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Author: Eissler, Sarah
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 56
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Book Description
The SELEVER study is a five-year impact evaluation designed to address key knowledge gaps on the impact of a poultry value chain intervention on the diets, health, and nutritional status of women and children in Burkina Faso. This report qualitatively examines the SELEVER program’s impact on women’s empowerment and intra-household gender dynamics in relation to food production and allocation, as well as control and use over poultry resources in the study areas. Six villages across five provinces were purposively selected for this study. Data were collected using multiple qualitative methods. In each village, we conducted four sex-disaggregated focus group discussions, and semi-structured individual interviews were held with a man and a woman from two different households. Sex-disaggregated seasonal calendars were created for half of the villages. Interviews were also conducted with project service providers in each community, including group leaders (n=13), voluntary vaccinators (n=10), and poultry traders (n=6). A mix of inductive and deductive thematic coding guided the analysis of the data. Men and women participants described an empowered woman in terms of her confidence, how she spent her time, financial capacity, and freedom of movement. SELEVER beneficiaries illuminated how gender norms were shifting related to household activities and women’s empowerment, such that young boys are now washing dishes and women earn additional incomes from raising her own poultry. Yet results suggest that women’s empowerment may threaten men and their masculinity, an important tension of which SELEVER and other projects should be cognizant. Participants perceived that while SELEVER has increased women’s access to the necessary resources and capacity to raise quality poultry, and their incomes, women still lack full latitude to make decisions around when to sell or kill their bird. Instead they must rely on their husbands’ permission. Beneficiaries are more aware of the benefits of consuming poultry products, yet barriers persist for actual consumption. This report further details the intersectional nature of these findings, which will be important to consider. The differences in women’s role in monogamous versus polygynous households is especially important to consider in interpreting the program impacts and further strengthening the program delivery activities. The SELEVER program has improved outcomes for women across the village sites in terms of empowerment, awareness raising, and behavior change. Yet barriers and challenges, often rooted in social norms, persist for women’s involvement in poultry production, their empowerment, and the potential for the SELEVER program to improve diets of household members.
Author: Eissler, Sarah
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 56
Get Book Here
Book Description
The SELEVER study is a five-year impact evaluation designed to address key knowledge gaps on the impact of a poultry value chain intervention on the diets, health, and nutritional status of women and children in Burkina Faso. This report qualitatively examines the SELEVER program’s impact on women’s empowerment and intra-household gender dynamics in relation to food production and allocation, as well as control and use over poultry resources in the study areas. Six villages across five provinces were purposively selected for this study. Data were collected using multiple qualitative methods. In each village, we conducted four sex-disaggregated focus group discussions, and semi-structured individual interviews were held with a man and a woman from two different households. Sex-disaggregated seasonal calendars were created for half of the villages. Interviews were also conducted with project service providers in each community, including group leaders (n=13), voluntary vaccinators (n=10), and poultry traders (n=6). A mix of inductive and deductive thematic coding guided the analysis of the data. Men and women participants described an empowered woman in terms of her confidence, how she spent her time, financial capacity, and freedom of movement. SELEVER beneficiaries illuminated how gender norms were shifting related to household activities and women’s empowerment, such that young boys are now washing dishes and women earn additional incomes from raising her own poultry. Yet results suggest that women’s empowerment may threaten men and their masculinity, an important tension of which SELEVER and other projects should be cognizant. Participants perceived that while SELEVER has increased women’s access to the necessary resources and capacity to raise quality poultry, and their incomes, women still lack full latitude to make decisions around when to sell or kill their bird. Instead they must rely on their husbands’ permission. Beneficiaries are more aware of the benefits of consuming poultry products, yet barriers persist for actual consumption. This report further details the intersectional nature of these findings, which will be important to consider. The differences in women’s role in monogamous versus polygynous households is especially important to consider in interpreting the program impacts and further strengthening the program delivery activities. The SELEVER program has improved outcomes for women across the village sites in terms of empowerment, awareness raising, and behavior change. Yet barriers and challenges, often rooted in social norms, persist for women’s involvement in poultry production, their empowerment, and the potential for the SELEVER program to improve diets of household members.
