1. Gender and Food Security
Jacqueline
Ashby
Senior Advisor,
Gender and
Research
CGIAR
Consortium

2. Topics
• Challenges for gender research in
food security
• Lessons from mainstreaming
gender in CGIAR Research
Programmes (CRPs)
• Opportunities and challenges:
operationalizing an effective gender
research programme

3. 1. Challenges for gender
research in food security
• The “gender
gap” in
agriculture
• Risks
• Opportunities

4. The “gender gap” in
agriculture (FAO, 2010)
In most regions of
the world, one out
of five farms is
headed by a
women
Women comprise
about 40% of
people working on
farms in low-
income countries
Mali women collect firewood for cooking on the dry bed of the Niger
River (photo on Flickr by United Nations).

5. The “gender gap” in
agriculture (FAO, 2010)
Inequalities between
women and men
producers:
• hold back agricultural
productivity ( causing
yield gaps of 20-25%)
• perpetuate poverty
and unsustainable
resource use
• make women more
vulnerable to climate-
change impacts on
agriculture
Photo P. Casier (CGIAR).

6. Example: gender
productivity gap in Ghana
• Women are not
confident of their
rights to hold land
left fallow.
• So women fallow
their plots less than
their husbands, and
achieve much lower
yields
Source: Goldstein et.al. 2008

7. The “gender gap” in
agriculture (FAO, 2010)
Pervasive inequalities between
women and men in:
• Assets for agriculture --land,
water, trees, fisheries, livestock,
especially insecure property
rights
• Labor markets
• Access to services- financial,
advisory, business development
• Knowledge and skills
• Technology
• Membership of farmer
organizations
• Policy
Mali women collect firewood for cooking on the dry bed of the Niger
River (photo on Flickr by United Nations).

8. Making the case: Why close the gender gap
in agriculture and food systems?

9. Risks of ignoring
the gender gap
• Women don’t buy
into proposed
technologies or
strategies if these
are inappropriate (eg.
more labor intensive)
• Women can’t access
or use information
about recommended
innovations
• Women oppose or
cannot invest in
needed innovations
Photo P. Casier (CGIAR).

10. Example: technology is not
adopted
Review of 24 multivariate studies of
technological input use, access, and adoption
fertilizer, seed varieties, tools, pesticide use,
access, and adoption.
• 79 percent of studies found men have higher
access to technologies
• 59 percent of studies found the farmer’s sex has
no significant effect on output once unequal
farm size, credit, capital, extension and other
factors are taken into account

11. Risks: women are worse off
and oppose innovations
• Innovations
increase drudgery
for women
• Women do not
share increases in
income when men
control marketing
• Thus, women face
different
incentives from
men
Photo P. Casier (CGIAR).

12. Case –Tanzania village studies
• Rainy season is now much shorter: farmers in the two
villages studied adapted by growing more drought-
tolerant crops.
• Faster-maturing sorghum and maize plus new varieties of
sesame and sunflower were introduced
• Increased marketing of food crops, sorghum and maize,
traditionally grown by women increased their workloads
• New crops-- sesame and sunflower-- increased income but
led to more weeding work for women.
• Women did not benefit from the profits: all grain is
typically sold by men, and women are less likely than
men to control the cash received.
Source: Nelson & Stathers 2009

13. Opportunity:
Transformative Approaches
• Female autonomy is
an important
determinant of
productivity and
earnings of rural
women producers
Source Buvinic 2013

14. Gender relations affect
autonomy in:
(1) Decisions about
agricultural production
and marketing
(2) Power over use of
resources like land, water
and livestock
(3) Control over food
availability, spending and
income
(4) Leadership in the
community and
bargaining power in
markets
(5) Time use and workloads

15. Example: improving value chains
without transforming autonomy.
• Women didn’t market
increased horticulture
production because
they don’t control the
land or the income
generated (Burkina
Faso & Uganda)
• Men removed dairy
cattle far away from
the homestead to
prevent women from
increasing their
household bargaining
power from sales of
milk (Kenya)
Source: Quisumbing et al 2013

