Agricultural development efforts that do not address persistent gender gaps miss opportunities for greater impact. This synthesis reflects on key findings from integrated quantitative and qualitative ...analyses at the nexus of gender, agricultural development, and climate change. Linked farm household-, intrahousehold-, community-, and institutional-level data highlight significant and nuanced gender differences in adaptive capacity of individuals and communities to respond to climate change. The gender gap is also substantial in exposure to climate change and its impacts, and uptake of new practices that lower vulnerability. Women in agriculture will remain largely neglected by information and service providers unless their differing needs, access to, and control over resources are considered at policy and project design stage. Yet clear guidelines for addressing the needs of both men and women in different environments and agricultural systems are still lacking. Participatory 'action research' approaches with a focus on co-learning, and using innovative cell phone or social media-based approaches offer exciting new opportunities. Agricultural development decision-makers and project designers need to 'design with gender in mind'. Equipping them with tools and knowledge of innovative gender-transformative practices and intervention options and creating accountability for serving women and men will be key.
Adapting to climate risks is central to the goal of increasing food security and enhancing resilience of farming systems in East Africa. We examined farmers’ attitudes and assessed determinants of ...adaptation using data from a random sample of 500 households in Borana, Ethiopia; Nyando, Kenya; Hoima, Uganda; and Lushoto, Tanzania. Adaptation was measured using a livelihood-based index that assigned weights to different individual strategies based on their marginal contributions to a household’s livelihood. Results showed that farmers’ attitudes across the four sites strongly favored introduction of new crops, changes in crop varieties, and changes in planting times. Farmers disfavored soil, land, and water management practices. At lower levels of adaptation (25% quantile), adaptation index correlated positively with membership to farmers’ groups, household size, sex of the household head, and number of months of food shortage. Farmer group membership enhanced adaptation at intermediate (50% quantile) level whereas access to credit increased adaptation at high (75% quantile) level. Food insecurity, however, correlated negatively with the likelihood to choose individual adaptation strategies suggesting that although households adapted to improve food security status of their households, hunger was a barrier to adaptation. Our findings suggest that providing climate information to inform timely planting, promoting crop diversification, and encouraging adoption of adapted varieties of crops might be successful to enhancing resilience of farming systems in the short-term. In the long-term, increased investment in reducing hunger, encouraging groups formation, and easing liquidity constraints will be required to promote adaptation through implementation of soil, water, and land management strategies.
Feminist scholars and activists have drawn attention to the importance of women's land rights, and studies focused on irrigation have explored the gendered relationships between land and water ...rights. Yet little of this work has focused on the relationship between land and water rights for domestic and productive purposes more broadly. Within rural communities, women and men have different rights to both land and water. We explore these interconnected relationships using community profiles, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews from two communities as well as survey data collected from multiple adult members of rural households in Kilifi County, Kenya. Using a bundle of rights framework, we find that few individuals hold the complete bundle of rights over water, and the extent to which the rights are acknowledged by others and enforceable varies by the land-water tenure system. The full bundle of rights to water is most likely to be complete and most robust for men who have private water points on household land they hold. Even then, other people may assert claims to water at the water point, although these claims may involve negotiation or payment. Many water rights across the land-tenure systems are shared with others rather than being held by one individual. As such, the ability to negotiate water access is particularly important. The duration of the rights, or the length of time for which the rights are held, is embedded in social relations and exchange, particularly on others' household land. Women more than men seem to maintain a complicated set of social networks that allow them to negotiate for water from other women who manage the water transactions. The process of negotiation needs to be re-articulated each time. Thus, the duration of these rights to water depends on the ongoing relationships.
This article provides a description of intra-household survey data that were collected in Uganda and Tanzania in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The surveys were implemented using a structured ...questionnaire administered among 585 households in Uganda and 608 in Tanzania. Information on decision making processes in agricultural production was collected from the principal adult male and female decision-makers in each household. The survey consisted of two parts. Firstly, the decision-makers, both male and female of each household were jointly interviewed. Secondly, individual interviews were carried out, questioning the decision-makers separately. The datasets include both household and individual level data containing numeric, categorical and string variables. The datasets have been shared publicly on the Harvard dataverse.
This article provides a description of an agricultural household survey data of rice growers collected in Ecuador between October 2014 and March 2015. The household survey was implemented using a ...structured questionnaire administered among 1028 households in the main rice production areas of Ecuador (i.e. Guayas, Los Rios, Manabi, and El Oro provinces). Information collected was provided by household heads (male or female) and included household and plot level data. The survey information includes household socio-demographic characteristics (e.g. age, education, gender, main economic activity, etc.), farm characteristics (e.g. farm land size, assets ownership, other crops planted, etc.), rice management practices (e.g. variety and input use, production costs, etc.), and rice production and utilization (e.g. yields, prices, sales, etc.). Additional socio-economic context variables were also recorded such as government subsidies to rice production, participation in rural organizations, and food security related questions. The dataset contains a total of 6288 variables among numeric, categorical and string variables. The dataset is shared publicly on the Harvard dataverse site and provide access to questionnaires, the complete data and a brief report.
