Cross-cutting challenges to food security
Gender
Image: via Flickr (by: CIAT)
Gender relations are among the key determinants of food and nutrition security. Women and men have different roles and positions in agriculture and in the food system as a whole with these changing over time. This Knowledge Portal topic page includes evidence on the importance of closing the gender gap in agriculture and the food system, tools used for gendered analyses and reviews, and news about innovative approaches to eradicate gender inequality in food systems.
Academic article
Article
Blog
Book
Briefing
Case study
Database
Discussion paper
Evaluation report
Expert meeting
Expert opinion
Factsheet
Guide/ Handbook
Magazine
Other
Paper
Policy report
Publication
Report
Research paper
Toolkit
Webinar
Working paper
Afghanistan
Africa
Asia
Bangladesh
Belize
Benin
Bolivia
Burkina Faso
Cambodia
Cameroon
Colombia
DR Congo
East Africa
Ecuador
Ethiopia
Ghana
Global
Guatemala
India
Kenya
Kyrgyzstan
Latin America
Liberia
Malawi
Mali
Mexico
Moldova
Mozambique
Nepal
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
North Africa
Pakistan
Peru
Philippines
Rwanda
Senegal
South-Africa
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Southern Africa
Sri Lanka
Sub-Saharan Africa
Tajikistan
Tanzania
the Caribbean
Timor-Leste
Togo
Uganda
Vietnam
West Africa
Zambia
Zimbabwe
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
Remove all filters
Filter results
Results found:
September 23rd, 2020
Published by CGAP, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank Group and Women's World Bankin, August 3rd, 2020
This paper on gender intentional digital cash transfers in the time of COVID-19, offers guidance and considerations for policymakers to support women's inclusion and empowerment. Broadly speaking, women should have space and a voice at the table. It is critical that women are heard in positions of leadership in order to influence and inform the design, implementation and adjustments of programs. »
August 28th, 2020
Published by CARE, August 18th, 2020
This report demonstrates how women and girls are disproportionately affected—as producers, providers, and consumers of food—and systemically excluded from response reports and plans related to food and nutrition security during the COVID-19 pandemic. Food insecurity is already hitting women in severe ways. Women eat less and last. CARE is already seeing this tendency in the COVID19 pandemic. »
July 29th, 2020
Published by RUAF, July 1st, 2020
This Urban Agriculture magazine identifies the ways in which gender and inclusivity have been neglected in urban food policy, practice and research. There is an urgent need for many more cities and city regions to work on issues surrounding all genders in urban food systems. It is crucial that responses do not just involve application of technocratic frameworks and that they move beyond gender awareness and mainstreaming to enablethe reversal of pervasive and systemic intersectional inequalities. »
June 4th, 2020
Published by Rural Sociology, May 13th, 2020
This study examines how development interventions that target women affect household well‐being, especially food insecurity, empower women, and transform gendered power relations. »
May 25th, 2020
Published by Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Horticulture, September 19th, 2019
This webinar introduces key definitions of gender equity and strategies for implementing gender equity approaches into projects. The workshops discusses key definitions of vocabulary to effectively integrate gender equity into projects. Women's empowerment is a critical aspect of gender integration in horticulture as women make up a large percentage of farmers and are a key linkage to household nutrition. »
May 15th, 2020
Published by Hivos, May 14th, 2020
This report aimed to establish the impact of Covid-19 on women workers in the horticulture sector. This was assessed with special focus on employment status, living conditions, shifts in household expenses and outlook for the future. A rapid assessment indicates that food security is a major concern mainly due to job losses and increasing food prices. »
April 15th, 2020
Published by FAO, December 13th, 2019
This paper aims to give an overview of the variety of challenges and opportunities linked to the promotion of women’s access to finance in rural contexts, while also presenting a number of good practices which can be adopted to foster inclusion. Rural women face several constraints that limit their access to financial services, such as sociocultural, economic/legal and in some cases educational barriers. On the other hand, financial institutions also face constraints extending services to rural women. »
February 27th, 2020
Published by NpM, Platform for Inclusive Finance, January 1st, 2020
This report analyses the position of women in the maize and bean value chains in Rwanda, as well as the current and potential role of financial service providers (FSPs) in strengthening the positioning of women in these chains. »
January 22nd, 2020
Published by CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research, June 3rd, 2019
This discussion paper provides an understanding of the Gender Transformative Approaches (GTAs) and highlight implications for their implementations by the United Nations Rome-Based Agencies (RBAs). The potential of GTAs lies in the radical proposition of attempting to address the foundations of gender inequity. The implications for implementation 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. »
December 4th, 2019
Published by IDH, November 25th, 2019
This toolkit showcases ways to integrate gender aspects into supply chain approaches, through nine practical cases. he first section describes practical case examples for ways in which gender has been addressed in sustainability projects. The second section, the gender guide, explores opportunties to integrate gender aspect in different programming steps of projects and inventions. »
November 13th, 2019
Published by NpM, Platform for Inclusive Finance, July 27th, 2019
This paper analyzed three cases on women's access to financial services in agriculture and revealed that an increased access empowered women. Recommended is to develop a focus on female clients, starting by a proper market analysis, and to use communication channels that women are familiar with... »
August 14th, 2019
Published by KIT Royal Tropical Institute, February 1st, 2019
This working paper discusses the interface between gender and agricultural innovation systems. More specifically, the working paper investigates how gender norms and roles influence social relations between actors in forage innovation systems in rural Afghanistan. »
July 25th, 2019
Published by Climatic Change Journal, May 22nd, 2019
This article analyzes the extent of gender integration in agricultural and natural resource policies in Uganda and Tanzania, and how gender is budgeted for in implementation plans at district and lower governance level. Work remains to be done to move towards more effective execution of gender mainstreaming in policy and practice. To do so, there is an apparent need to improve the understanding of gender (mainstreaming) as well as to build the capacity of policy makers and development practitioners across governance levels. »
May 15th, 2019
Published by IFPRI, May 1st, 2019
This study examined the gendered differences in women’s and men’s involvement in emerging markets for rice and wheat reaper-harvester machinery services in Bangladesh. The study shows that women benefit from managing and sometimes owning machinery services, as well as from the direct and indirect consequences of hiring such services to harvest their crops. However, a number of technical, economic, and cultural barriers appear to constrain female participation. »