16. Example: improved autonomy,
Mozambique
2002: the Towards Sustainable Nutrition Improvement
Project targeted improved vitamin intake among children
under five
•Sweet potato was a “women’s crop” in 72% of farms but
women sold it in only 48%
•Women farmers tested high-yielding varieties and were
directly involved in their evaluation and selection.
•Women and men of all ages identified practices that could
reduce women’s workloads
•RESULT: 90 percent of farmers adopted, vitamin A intake
increased 8 times for children in adopter households

17. Example: economic
empowerment
Decision power (54
Asian communities):
• Community-level gender
norms are more
important determinants
of empowerment than
women’s personal
characteristics (e.g.
education, landownership)
• Domestic violence is
equally important
Source: Mason & Smith 2003

18. 2. Lessons from mainstreaming
Gender in CGIAR Research
Programs (CRPs)
1981: first
position paper
on gender in the
CGIAR
2011: first
CGIAR-wide
gender research
strategy

19. Value Proposition: Gender and System Level
Outcomes

20. • Identify key barriers to
empowerment in
agriculture
• Increase scale, scope and
significance of gender
research
• Understand broad trends
in changing gender
relations that matter
• Work with
implementation partners
to design transformative
interventions
Core challenges of CRP
Gender Strategies

21. Core challenges of CRP
Gender Strategies
• Diagnose
o Barriers that research can
address
o Barriers that research can
address with partners
o Barriers best left to others
o Maximize extrapolation and
generalizability
• Improve the data and methods
– Collect better sex-
disaggregated data
– Drill down into gender
relations

22. Implement a program-wide
Gender Strategy
• Accountability

23. Gender Budget: a must!
• Many CRP proposals
lacked a gender
budget
• Dedicated funds for
gender research must
be earmarked at the
planning stage of
research
• Monitor performance

24. Clear Deliverables
All CRPs must:
•Have an approved gender
strategy that is
implemented within 6
months of their inception
•Report outputs with
demonstrable and
measurable benefits to
women farmers in target
areas within 4 years
following inception of the
CRP.
•By 2015 train and recruit
to ensure sufficient gender
expertise.
Objective
• To improve the relevance
of the CGIAR's research to
poor women as well as
men (reduced poverty and
hunger, improved health
and environmental
resilience) in all the
geographical areas where
the work is implemented
and targeted by end of
2012.
• By 2015 progress towards
these outcomes will be
measurable.

25. Hold programs accountable
CGIAR Consortium Board
approved policy states
that funds can be
withheld if Program plans
of work and budget or
annual reports do not
meet expected standards
of gender mainstreaming
i.e.
- Appropriate research outputs
and outcomes
- Adequate funds allocated
- Gender-responsive research
approaches
- Results that benefit men and
women and improve
women’s empowerment
Objective
• To improve the relevance
of the CGIAR's research to
poor women as well as
men (reduced poverty and
hunger, improved health
and environmental
resilience) in all the
geographical areas where
the work is implemented
and targeted by end of
2012.
• By 2015 progress towards
these outcomes will be
measurable.

26. Build Research Capacity
Gender Strategy
requires:
• high calibre social
scientists
•gender awareness and
accountability at all
management levels
•partnerships capable of
leveraging gender
equality for positive
impact

27. Gender Postdoctoral Fellows and
University Partnership Scheme
20 new postdoctoral
fellowships
3 University
partnerships for
mentoring research
quality

28. 3. Opportunities and challenges
operationalizing an effective
gender research programme
• Promote gender
awareness at all levels
• Ensure performance
monitoring of gender in
research and
accountability for its
deliverables
• Invest in capacity
development
• Install policy supporting
gender and diversity in
the workplace

29. Promising interventions linking gender
and food security
• A suite of
integrated
services designed
to reach poor
women farmers:
land rights,
farmer groups,
savings and
loans,
technologies and
training

30. Autonomy
EG. In Malawi, women
with profitable farms:
• Cultivate high value
cash (not subsistence)
crops
• Belong to village
savings and credit
unions
• Control farmland,
decide what to grow
and how to spend
their earnings
Source Dimova & Gang 2013

31. Thanks!
http://cgiar.org
How we do
research/
Research on
gender in
agriculture