Author: Eissler, Sarah
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 38
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Book Description
Time use, or how women and men allocate their time, is an important aspect of empowerment. To build on this area of study, we propose and explore the concept of time-use agency in this paper, which shifts the focus from the amount of time spent on activities to the strategic choices that are made regarding how to allocate time. We draw on 92 interviews from qualitative studies in Benin, Malawi, and Nigeria to explore across contexts the salience of time-use agency as a component of women’s empowerment. Our results indicate that time-use agency is salient among both women and men and dictates how women and men are able to make and act upon strategic decisions related how they allocate their time. Our findings suggest that time-use agency is important for fully understanding empowerment with respect to time use. Importantly, this study highlights the gendered dynamics and barriers women face in exercising their time-use agency. These barriers are tied to and conditioned by social norms dictating how women should spend their time. Women often make tradeoffs throughout any given day with respect to their time, balancing their expected priorities with the barriers or limitations they face in being able to spend any additional time on tasks or activities that further their own strategic goals. Additionally, these results on time-use agency echo similar themes in the literature on gendered divisions of labor, time poverty, and decision-making, but also add new subtleties to this work. For example, we find that women can easily adjust their schedules but must carefully navigate relationships with husbands to be able to attend trainings or take on new income generating activities, results that align with previous findings that women consistently have higher involvement in small decisions compared to large ones. While these themes have been observed previously in studies of women’s empowerment, to our knowledge, our study is the first to connect them to time use and time-use agency. Our study contributes the conceptualization of time-use agency, and the identification of themes relevant to time-use agency, through the emic perspectives of women and men across three diverse settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a concept, time-use agency goes beyond measuring time use to understand the gendered dynamics around controlling one’s time use to advance their own strategic goals and highlights any barriers one faces in doing so. It is a particularly relevant concept for interventions that aim to increase (or at least, not diminish) women’s empowerment by promoting women’s involvement in remunerated activities. Although time-use agency, as a concept, has yet to be addressed in women’s empowerment literature. A next step in this area of inquiry is to develop survey indicators on time-use agency, which may reduce bias and cognitively burden compared to existing time use surveys.
Author: Aragie, Emerta
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 31
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Book Description
One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is reducing food loss and waste (FLW) across all stages of food value chains, including the on-farm production, the off-farm postharvest, processing, and distribution, and the household consumption stages. We employ general equilibrium models for Bangladesh, Kenya, and Nigeria to assess the economywide implications of reducing FLW at different stages of value chains. Halving FLW results in GDP increases of between 1.1 and 2 percent, with up to 13 million people lifted out of poverty across the three countries. Diets also improve – especially in Kenya and Nigeria – due to greater availability and lower prices of healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables. Although most of the gains originate from reducing FLW in the on-farm production stage, strong intersectoral linkages mean around 30 percent of measured GDP gains are realized in non-agricultural sectors. Reducing waste at the final consumption stage has small negative impacts on GDP as households purchase less food without reducing their food intake. We conclude that the significant economywide gains provide a justification for adopting FLW reduction strategies, although costing the policy and investment options needed to reduce FLW is an important area for future research.
Author: Eissler, Sarah
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 59
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Book Description
The SELEVER study is a five-year impact evaluation designed to address key knowledge gaps on the impact of a poultry value chain intervention on the diets, health, and nutritional status of women and children in Burkina Faso. This report uses qualitative methods to examine gendered participation in poultry value chains, the gendered opportunities and barriers experienced in poultry value chains, and the SELEVER program’s impact on these factors. A previous report (Eissler et al., 2020) based on the same fieldwork covered questions relating to local understandings of empowerment and dynamics of household food production and allocation. Six villages across five provinces were purposively selected for this study. Data were collected using multiple qualitative methods. In each village, we conducted four sex-disaggregated focus group discussions and semi-structured individual interviews with a man and a woman from two different households. Sex-disaggregated seasonal calendars were created for half of the villages. Interviews were also conducted with project service providers in each community, including group leaders (n=13), voluntary vaccinators (n=10), and poultry traders (n=6). A mix of inductive and deductive coding guided the thematic analysis of the data. The results indicate that while women in the study areas do engage in agricultural labor and various income-generating activities, they must prioritize their domestic responsibilities. Men are primarily responsible for providing staple food ingredients (e.g. grains or meat) for household consumption and earning the primary income, which often requires them to engage in seasonal migration. Men are increasingly aware of women’s time and unpaid labor burdens, and have started sharing in these tasks, a shift in which participants attribute to SELEVER. Additionally, we find that SELEVER has increased women’s capacity and opportunity to engage in poultry value chain activities while reducing barriers to their participation. SELEVER has trained selected women to practice as Village Volunteer Vaccinators (VVVs), which has enabled them to earn additional income. Notably, SELEVER has been effective in challenging and facilitating changing perceptions on traditional gender norms, such that men are increasingly supportive of their wives to engage in income-generating activities or activities outside of the household. Results highlight the importance of SELEVER’s engagement with men, as women’s ability to participate in activities outside of traditional gendered boundaries relies on their husbands’ permission. Without it, a woman cannot raise poultry, cultivate her own crops, practice as a VVV, or participate in women’s associations or income-generating activities. Despite evidence of success, barriers to women’s full participation persist. A lack of sufficient financial capital and autonomy in decision making limit women’s ability to improve upon and manage their poultry endeavors. A lack of financial capacity and time, limited freedom of movement, and restricting social norms further limit women’s ability to practice as service providers in the value chain. SELEVER can continue to address challenging social norms and focus on these more nuanced barriers women face in increasing their capacity for participation.