May 1st, 2019
Published by Women's Studies International Forum, May 1st, 2019
This paper takes a discourse analytical perspective on gender policy and budgeting and examines what happens to gender issues in agriculture and climate change adapation when they are mainstramed and domesticated in different governance levels. The study finds that while the international norm of gender mainstreaming has been formally adopted in Uganda, its transformational potential was reduced through five distinct processes during norm translation. »
March 21st, 2019
Published by Gender, Technology and Development journal, February 5th, 2019
This article examined whether the concept of tempered radicals, developed originally to interrogate change processes in organizations, has validity in rural agricultural settings. Whilst both women and men innovators face considerable challenges, women, in particular, are precariously located ‘outsiders within,’ negotiating carefully between norm and sanction. »
March 6th, 2019
Published by UNU-WIDER, February 1st, 2019
This paper analyses the implication of contract farming on gender inequalities, both within and across households, in rural Mozambique. Emerging market opportunities per se do not mean that women will be necessarily included and empowered, or that gender inequalities will be reduced. »
February 28th, 2019
Published by SSRN, February 20th, 2019
This paper synthesizes qualitative research conducted conjointly with quantitative surveys, to develop a project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI). Economic status was an important component, meaning that empowered women can take care of themselves, their families, and their communities. Conceptions of empowerment among researchers may diverge from those of rural women and men in different contexts. Future development programming and research should be more sensitive to the norms and beliefs shaping rural livelihoods to improve outcomes... »
February 27th, 2019
Published by CIMMYT, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, December 3rd, 2018
This report outlines how an insufficient focus on the barriers women face continues to have a significant impact on the agricultural productivity, economic growth and food security in Ethiopia. Many government and project partners do not know how to assist with the social and gender norm changes necessary to ensure women can benefit from development equitably. »
January 17th, 2019
Published by CGIAR-Fish, January 14th, 2019
This brief uses a gender lens to understand the nuanced gaps, perceptions and practices of ownership in aquaculture in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, however, there remains a large gendered gap in asset ownership. Ownership is perceived and experienced differently by men and women: women more often experience psychological ownership while men more frequently claim legal ownership... »
December 20th, 2018
Published by CCAFS-CGIAR, December 6th, 2018
This brief summarizes the results of a literature review on equity, empowerment and gender relations for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) programming. A wider and more equitable gender sensitivity is now seen amongst policy makers and local government, with a corresponding enhanced and out-scaled uptake on CSA. »
December 4th, 2018
Published by SNV, CDI, KIT, SDC, November 1st, 2018
This technical paper summarises key findings and lessons learnt from applying an intra-household dynamics lens to nutrition. The results highlight the importance of longer-time frame and value of targeting different household members to change deeply entrenched norms which impact women’s decision making around what food is prepared. »
November 29th, 2018
Published by Food Policy Journal, December 3rd, 2018
This article examines the relationship between women's empowerment in agriculture and indicators of individual dietary quality. The findings suggest that women’s empowerment is associated with better dietary quality of individuals within the household, but the strength of this association varies across the life course. »
November 14th, 2018
Published by Feed the Future , June 8th, 2018
This policy brief explores gender dynamics in emerging markets for agricultural machinery service provision in Bangladesh. Women benefit form managing and sometimes owning machinery services, as well as from the direct and indirect consequences of hiring such services to harvest their crops. However, a number of technical, economic and cultural barriers constrain women's full participation in these benefits. »
October 26th, 2018
Published by IFPRI, October 18th, 2018
This paper aims to to shed light on whether an intervention targeted at men can achieve increases in women’s market participation in agriculture.These results suggest that simple encouragement can be an effective tool to nudge men to include their wives in household commercial activities. »
October 17th, 2018
Published by ICRISAT, March 12th, 2018
This brief proposes that engaging women through innovation platforms in the inclusive processes of technology and market development can accelerate transitions towards greater sustainability, food security, nutrition, education and health. Innovation platforms are important to keep the dialog open. »
September 7th, 2018
Published by PLOS ONE, May 31st, 2018
This study examines the effects of women’s empowerment in agriculture on maize productivity, which may have differential effects depending on whether a plot is managed jointly by a man and a woman, or individually. A positive relationship between maize productivity and women’s empowerment in agriculture is shown. »
August 28th, 2018
Published by USAID and CGIAR-CCAFS, August 8th, 2018
This brief highlights some key challenges to achieving socially inclusive access to climate information ad present promising pathways for developing gender-sensitive communication channels. Gender-based factors can influence differing access to communication channels for women and men. »
August 23rd, 2018
Published by CIMMYT, January 1st, 2018
This policy brief examines gender norms relating to behaviour, innovation, technology, and agency in four Ethiopian villages. Gender inequality negatively impacts economy, food and nutrition security, women’s wellbeing, and child welfare, but can be reduced by building on good practices and creating equitable learning. »
August 15th, 2018
Published by Climatic Change Journal, August 3rd, 2018
This study presents a methodology to identify hotspots where climate change adaptation and gender based interventions could be prioritized. Climate change adaptation interventions can be better targeted by being linked with a type of climatic risks experienced by women farmers and their social profile. »
July 24th, 2018
Published by ILRI, July 2nd, 2018
This literature review focusses on the socio-economic, gender and marketing aspects of chicken production in the tropics. Chicken production is the main stay of livelihoods of most rural households in developing countries. Large number of women in the household are actively engaged in chicken production. »
July 5th, 2018
Published by SNV, June 1st, 2018
A publication series shares the experiences and initial impact of the first round of gender-transformative Household Dialogues conducted in Kenya and Vietnam in 2017. The household dialogue sessions impacted rural women and men in that they are now open to reflecting on and rethinking gender norms. »
June 12th, 2018
Published by Agriculture and Human Values Journal, April 25th, 2018
