An inception workshop for the Gender, Agriculture & Assets Project Phase 2 (GAAP2) titled Developing Project-Level Indicators to Measure Women’s Empowerment was held in January 2016. In this presentation, Nancy Johnson of IFPRI discusses how the project level WEAI (pro-WEAI) will be constructed in GAAP2 and talks about the structure of GAAP2 and the different components of the project.

1. Building a WEAI for project use:
Overview of GAAP2 for pro-WEAI
Nancy Johnson
Agnes Quisumbing
Ruth Meinzen-Dick

2. What projects want from WEAI
 More streamlined, easier to collect indicators that can be
part of regular M&E
 Better adaptability to their own project contexts, specifics
of their own intervention
 In some cases, modules related to mobility, gender-based
violence, reproductive health, self-confidence, political
participation (CARE), shocks/resilience (FAO/IFAD),
agricultural extension (iDE/IWMI), etc.
 Better understanding of the qualitative aspects of
empowerment (how and why?)

3. What projects want from WEAI
Depending on the project
 More detail on some areas (livestock), less detail in others
(crops) for a livestock project, the reverse for crop projects
 Extends beyond agriculture
 Greater emphasis on autonomy in different spheres (control over
income or participation in labor force, not necessarily agricultural
decisions)
 Ability to tackle dimensions of empowerment that relate to
health and nutrition outcomes

4. GAAP2 for pro-WEAI
 A second phase of the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project
(GAAP)
 supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID,
and CRP on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH)
 Builds on approach of GAAP1 (2009-2013)
 Portfolio of 8 agricultural development projects in South
Asia and Africa
 Incorporated indicators of women’s access to, ownership
of and control over assets into existing impact
evaluations

5. GAAP2 for pro-WEAI
 Innovations in GAAP2 (2015-2020)
 Develop and pilot a WEAI for project use (pro-WEAI)
 Larger portfolio (16 projects) selected to enable
clustering by
 Commodity focus (crops, livestock)
 Project goal (income, nutrition)
 Strategies to empower women
 More opportunities for learning and sharing across
projects

6. Tentative GAAP2 project portfolio-
Goal x commodity clusters
Income Nutrition Both
Crops
3D4AgDev
(Malawi)
MOA-ANGeL
(Bangladesh)
BRAC-TRAIN
(Bangladesh)
AVRDC (Mali)
DAI –AVC (Bangladesh)
IFPRI-WLE (Ghana)
Bioversity (Mali)
Livestock Project Mesha
(India--Bihar)
Heifer (Nepal)
Trias (Tanzania)
Both WINGS (India)
HKI-FAARM
(Bangladesh)
CARE Pathways (Mali and
Ghana)
Feed the Future Nigeria-CRS
(Nigeria)
Freedom from Hunger
(Burkina Faso)
JP-RWEE (Ethiopia)

7. Strategies that projects are using to reach and
empower women
 Target women and monitor whether they are being reached
 Involve women in project activities (e.g., trainings) and
ensure they receive benefits (e.g., new technologies, cash
or asset transfers)
 Involve women in prioritizing and designing innovations
 Strengthen women’s involvement in collective action, e.g.,
through group formation, to enable them to access and to
benefit from opportunities
 Many projects include innovative financial mechanisms
 Raise awareness and change attitudes about gender norms
and roles in social and political institutions (e.g., family,
community, markets, state agencies)

8. How will GAAP2 work?
 Develop WEAI modules that individual projects can choose from
 Customize A-WEAI for a specific type of project
 Add modules not included in A-WEAI
 Each project pilots its pro-WEAI in its (baseline) data collection
 Analysis, validation, sharing of findings about pro-WEAI modules; revisions
to modules as needed
 Projects pilot revised modules in subsequent rounds of data collection
 Analysis
 of project impacts on women’s empowerment, as measured by pro-WEAI and
other indicators
 Comparative analysis and synthesis of project impacts on a range of outcome
indicators
 Finalize pro-WEAI modules and protocols for broader dissemination

9. Who is in GAAP2?
 Project teams -implementers and M&E partners
 GAAP core team —PIs, program manager, research
assistants, virtual team facilitator (Radical Inclusion)
 Project liaisons – researchers from IFPRI and other
CGIAR centers, Cultural Practice, Yale University
 2 CG gender research fellows
 OPHI – support on index development
 AWARD and BRAC University– capacity building, lead
development of training materials based on pro-WEAI
content
 2 AWARD placements will work with projects on
pro-WEAI
 External Advisory Committee

10. GAAP2 Core Team,
Project Liaisons,
AWARD, OPHI
GAAP2 Projects
Community of Practice
Pro-WEAI
Community of
Practice
M&E Teams
Broader
public
Project
Implementers
Research and
Capacity
Strengthening
PIs

11. Communities of Practice
What is a community of practice (COP)?
 Both physical and virtual, facilitated network of projects,
implementers, researchers, M&E specialists, etc.
GAAP2 CoP for GAAP2 participants
 Cross-project opportunities beyond annual meetings for project
teams to interact, share, and learn from one another.
 Opportunity to share experiences, questions, and emerging
insights
 Facilitated by Radical Inclusion
Pro-WEAI CoP for anyone interested in pro-WEAI
 Starts slowly and grows as pro-WEAI develops.
 Housed on the WEAI Resource Center, based at IFPRI.
http://www.ifpri.org/topic/weai-resource-center

12. Thank you. Questions?