Author: Heckert, Jessica
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 44
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Book Description
Understanding the types of food systems interventions that foster women’s empowerment and the types of women that are able to benefit from different interventions is important for development policy. SELEVER was a gender- and nutrition-sensitive poultry production intervention implemented in western Burkina Faso from 2017 to 2020 that aimed to empower women. We evaluated SELEVER using a mixed-methods cluster-randomized controlled trial, which included survey data from 1763 households at baseline and endline and a sub-sample for two interim lean season surveys. We used the multidimensional project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), which consists of 12 binary indicators, underlying count versions of 10 of these, an aggregate empowerment score (continuous) and a binary aggregate empowerment indicator, all for women and men. Women’s and men’s scores were compared to assess gender parity. We also assessed impacts on health and nutrition agency using the pro-WEAI health and nutrition module. We estimated program impact using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) models and examined whether there were differential impacts by flock size or among those who participated in program activities. Program impacts on empowerment and gender parity were null, despite the program’s careful approach to developing a gender-sensitive intervention. Meanwhile, results of the in-depth gender-focused qualitative work conducted near the project mid-point found there was greater awareness in the community of women’s time burden and their economic contributions, but it did not seem that awareness led to increased empowerment of women. We reflect on possible explanations for the null findings. One notable explanation may be the lack of a productive asset transfer, which have previously been shown to be essential, but not sufficient, for the empowerment of women in agricultural development programs. We consider these findings in light of current debates on asset transfers. Unfortunately, null impacts on women’s empowerment are not uncommon, and it is important to learn from such findings to strengthen future program design and delivery.
Author: Eissler, Sarah
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 39
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Book Description
This study presents qualitative findings from an assessment conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute and Cultural Practice, LLC of the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) Agricultural Technical Vocational Education and Training program for women (ATVET4Women) in Benin, supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). ATVET4Women in Benin targets women working in value chains for four target commodities (soy, rice, chicken, and compost) to support capacity building in their respective nodes (production, processing, and marketing). The contributions of this study are multifold. First, it assesses program experiences and impacts. Second, it examines the gender dimensions of production, processing, and marketing activities in four specific value chains. Third, this research is a component of a broader study to adapt and validate the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index for market inclusion (pro-WEAI+MI) on key agricultural value chains in Benin and Malawi for ATVET4Women. This study employed multiple qualitative methods to assess beneficiaries’ program experiences and impacts. Fifteen key informant interviews were conducted with various actors along the value chain and agro-processing center managers involved in ATVET4Women. Thirty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with women beneficiaries of ATVET4Women, husbands of beneficiaries, women that were involved in the value chain but did not participate in ATVET4Women, and ATVET4Women trainers. Structured observations were conducted of five ATVET4Women training centers. In general, women beneficiaries and their husbands shared positive reviews of ATVET4Women in that the program increased women’s confidence in their abilities and taught women best practices for producing and selling higher quality products, generating higher incomes for women. Women noted several challenges and barriers to participate in ATVET4Women, including limited availability to travel to or partake in the trainings due to competing demands and priorities on their time, requiring their husbands’ permission to attend, and limited means to support travel to and from trainings. Related to findings around empowerment, results suggest that an empowered woman is closely tied to her ability to generate income, regardless of her decision-making autonomy, whereas an empowered man is one who generates higher incomes and is autonomous in his decision-making. A woman is expected to be submissive to her husband and defer to his decision-making, which holds implications for her ability to participate in activities outside of the household, including but not limited to ATVET4Women and similar programs. This study concludes with specific recommendations for ATVET4Women and similar programs to consider in future iterations of further programming to increase women’s empowerment in Benin.