This paper complements the literature on gender and technology adoption, which largely focuses on reasons for low rates of female technology adoption, by shifting attention to what happens within a household after it adopts a technology. »
May 16th, 2018
Published by AgriProFocus, April 12th, 2018
This magazine on gender in the agrifood sector focuses on the practical implementation of the available tools and knowledge. What are the obstacles in implementing gender strategies and how can we overcome these? What are the success stories and what can we learn from them? »
April 26th, 2018
Published by FAO, March 1st, 2018
This guiding note aims to conceptualize and raise awareness on the nexus between gender equality and food loss while offering practical guidance on and tools for integrating gender concerns into the carrying out of food loss case studies and the planning and implementation of reduction strategies and interventions. »
February 16th, 2018
Published by Aquaculture Journal, December 28th, 2017
This paper aims to elucidate current knowledge of gendered engagement in and returns from aquaculture value chains. It presents a review of existing evidence on gender issues in aquaculture value chains and the potential results for value chain performance and potential upgrading pathways. »
January 22nd, 2018
Published by Journal of Rural Studies, January 8th, 2018
This article shows a gendered mapping of the structure and coordination of traditional cassava value chains in Tanzania. In contrast to global high value chains, traditional food value chains and associated gender relations as well as power dynamics within households have received little attention. »
December 20th, 2017
Published by CFS, July 1st, 2017
This report was presented in preparation for the Forum on Women’s Empowerment in the context of Food Security and Nutrition. This forum brought together a wide range of stakeholders to discuss the challenges that remain in realizing women’s empowerment and to promote a shared understanding of the need to achieve gender equality and the full realization of women's rights in the context of food security and nutrition. »
December 12th, 2017
Published by Climate Technology Centre & Network, October 31st, 2017
This chapter in the book 'Climate-smart agriculture manual for agriculture education in Zimbabwe' addresses the critical links of gender with climate change and agriculture. In Zimbabwe and the rest of the developing world, both women and men are smallholders, yet the role that women play is often unrecognized. »
November 23rd, 2017
Published by IFPRI, March 22nd, 2017
This discussion paper provides a unique overview of changes in gender patterns in agriculture during more than 20 years in Ghana. At a time when donors and governments are increasing efforts to mainstream gender in agriculture, it is critical to revisit long-standing wisdom about rural women and men farmers to be able to more efficiently design and evaluate policy interventions. »
October 31st, 2017
Published by IITA Africa RISING, September 18th, 2017
This evaluation report aims to provide guidance in understanding gender dynamics in central Malawi to improve gender integration in agronomic practices and technologies being promoted by Africa RISING. Focus group discussions were held with 148 male and female farmers and complemented by key informant interviews. »
October 20th, 2017
Published by Oxfam international, October 13th, 2017
This briefing paper 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. »
September 12th, 2017
Published by CGIAR-A4NH, August 30th, 2017
This blog discusses the challenges associated with collecting time-use data in developing countries. Data from Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index surveys are used to compare the most commonly used methods of data collection to measure time: stylized survey questions and time diaries. »
September 4th, 2017
Published by Global Donor Platform, July 24th, 2017
This report explains the extent to which donor-supported agribusiness initiatives engage with the gender transformative agenda. A methodology for analyzing agribusiness projects from a gender perspective was developed to review gender-related initiatives at the field level and in project management. »
August 23rd, 2017
Published by SNV, July 1st, 2017
This blog elaborates on the how behavioral change within the household can accelerate women's empowerment. Whereas increasing access to inputs, finance, markets and knowledge for female farmers makes sense in areas where access is lacking, it is also important to examine factors that could influence whether female farmers will actually make use of this access and benefit from it. »
August 16th, 2017
Published by International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, June 11th, 2017
This article reflects on key findings from integrated quantitative and qualitative analyses at the nexus of gender, agricultural development, and climate change. The results highlights significant and nuanced gender differences in adaptive capacity of individuals and communities to respond to climate change. »
July 20th, 2017
Published by SNV, May 1st, 2017
This blog elaborates on the challenges and opportunities for women's economic empowerment in agriculture. It states that over the past several years, there has been increasing evidence regarding the importance of women’s economic participation, both for the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality, as well as for the economic well-being of families, communities, sectors and nations. »
July 18th, 2017
Published by SNV, February 1st, 2017
This learning document describes the outcomes of a gender analysis of women's economic empowerment in Kenya. Recommendations from the programme were, among others: reduce women’s time spent on domestic chores; invest in group enterprises to bring credit within reach of women; encourage male engagement in women empowerment; and utilize technology and innovative methods to improve women's access to information on pricing and markets. »
June 26th, 2017
Published by CGAP, June 22nd, 2017
This blog explores opportunities for women in agriculture by means of two national surveys of smallholder households in Mozambique and Tanzania. These suggest that women face several barriers, which may prevent them from diversifying their sources of income both within and away from agriculture. »
June 7th, 2017
Published by FAO, DEVCO EU, May 16th, 2017
This policy guidance note seeks to facilitate policy dialogue on how to synchronize gender equality policy objectives and food security and nutrition ones. The aim is to enhance coordination between the two policy domains, and ultimately enable women on an equal basis with men to realize their potentials as key partners in improving food security and nutrition. »
May 24th, 2017
Published by SPRING, April 1st, 2017
This report studies whether women who have participated in Farmer Nutrition Schools are more empowered than women who have not. For this the Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index tool was used. Although lessons in the schools did not specifically address empowerment, they did focus on indicators of empowerment. »
May 15th, 2017
Published by CGIAR, April 27th, 2017
This action plan brief illustrates the type of strategic knowledge sharing in gender research, with the example of the integration of gender into animal and plant breeding. Many breeders in CGIAR are aware of how gender differences can influence variety adoption and the impact of plant and animal breeding programs. »
May 3rd, 2017
Published by ILRI, March 1st, 2017
