Haven Ley, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

1. Social, cultural and gender-based
constraints to adoption
Contexts, solutions and what you can do to improve
impact
Haven D. Ley
Senior Program Officer, Agricultural Development
September 1, 2012

2. Narrative arc
Examples Solutions
Adoption Action
Gender
Tension
Impact
Resolution
September 4, 2012 © 2012 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | 2

4. Focusing Our Strategy
Building on the previous work of others
Learning from our work to date
Input from experts,
partners,
grantees, donors,
farmers, and
critics
Focus on the staple crops and livestock
with the greatest impact on the poor
September 4, 2012 © 2011 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | 4

5. Our theory of how change occurs for farmers

6. Challenges to technology adoption
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7. Focus on adoption has generated new thinking
and methodological interests
§ Context matters more than ever
Global
§ Geographic
Nation
§ Political
§ Cultural Ecosystem
§ Centering the farmer
§ Borrowing from good design processes
Community
Farm
Family
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9. Poor design may be a supply failure . . .
. . .but adoption can be simple if demand dictates
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10. Going a layer deeper. . .
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11. The resource gap between women and men
farmers undermines adoption and agricultural
impact
Ø Women farmers have
less access than men
to productive assets
Ø Closing this gender
gap could increase
yields on their farms
by 20–30%, and raise
total agricultural
output in developing
countries by 2.5–4%
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12. Gender provides an important framework for
understanding adoption challenges
§ Women, typically, have less access to the enablers of
adoption:
§ Land
§ Credit
§ Education or information
§ Labor
§ Preferences in determining beneficial technologies are distinct
§ Women’s preferences are less likely to be taken on board in
priority-setting and beta design
§ Not considered farmers
§ Political and time constraints
§ Representation in R & D efforts
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13. Note: The household economy complicates decisions about
adoption
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14. Who influences design and who adopts as a
result?
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15. Women’s technology preferences align with
their household responsibilities
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16. Good design processes can increase adoption
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17. Solutions already at work upstream
§ Linking farmers into the
innovation process
§ Training staff on participatory
design methods
§ Conducting gender analysis of
preferences and responsibilities
Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in
prior to trait prioritization
Triticum (WIT) Award for early-career
women wheat researchers § Increasing women’s
representation in priority setting
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18. Our expectations for good design:
Ø Analytical research:
Know her
Ø Design measures:
Design for her
Ø Feedback and
accountability: Be
accountable to her
September 4, 2012 © 2010 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | 18

19. Thank You
© 2012 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries.