Financing women farmers: The need to increase and redirect agriculture and climate adaptation resources
This briefing paper (PDF) by Oxfam finds that governments and donors are failing to provide women farmers with relevant and adequate support for farming and adapting to climate change. Oxfam conducted research on government and donor investments in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania. It found that funding in these countries is significantly lower than commitments that have been made, and there is little evidence of resources and technical assistance reaching women farmers. Female farmers face two compounding layers of exclusion: as smallholder farmers and as women. Low levels of government spending on agriculture and climate change mean that the share of resources that women farmers can receive is already limited. Resources are being diverted to priorities other than smallholder farmers. The authors recommend that governments should support women farmers by: 1) Allocating resources specifically to women farmers, rather than assuming that resources trickle down to women. 2) Collecting gender-disaggregated data throughout agriculture and climate change planning and implementation processes. 3) Targeting gender-based barriers that restrict women’s access to key farm inputs. 4) Supporting the participation of female farmers in local budget decision making. Next to the focus on women, governments should redirect resources to small-scale farming. This can be done for example by aligning funding to areas with high levels of poverty and providing resources to local governments.