This short guide helps Africa RISING researchers to properly address gender issues in their proposals and interventions. Gender equality is central to the process of scaling technologies and practices in a sustainable manner. Failing to take into account gender differences can limit the reach and scale of Africa RISING technologies. This tool describes how gender issues should be addressed in each step of the intervention designing process. »
April 26th, 2017
Published by CIMMYT, March 7th, 2017
This blog discusses stories of resilience, change and achievement emerging from the testimonies of women running their own households. A recent study shows that many of the “unattached” women in the sample rated themselves as strongly empowered by their experiences with running their households and with managing their own farms. »
April 17th, 2017
Published by IFPRI, March 9th, 2017
This discussion paper examines differences in spouses’ answers to questions regarding who participates in decisions about household activities, who owns assets, and who decides to purchase assets in Bangladesh. Participation in household decisions and control over assets are often used as indicators of bargaining power. »
April 2nd, 2017
Published by Global Food Security Journal, March 1st, 2017
This article discusses role of social protection programming design and implementation to ensure gender equality in food security and agricultural productivity. Gender inequality continues to constrain women's opportunities in the agricultural sector. However, investment in gender-responsive programming which promotes women's empowerment can help to overcome these constraints. »
April 1st, 2017
Published by CCAFS, February 17th, 2017
This info note provides an account on gender division of labor in livestock production and household activities in Colombia. Even though men and women undertake the production in the livestock sector jointly, the roles and responsibilities in livestock production and household maintenance are segregated along gender lines. The policy consideration of both men’s and women’s direct and indirect contributions to livestock production is crucial to avoid any unintended climate change policy consequences and ensure successful response to technology adoption. »
March 29th, 2017
Published by International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, March 2nd, 2017
This article discusses the gender dimensions of moving towards a more balanced use of nitrogen fertilizer. For agriculture to play a role in climate change mitigation strategies to reduce emissions from inorganic nitrogen fertilizer through a more balanced and efficient use are necessary. Such strategies should align with the overarching principle of sustainable intensification. »
March 6th, 2017
Published by WorldFish, January 1st, 2016
This publication (PDF) by WorldFish analyzes gender relations in fish farming and value chains in Bangladesh, based on a literature review. To better appreciate the situation, it is important to understand the underlying social and gender norms that determine what women and men can and should do if the aim is to engage women, in particular, as more effective value chain actors. The authors state there are considerable differences in the ways and degrees to which men and women participate in the aquaculture value chain in Bangladesh. »
March 3rd, 2017
Published by IFPRI, February 1st, 2017
This discussion paper conducts cost-effectiveness analyses of interventions that bring a gender lens to community-based advisory services in rural areas. Cost-effectiveness analysis subjects both the cost side and the effects side of agricultural interventions to technical scrutiny and unifies both sides in order to compare the relative cost-effectiveness of different modalities of a program, of efforts to reach different target groups or achieve different outcomes. »
February 22nd, 2017
Published by Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability , February 1st, 2017
This article argues that gender inequality and discrimination challenge the social economic and environmental sustainability of the global small-scale fisheries sector in achieving inclusive development. The absence of a gender-aware perspective in fisheries research is often justified from the premise that fisheries are a male-dominated sector. However, millions of women are engaged in small-scale fisheries and their work has been systematically discounted and devalued. »
February 1st, 2017
Published by CIAT, December 1st, 2016
This report assesses women’s and men’s participation in coffee and cocoa value chains in Latin America in order to identify key considerations and next steps for the development of research, policy and practice on value chain upgrading for enhanced smallholder prosperity. In particular, the report analyzes the differential roles that women and men play and the benefits they perceive from their participation in coffee and cocoa value chains. »
January 29th, 2017
Published by journal Global Food Security, November 6th, 2017
This article analyzes four gender myths about women, agriculture, and the environment persist. 1) Women account for 70% of the world's poor; 2) Women produce 60 to 80% of the world’s food; 3) Women own 1% of the world’s land; 4) Women are better stewards of the environment. »
January 23rd, 2017
Published by Development, January 17th, 2017
This article published in Development argues that while Africa is undergoing agrarian transformation(s) women are not benefiting equally compared to men. Rural African women in particular are posited as the main beneficiaries of these transformation, but the picture emerging is that of the privatization of the commons, privileging international, and to some extent local, private commercial agri-business interests over those of smallholder farmers, mostly women. The authors argue that these developments are promoting the rapid destruction of ecosystems and the increase in conflicts and displacements affecting the rural poor. »
January 19th, 2017
Published by Groverman & Van der Wees, December 1st, 2016
This paper elaborates on the relation between food systems and gender equality building on knowledge, experience and good practices in the field of agriculture, climate change, food security and value chains. The authors argue that since the current food systems poses serious problems of sustainability, a solution should be sought in greening of these systems which refers to investments to improve human well-being and social equity, reduce environmental risks and ecological scarcities. »
January 10th, 2017
Published by FAO, December 1st, 2016
This report by FAO tries to facilitate in the systematic integration of gender equality dimensions into value chain development programmes and projects. It raises awareness on gender inequalities and discusses the importance of addressing these dimensions in value chain development, while also building a common approach for work on gender-sensitive value chain development. It tries this by bringing together key concepts from value chain development and gender and by providing concrete guiding principles for the integration of gender concerns into value chain development projects and programmes. »
January 4th, 2017
Published by CGIAR-CCAFS, December 20th, 2016
This publication focuses on Uganda's approach towards gender responsive policy formulation and budgeting in the agricultural sector. The publication assesses, through a grading system, the level of gender integration of 83 agri-food policies and strategies at national, district and sub-county levels. The study also draws attention to the way men and women are characterized throughout the policy documents. »
December 19th, 2016
Published by Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, November 1st, 2016
