Implementing gender transformative approaches in agriculture
This discussion paper (PDF) by the CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research provides an understanding of the Gender Transformative Approaches (GTAs) and highlight implications for their implementations by the United Nations Rome-Based Agencies (RBAs). GTAs are a response to a call for an alternative to the “business as usual” approach to gender integration, which is needed to address structural change, move beyond instrumentalist interventions and to address the underling causes of gender inequality. Key conceptual distinctions of GTAs include understanding gender as a social relation as opposed to focusing solely on gender roles. A main difference between women’s empowerment and GTAs is that GTAs insit on working with both women and men to transform social relations. Three tenets lie behind GTAs as supporters of change: 1) Changes are fostered in three domains: individual capacities, gendered expectations and institutional rules and practices; 2) The changes lead to more and better livelihood choices; 3) The changes lead to an expansion in their potential. The implementation of GTAs has entailed a number of specific methodologies. The first are participatory strategies for implementing GTAs, which are characterized by their potential to encourage critical self‐reflection and selfawareness via social learning. The second concerns capacity-stregthening and organizational learning, drawing on principles of transformative learning. The potential of GTAs lies in the radical proposition of attempting to address the foundations of gender inequity. The paper concludes with a number of implications for development agencies to consider when thinking about adopting GTAs. These include the need for conceptual clarity and integrity; the role of external agents in normative change; approaches to learning about, and capacity‐strengthening for, implementing GTAs; problematizing the scaling of GTAs; and the need for organizational introspection and preparedness.