gender

This report elaborates on how increased youth involvement in the agricultural value chain can improve food security and diminish youth unemployment. The study assesses where in the farming systems and the agricultural value chain youth is present and tries to understand the perspectives of youth towards agriculture. The study identifies the conditions that influence the involvement of male and female youth in maize and potato value chains in Ethiopia and Kenya. »

This report shows the central role of African rural women within agricultural systems and their contribution to diversity, climate change resilience and nutrition. The report focuses on the role of women in knowledge systems of seeds and the challenges they face from agri-business practices and seed monopoly laws. It elaborates on how the complexity of this knowledge has evolved through women’s relationship with land and seed, and their understanding of the nutritional and cultural needs of the family and community. »

This paper elaborates on the role of gender-sensitive rural advisory services (RAS) in addressing gender inequalities. RAS programmes have often fallen short of expectations to design and implement relevant services to help rural women and men achieve food security and generate more income. This paper is based on an examination of a broad selection of existing literature on gender-sensitive RAS. »

This policy brief tries to focus attention to women farmers in changing climates. Agriculture is one sector that will be particularly hard hit by a changing climate and to respond and adapt to global climate change, agricultural producers (particularly those in developing countries) will need to embrace new, more sustainable technologies and practices. However, when it comes to discussing climate-smart agricultural practices, one group often seems left out: women. The policy brief presents five key policy recommendations to better address women’s roles in both agriculture and climate change adaptation. »

This concise report by UNWomen estimates the monetary value of the gender gap, its associated costs and the effectiveness of certain policies and interventions in agricultural productivity. The report focuses on the countries Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. However, the analysis can be replicated by policy makers from other countries since the methodology and data used to quantify the costs of the gender gap and to determine to what extend different factors contribute to the gender gap are aptly presented in two Appendices. »

This article elaborates on the challenges of collecting sex-disaggregated data. While sex-disaggregated data collection is seen as an important step toward understanding women’s contributions to agriculture and including a gender perspective in agricultural research or development, social norms both in farming communities and research organizations often limit the amount of data collected from women. This reinforces the notion that women are not farmers or producers. »