This article describes the reasons why women in Ethiopian communities did not take up training opportunities. In order to encourage gender equality in delivery of varietal knowledge to male and female farmers in Ada’a and Ensaro districts of Ethiopia, chickpea breeders set a policy that each male farmer would bring along his wife to participatory varietal selection sessions. »
December 15th, 2016
Published by Journal of gender, agriculture and Food security , November 1st, 2016
This paper, published in the Journal of gender, agriculture and Food security answers the question on how to integrate gender in agricultural research, development projects and programs. Gender integration has become a common topic within research and development circles. This paper provides four entry points that provide guidance to research organizations or research programs looking for a systematic process for gender integration. »
November 15th, 2016
Published by IFC, October 1st, 2016
This report calls on the private sector to invest in closing gaps between men and women in agribusiness as it sees potential benefits from closing gender gaps for companies. For each stage in the value chain, the report helps companies identify potential benefits from closing gender gaps. The authors accomplished this by reviewing women’s contributions and constraints within each stage, outlining solutions for the private sector, demonstrating the business rationale for making gender-smart investments, and presenting best-practice case studies. »
November 9th, 2016
Published by FAO, October 1st, 2016
This report elaborates on the importance of gender in policy processes related to the right to food. The purpose of the study is to identify potential entry-points for the development of activities on the right to adequate food in both countries. It analyses the importance of gender issues in key dimensions of national policy and legislative processes currently ongoing considered as viable opportunities to initiate or strengthen the implementation of the Right to Food Guidelines at country level. »
October 25th, 2016
Published by GFRAS, September 1st, 2016
This note by GFRAS argues that it is important to include men in nutrition initiatives to turn around food discrimination. Women may learn a lot from courses on good nutrition, but excluding men means that women may not be able to act on their improved knowledge. Men may feel angry because their own nutritional needs are ignored. »
October 11th, 2016
Published by World Development Journal, August 30th, 2016
This paper in the World Development Journal, argues that gender relations are more than the outcomes of negotiations within households. It explains the importance of social norms, perceptions, and formal and informal rules shaping access to land for male and female farmers at four levels: (1) the household/family, (2) the community, (3) the state, and (4) the market. The framework is applied to Ghana, using the results from qualitative field work. »
October 9th, 2016
Published by Routledge, IDRC, September 29th, 2016
This book provides empirical evidence and conceptual explorations of the gendered dimensions of food security. It investigates how food security and gender inequity are conceptualized within interventions, it assesses the impacts and outcomes of gender-responsive programs on food security and gender equity, and addresses diverse approaches to gender research and practice that range from descriptive and analytical to strategic and transformative. »
October 5th, 2016
Published by ICTSD, September 26th, 2016
This report elaborates on the gender dimension of global value chains since policy makers are increasingly turning to global value chains as a means of driving development, generating employment and raising incomes. However, the access and benefits from participation value chains are closely related to gender issues and opportunities are different for men and women. »
October 3rd, 2016
Published by IFPRI, August 26th, 2016
This study measures the willingness of male and female farmers to pay for climate-smart technology in rice. Rice is the most important crop in India in terms of area, production,and consumption. It is also the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions among all crops. Direct-seeded rice (DSR)with drum seeder, a climate-smart technology, requires less labor and water and is more climate friendly than transplanted rice; yet, its adoption is slow in India. The authors of this study carried out a discrete choice experiment with 666 farmers from the Palghar and Thane districts of Maharashtra to measure their willingness to pay for drum seeders—a key piece of equipment for adopting DSR. »
September 28th, 2016
Published by World Development Journal, August 17th, 2016
This study in the World Development Journal, extends existing knowledge on household food (in)security by assessing gender inequality among small-holder farm households in urban and rural areas of South Africa. In doing-so, the authors use the gender of the head of household and treatment effects framework. With the ongoing changes in climate, household food insecurity is likely to be more widespread in most smallholder and subsistence farm households in sub-Saharan Africa. »
September 20th, 2016
Published by ILRI, August 31st, 2016
This literature review provides a holistic perspective of the stock and interaction between the capitals required by men and women farmers for effective engagement in agricultural intensification in Ethiopia. Although land reform has enhanced women’s access to land, participation in decision-making and asset control are yet to be achieved. »
September 5th, 2016
Published by FAO, July 13th, 2016
In this study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the value chains of cassava (Belize), quinoa (Bolivia), corn (Guatemala) and the regional cultivation of cotton are examined from a gender perspective, to enhance their sustainability. The FAO study notes that participation of women is more pronounced in activities that involve time and physical effort, such as planting, weeding and harvesting. »
August 21st, 2016
Published by USAID, July 31st, 2016
This review of literature reveals that there are many opportunities to increase women’s economic empowerment beyond interventions focused on production. While there is a wealth of information related to women’s economic empowerment through production, there is limited available data related to best practices and promising approaches for women’s empowerment at other value chain levels. This literature review aims to fill this knowledge gap by examining approaches to empower women or increase their incomes in the value chain outside of production. »
August 18th, 2016
Published by CGIAR-CCAFS, July 1st, 2016
The presents insights on current climate change perceptions and adaptation strategies and gaps between male and females farmers in three selected provinces across the Mekong River Delta (MRD) in Vietnam. Perceptions of climate change in Vietnam do not appear to be individual but rather dis-aggregated at the household level or possibly at the landscape level. »
August 12th, 2016
Published by USAID, April 1st, 2016
This Intervention Guide for the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) by USAID provides guidance to donors and implementers of agricultural market development programs on how to translate into practice the evidence and insights gained from the WEAI survey results. This is the second edition of this guide. It has been updated to include more examples of how to implement the interventions, gender analysis questions, social and behavior change communication techniques, and more. »
August 4th, 2016
