethiopia’s and Nigeria’s LSMS-ISA panel data to understand the implications of agricultural commercialization to gendered decision-making on crop harvest use, marketing, revenue control, asset ownership, and intrahousehold budget allocation. Results indicate commercialization is associated with decreases in women’s participation in decision-making related to use of harvest, crop marketing, and control over revenue in Ethiopia, but only on harvest use and control over revenue in Nigeria. The association with land ownership is mixed: positive in Ethiopia but negative in Nigeria. Moreover, commercialization is associated with decreases in women’s share of farm-workload but with increases in share of hired labor in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia we also find women’s control over revenue is positively associated with increases in per capita consumption expenditures and dietary diversity, but men’s control is negatively associated with increases in the share of expenditure on children’s shoes and clothes. In Nigeria, women’s control is positively associated with increases in the share of expenditure on women’s shoes and clothes, food gap, and dietary diversity. In sum, we find suggestive evidence that commercialization may further marginalize women’s decision-making agency in Ethiopia and Nigeria. However, conditional on women’s control over proceeds, commercialization tends to improve women’s as well as other members’ welfare. We provide some policy recommendations and directions for future research.

Based on a broad literature review, this publication discusses rural women’s time poverty in agriculture, elaborates on its possible causes and implications and provides insight into the various types of constraints that affect the adoption of solutions for reducing work burden. This paper raises questions about the adequacy of women’s access to technologies, services and infrastructure and about the control women have over their time, given their major contributions to agriculture. It also look s into the available labour-saving technologies, practices and services that can support women to better address the demands derived from the domestic and productive spheres and improve their well-being. The reader is presented with an overview of successfully-tested technologies, services and resource management practices in the context of water, energy, information and communication. The findings elaborated in this paper feed a set of recommendations provided for policy makers and development partners. A gender-transformative approach at community and household level is suggested as a way forward to promote women’s increased control over the allocation of their time.