Author: Njuki, Jemimah
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 55
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Book Description
Achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in food systems can result in greater food security and better nutrition, and in more just, resilient, and sustainable food systems for all. This paper uses a scoping review to assess the current evidence on pathways between gender equality, women’s empowerment, and food systems. The paper uses an adaptation of the food systems framework to organize the evidence and identify where evidence is strong, and where gaps remain. Results show strong evidence on women’s differing access to resources, shaped and reinforced by contextual social gender norms, and on links between women’s empowerment and maternal education and important outcomes, such as nutrition and dietary diversity. However, evidence is limited on issues such as gender considerations in food systems for women in urban areas and in aquaculture value chains, best practices and effective pathways for engaging men in the process of women’s empowerment in food systems, and for addressing issues related to migration, crises, and indigenous food systems. And while there are gender informed evaluation studies that examine the effectiveness of gender- and nutrition- sensitive agricultural programs, evidence to indicate the long-term sustainability of such impacts remains limited. The paper recommends keys areas for investment: improving women’s leadership and decision-making in food systems, promoting equal and positive gender norms, improving access to resources, and building cross-contextual research evidence on gender and food systems.
Author: Silke Maria Stöber
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2832543669
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 150
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Book Description
Understanding the capacity of food systems to undertake a transformation towards sustainability requires understanding how resources stream in and out of the systems. As complex socio-economic structures, food and agricultural value chains are important means for channeling resources, knowledge, and agency in and out of rural areas. Given their prominent role on the development agendas, there is mixed evidence as to what extent value chains and their actors can contribute to improving the livelihoods in poor rural and urban areas. In order to shape sustainable living places, transformative capacities and good governance are important mainstays. Transformative agri-food value chains are robust and often act as the sole transmission belt for returning capital, resources and identity back into vulnerable areas. Moreover, domestic or regional chains may provide urban consumers with fresh quality food that also contributes to regional identity.
Author: Ulimwengu, John M.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356
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Book Description
This year marks 20 years of implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which was broadened under the 2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods. The 2023 Annual Trends and Outlook Report generates evidence on the implementation of the CAADP/Malabo agenda and thus contributes to the design of the post-Malabo phase of CAADP implementation. The report assesses the current state of Africa's food systems, explores strategic issues related to food systems transformation, and reflects on necessary methodologies and approaches to provide a better understanding of key challenges and necessary actions to accelerate transformation.
Author: Malapit, Hazel J.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 74
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Book Description
Many development agencies design and implement interventions that aim to reach, benefit, and empower rural women across the value chain in activities ranging from production, to processing, to marketing. Determining whether and how such interventions empower women, as well as the constraints faced by different value chain actors, requires quantitative and qualitative tools. We describe how we adapted the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Index (pro-WEAI), a mixed-methods tool for studying empowerment in development projects, to include aspects of agency relevant for multiple types of value chain actors. The resulting pro-WEAI for market inclusion (pro-WEAI+MI) includes quantitative and qualitative instruments developed over the course of four studies. Studies in the Philippines (2017), Bangladesh (2017), and Malawi (2019) were intended to diagnose areas of disempowerment to inform programming, whereas the Benin (2019) study was an impact assessment of an agricultural training program. The pro-WEAI+MI includes all indicators included in pro-WEAI, plus a dashboard of complementary indicators and recommended qualitative instruments. These tools investigate the empowerment of women in different value chains and nodes and identify barriers to market access and inclusion that may restrict empowerment for different value chain actors. Our findings highlight three lessons. First, the sampling strategy needs to be designed to capture the key actors in a value chain. Second, the market inclusion indicators cannot stand alone; they must be interpreted alongside the core pro-WEAI indicators. Third, not all market inclusion indicators will be relevant for all value chains and contexts. Users should research the experiences of women and men in the target value chains in the context of the programto select priority market inclusion indicators.