Published by Gender, Technology and Development, July 1st, 2016
This issue explores gender-based disparities in resource access and its contribution to uneven production levels between men and women. As farmers continue to develop methods of climate change adaptation, unequal access to resources could prevent women from adapting at the same pace as their male counterparts. Findings presented in the special issue demonstrate that providing women with engagement opportunities and adaptation resources will greatly reduce the variance in agricultural productivity between men and women, which currently range from four to 25 percent globally. »
July 28th, 2016
Published by FAO, IFAD, UNIDO, June 1st, 2016
This factsheet discusses women's triple work burden in the household, as producers and at community level. The competing demands linked to this triple role make women time poor. This affects their quality of life and decision making, puts their health at risk and prevents them from taking full advantage of economic opportunities through engagement in income generating activities. »
July 15th, 2016
Published by Worldbank Group, June 22nd, 2015
This article by the Worldbank Group is a product of the “Agriculture in Africa—Telling Facts from Myths” project. It challenges the common knowledge of the contribution of women in Africa's agricultural. The contribution of women to labor in African agriculture is regularly quoted in the range of 60–80%. Using individual, plot-level labor input data from nationally representative household surveys across six Sub-Saharan African countries, this study estimates the average female labor share in crop production at 40%. »
July 11th, 2016
Published by Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, June 27th, 2016
This blog elaborates on the practicalities of integrating gender in research. Most people recognize that agriculture research and development must be gender responsive and must address the needs of both men and women, while recognizing and addressing the unequal access to resources and differential levels of productivity between men and women. However, the question often remains of where and how to start integrating. »
June 30th, 2016
Published by Promundo-US, CGIAR, June 1st, 2016
This manual showcases 13 activity-based group sessions to spark critical reflection on harmful gender norms with men and boys in aquatic agricultural systems. The manual also contains guidelines and recommendations for facilitation of the sessions. At the end of the manual, there is a tool to guide facilitators in the development of community-based campaigns, should group members wish to take action following the completion of their participation in the group. »
June 29th, 2016
Published by UNEP, June 27th, 2016
The first Global Gender and Environmental Outlook presents an overview of critical evaluations and analyses of the interlinkages between gender and the environment. It shows their importance for gender-sensitive policy-making and actions and provides an overview of existing knowledge on these subjects. »
June 20th, 2016
Published by ICRISAT, March 24th, 2016
This ICRISAT study aimed to revisit this issue of gender and commercialization of crops. They developed a ‘women’s crop tool’ that measures how much control women have over different crops. This tool was used to compare women’s perceived level of control at different stages of commercialization and to compare the perceptions of men and women regarding women’s control. »
June 9th, 2016
Published by Journal of International Development, May 11th, 2016
This article gives a nuanced analysis of changing gender roles in the commercialization of "women's crops". The authors explore the relationship between commercialization and gender for groundnuts in Eastern Province, Zambia, using a mixed methods approach. Women saw themselves as having greater control over groundnuts than other crops, and both sexes saw groundnuts as controlled by women. »
May 30th, 2016
Published by AgriProFocus, May 13th, 2016
This report of an expert meeting initiated by AgriProFocus in cooperation with Dutch embassy in Ethiopia, highlights the importance of gender analysis in each stage of a (development) program/project. It also provides a practical four-step approach to integrate a gender analysis in projects. »
May 9th, 2016
Published by Agri-Gender, Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, March 1st, 2016
This article elaborates on women's experiences and the benefits from cassava commercialization. Improving the effectiveness of agricultural markets for economic growth and poverty reduction has been a central focus for development initiatives, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Narratives often equate commercialization of cassava to benefits for women. However, little is known about whether or how women can engage with new cassava commercial opportunities and the livelihood outcomes from this, particularly given the importance of cassava for food security. »
May 1st, 2016
Published by Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (AgriGender), March 1st, 2016
This paper analyzes the factors that hinder women’s participation in producer organizations and aims to identify and document good practice that can be applied by agricultural research and development institutions. In the last decades, participation in producer organizations has become a key principle of development, enabling people’s empowerment, inclusiveness, and facilitating democracy. However, studies show that women and youth often remain excluded from participation and leadership roles, decision-making processes and services. This review identifies several factors as major barriers for women’s participation. »
April 29th, 2016
Published by World Development Journal, February 24th, 2016
This article elaborates on how ownership of assets by women could positively influence the development outcomes at the household and individual levels. The research draws lessons out of eight mix-methods projects that evaluated the impacts of agricultural development projects on individual and household assets. The results show that assets both affect and are affected by projects, indicating that it is both feasible and important to consider assets in the design, implementation, and evaluation of projects. »
April 28th, 2016
Published by ODI, March 1st, 2016
This report links gender to agriculture and water insecurity. It explains how and why improved water management on the farm matters for women and girls, and what can be done to better support opportunities for them, as well as for men and boys, in the face of climate change. Rural female farmers are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate variability and water insecurity. Thus, policy and programme implementation for water insecurity must consider social norms around gender and other drivers of inequality. »
April 12th, 2016
Published by University of East Anglia , January 1st, 2016
This working paper scrutinizes the challenges and opportunities for bringing a gender analysis together with an analysis of social-ecological resilience in the context of policy-orientated small-scale fisheries research. The authors argue that whilst the analysis of social-ecological resilience has made valuable contributions to integrating social dimensions into research and policy-making on natural resource management, it has so far demonstrated limited success in effectively integrating considerations of gender equity. »
March 24th, 2016
Published by Routledge, February 4th, 2016
This book focuses on how food security and resilience can improve smallholder and subsistence farming and how integration of gender can accommodate this. Through the integration of gender analysis into resilience thinking, this book shares field-based research insights from a collaborative, integrated project aimed at improving food security in subsistence and smallholder agricultural systems. The scope of the book is both local and multi-scalar. The gendered resilience framework, illustrated with detailed case studies from semi-arid Kenya, is shown to be suitable for use in analysis in other geographic regions and across disciplines. »
March 17th, 2016
Published by Coffee Quality Institute, January 28th, 2016
This report tries to respond to key concerns related to addressing gender equity in coffee supply chains and to share learning on challenges and best practices. It proposes recommendation for individual companies, public-private partnerships and the coffee industry as a whole, to create a foundation for industry-wide collaboration towards a more resilient coffee supply chain through greater gender equity. Women do much of the work on smallholder coffee farms, however, despite their contributions they are often excluded from decision-making processes and have less access to resources. »
February 18th, 2016
Published by Routledge, January 4th, 2016
This book links the themes of gender, nutrition and the human right to adequate food and proposes an inclusive food sovereignty framework. The authors argue that the human right to adequate food and nutrition are evolving concept and identifies two structural "disconnects" that fuel food insecurity for a billion people, and disproportionally affecting women, children, and rural food producers. These are the separation of women’s rights from their right to adequate food and nutrition, and the fragmented attention to food as commodity and the medicalization of nutritional health. »
February 15th, 2016
Published by AgriLinks; IFPRI, February 9th, 2016
elaborates on the linkages between women's engagement in farming and nutrition within rural households. Many studies have shown that one way to improve nutrition among rural households is to increase women’s engagement in farming since increasing women’s control of food production and their power to make decisions, leads to better nutrition for their families. However, increasing women’s time in agriculture may also have adverse effects on their own and their families’ nutrition, taking time away from nutrition-improving domestic work such as preparing food, feeding, childcare, collecting water and firewood, and engaging in good hygiene and sanitation practices. »
January 21st, 2016
Published by KIT, SNV, December 1st, 2015
This paper (PDF) from the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) and SNV is a background paper to the Nutrition and Gender Sensitive Agriculture (NGSA) Toolkit. The paper refers to the current discussions on linking food and nutrition security at program level. It looks at the discussions from a gender lens, and how this demands for a different way of program planning. It shows the need to plan programs based on knowledge of the current realities of men and women in a particular context and time. To facilitate this kind of program planning, the toolkit promotes an integrated approach to understand under-nutrition through linking different sectors -namely agriculture, nutrition, WASH- using a gender lens. »
January 21st, 2016
Published by Farming Matters Magazine, December 1st, 2015
This issue of Farming Matters presents stories about women from who forge positive change through agro-ecology on their farms and in their communities. While around the world women leverage change in their communities using agroecological approaches, only little has been written about it. This issue of Farming Matters presents stories and analyses of agro-ecology as a strategy for women to create safe, healthy and just societies. »
December 18th, 2015
Published by ABN, The Gaia Foundation, AWDF, November 19th, 2015
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. »
December 18th, 2015
Published by FAO, November 13th, 2015
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. »
November 12th, 2015
Published by Food Tank, CARE, CGIAR-CCAFS, October 12th, 2015
This report shows how inequality determines diets around the world and shapes the ability of farmers to adapt to climate change. Inequality determines who eats first and who eats worst, and how this shapes people’s ability to adapt to climate change. The report argues that solutions around food production are not enough, and demands more dialogue and action to address inequality in food systems. »
November 10th, 2015
Published by CGIAR, October 1st, 2015
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. »
November 9th, 2015
Published by UNWomen, UNEP, UNDP, the World Bank, October 15th, 2015
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. »
November 3rd, 2015
Published by Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, October 1st, 2015
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. »
October 22nd, 2015
Published by Global Environmental Change, September 1st, 2015
This article uses a gender-based perspective to assess the conditions that underlie vulnerability and resilience of households and communities that face climate-change. The authors utilized a feminist political ecology framework to analyze how women and men are differently affected by issues of climate change and resource degradation. The authors compared the agricultural and livelihood systems of male and female respondents, as well as their productive resources, organization and access to services, and concluded that women have less access than men to common property resources, as well as to cash to obtain goods or services. »
October 21st, 2015
Published by CIMMYT, September 18th, 2015
In this expert opinion blog, CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff speaks on the topic of ‘Wheat and the role of gender in the developing world’ prior to the 2015 Women in Triticum Awards at the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative Workshop in Sydney on 19 September. Kropff highlights "If we are to be truly successful in improving the lives of farmers and consumers in the developing world, we need to base our interventions on the best evidence available. If we act based only on our assumptions, we may not be as effective as we could be or, even worse, actively cause harm." »
October 1st, 2015
Published by Agricultural Economics Journal, September 1st, 2015
This article in Agricultural Economics Journal examines gender inequalities and land rights indicators in Asia. It argues that while a broad consensus has emerged among policymakers and researchers that strengthening women's property rights is crucial for reducing poverty and achieving equitable growth, only little data exists on women' property rights in Asia. »
September 30th, 2015
Published by European Journal of Development Research, July 2nd, 2015
This article elaborates on the implication of dairy intensification strategies and women's decision-making on child nutrition. Results from the mixed methods study conducted with households representing low, medium and high levels of dairy intensification in rural Kenya indicated that children in high-intensity households received more milk than children in medium-intensity households. »
September 30th, 2015
Published by Pathways to African Feminism and Development, Journal of African Women's Studies Centre, July 1st, 2015
This paper aims to demonstrate that women’s experiences and knowledge about food security are critical in order to create inclusive and more comprehensive policies in food security. Using a feminist theoretical framework, the author argues that women’s knowledge and experiences have remained invisible and underutilized by policy makers and development workers. One reason for this is that research methods have themselves been products of a male knowledge development process and thus have enhanced exclusion and marginalization of women’s perspectives. »
September 17th, 2015
Published by African Development Bank Group, August 27th, 2015
This report highlights five major constraints that can limit women’s productivity and inclusion into the agricultural economy in Africa: lack of access to assets, lack of access to financing, limited training, gender-neutral government policy, and time constraints due to heavy domestic responsibilities. Women make up almost 50% of the agricultural labour force in Sub-Saharan Africa. A total of 62% of economically active women in Africa work in agriculture, making it the largest employer of women. »
August 5th, 2015
Published by FAO, June 25th, 2015
This publication (PDF) by FAO discusses rural women’s time poverty in agriculture, elaborates on its possible causes and implications and provides insight into the various types of constraints that affect the adoption of solutions for reducing work burden. »
August 4th, 2015
Published by James Currey, April 1st, 2015
This book explores women’s claims to land in practice. The book is based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork, mainly in Arusha, northern Tanzania. This is a region with a high number of land conflicts and legal disputes throughout the colonial era to the present day. The book traces the progression of claims from their social origins, through legal processes of dispute resolution to judgment. »
July 7th, 2015
Published by CGIAR, April 6th, 2015
In this blog post, Sophie Theis and Delia Grace relate findings from a recent A4NH/International Livestock Research Institute analysis of 20 livestock and fish value chains in Africa and Asia that reveal how gender differences in value chain participation influence risk exposure. »
July 7th, 2015
Published by Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, February 11th, 2015
The authors provide evidence for a “conceptual lock in” in rural advisory services, one that constructs farmers as male regardless of the reality of female farmers on the ground. They show that this not only hampers access by women to advisory services, it also fails to tackle the underlying gender inequalities that prevent both women and men from maximizing their decision-making capacity and economic potential. »
June 11th, 2015
Published by FAO, March 5th, 2015
FAO has re-launched its Gender and Land Rights Database (GLRD). The database consists of several main sections: country profiles and gender and land-related statistics. Furthermore, a new Legislation Assessment Tool is included, which offers 30 indicators for measuring progress towards gender equity in land tenure in national policy and legal frameworks. The database provides information, »
June 11th, 2015
Published by FAO, March 1st, 2015
This publication (PDF) by FAO adds to the debate around whether private investment in agriculture contributes to production growth, poverty reduction, food security and gender equality by case studies in the Philippines. Data and information were collected via key informant interviews, focus group discussions and direct observation. The report shows that investment models and contractual arrangements implemented by Unifrutti - a major private company producer, processor and exporter of pineapple and banana in the Mindanao Region - have had positive implications for the livelihood of the rural communities involved. »
May 27th, 2015
Published by Development Horizons, March 7th, 2015
In this blog, Lawrence Haddad highlights the draw out messages about women and gender from the Global Nutrition Report. He highlights that improvements in nutrition are important to achieve gender equality and to empower all women and girls. Improvements in women’s nutritional status indicators, especially anemia rates in women of reproductive age, seem slow. Recommendations... »
May 19th, 2015
Published by The World Bank, February 1st, 2015
This publication (PDF) by the World Bank views ICTs as potentially transformative technology for rural development. The paper examines how ICT-based interventions might be designed to strengthen women’s participation in commodity value chains under the two projects. »
May 13th, 2015
Published by CGIAR/CCAFS, November 1st, 2014
This paper (PDF) by CGIAR presents the initial data analyses of the CCAFS gender survey implemented in four sites in Africa. It highlights some key gender-related findings regarding climate change perceptions, adaptation strategies of climate smart agricultural (CSA) practices and information needs across sites in Africa. Important findings include that both men and women are... »
April 18th, 2015
Published by KIT, CIMMYT, CGIAR, February 1st, 2015
This report explores how gender matters in small-scale farm power mechanization in African agriculture, particularly in maize-based systems. It investigates how inter-household gender dynamics affect women's articulation of demand for and adoption of mechanization in Ethiopia and Kenya. The study offers a conceptual approach to grasp these gender dynamics, a gender analysis methodology, and a set of recommendations. »
April 8th, 2015
Published by Campbell Systematic Reviews, November 3rd, 2014
This report (PDF) by a group of researchers under the editorial control of the Campbell Collaboration, aims to provide a systematic review of the evidence on effects of microcredit on women’s control over household spending in developing countries. The authors identified 310 papers for full text examination, of which 29 papers, corresponding to 25 unique... »
April 1st, 2015
Published by IFPRI, December 10th, 2014
This book (see synopsis) by IFPRI and FAO, is a compilation of the growing knowledge base on the gender gaps in agriculture. It explains why closing gender gaps is important; analyses the role of gender in agriculture; and takes a look at access to assets, agricultural inputs, and markets by gender. »
April 1st, 2015
Published by Hivos, November 7th, 2014
This Coffee Toolkit (PDF) was developed for the coffee industry, in response to the demand for knowledge on how to best integrate women and youth in the coffee value chain and provides practical approaches and tools for stakeholders and service providers. The toolkit is a joint effort of the SCP, Agri-ProFocus, Fair & Sustainable Advisory... »
March 31st, 2015
Published by IFPRI, November 19th, 2014
This guide (PDF) by IFPRI, explores the intersection of gender and assets in the context of agricultural interventions. Researchers from IFPRI and ILRI worked together and shared the lessons learned from the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project (GAAP) activities. The guide aims to: 1) increase the reader’s knowledge about the importance of both gender and... »
March 31st, 2015
Published by CGIAR/CCAFS, October 16th, 2014
This toolbox (PDF) provides gender-responsive methods and tools for the development and research community. It is the result of a long-term partnership between the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), and CARE International. The participatory toolbox builds on the previously released Gender and Climate Change Research... »
March 6th, 2015
Published by IFAD, March 1st, 2014
This report compiles the experiences of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in their work to close the gender gap and mobilise women in climate change adaptation programmes and projects. The paper shows that successful adaptation to climate change means recognizing the role of women smallholder farmers. »