Although women in Ecuador have relatively strong property rights, these are not always honored, resulting in their experiencing patrimonial violence. This is one of the reasons that, according to our ...national household assets survey, the value of women’s assets on average is less than that of men. Nonetheless, there are major differences in the average value of wealth attained depending on a person’s marital status (being much higher among those who are married in comparison to living in a consensual union) and in the size of the gender wealth gap (being greatest among those who are married, widowed or separated).Drawing upon the results of our qualitative field work in three provinces, we illustrate how these gender wealth gaps by marital status may be the result of patrimonial violence.
Aunque los derechos de propiedad de las mujeres en Ecuador son relativamente fuertes, en la práctica estos derechos no siempre se cumplen, por lo que genera violencia patrimonial contra ellas. Esta es una de las razones por lo cual, según nuestra encuesta de hogares sobre los activos a nivel nacional, el valor de los activos de las mujeres en promedio es menor en comparación con los hombres. A la vez, hay grandes variaciones en el nivel de riqueza promedio dependiendo del estado civil (siendo mucho más alta entre los que están casados en comparación con los que están en una unión consensual), y en lo agudo de la brecha de género (ésta siendo mayor entre los casados, viudos y separados). A través de la información recogida durante la fase cualitativa de la investigación en tres provincias, proponemos ilustrar cómo se generan estas brechas de género en la riqueza según el estado civil y como estas pueden ser el resultado de la violencia patrimonial.
•Multidimensional factors cross the policy development and implementation cycle, and governance levels affect smallholder adaptation.•Policy formulation is dominated by the central government, other ...actors are inadequately involved, farming communities are excluded.•Effective implementation is constrained by poor links among central government agencies, and between national, district and community levels.•Government should use more inclusive approaches in policy development and strengthen vertical and horizontal flows of communication.•Research should integrate policy needs and proactively engage policy actors in research processes.
Despite the considerable progress made in the last decade towards building governance systems for climate change adaptation in Africa, implementation still limits positive responses. This study applies an iterative process of field assessments and literature reviews across multiple governance levels and spatial scales to identify constraints to effective formulation and implementation of climate change related policies and strategies in Uganda. Data was collected through sex-segregated participatory vulnerability assessments with farming communities in Rakai district, policy document reviews, and interviews with policy actors at national and district levels. Findings reveal that the key challenges to effective policy implementation are diverse and cut across the policy development and implementation cycle. Policies are mainly developed by central government agencies; other actors are insufficiently involved while local communities are excluded. There is also a communication disconnect between national, district, and community levels. Coupled with limited technical capacity and finances, political interference, and absence of functional implementation structures across these levels, climate change adaptation becomes constrained. We propose strategies that enhance linkages between levels and actors, which will improve policy formulation, implementation and ultimately adaptation by smallholders.
This paper challenges standard analyses of gender differences in agriculture, which typically focus on the sex of household heads or landholders, by considering who makes decisions on land owned by ...married women. We show that joint ownership and joint decision-making by couples is common in Ecuador but would be overlooked in studies focusing on only one farm manager. We also show that there are gender differences in perceptions about land ownership and agricultural decision-making, with men reporting lower levels of women's participation compared to their wives' report. Moreover, perceptions about the factors affecting women's participation in agricultural decision-making also differ.
Approaches that aim to identify and prioritize locally appropriate climate smart agriculture (CSA) technologies will need to address the context-specific multi-dimensional complexity in agricultural ...systems. The climate smart agriculture rapid appraisal (CSA-RA) is a mixed method approach that draws on participatory bottom-up, qualitative, and quantitative tools to assess the heterogeneity of local contexts, and prioritize context-specific CSA options. This is an imperative if countries are to respond to the COP21 agreement and meet their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs). The CSA-RA is designed to assess biophysical including climatic, socio-cultural, economic and technological characteristics at the household, farm and community/regional level. The CSA-RA employs gender-disaggregated methods, including gender differences in perceptions of climate change and its impacts. The CSA-RA combines common participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and rapid rural appraisal (RRA) tools into one methodology, that disaggregates the gender dimension, and includes resource mapping; climate calendars; historical calendars; cropping calendars; organization mapping; transect walks; key informant interviews; farmer interviews; and pairwise ranking matrix. The tool collects qualitative and quantitative data from various stakeholders (farmers, local leaders, researchers, local-level agricultural experts, private sector actors, donor organizations, and policy implementers), allowing expansive analysis, triangulation and validation. Application of the CSA-RA in Tanzania and Uganda reveals heterogeneity across the sites in terms of vulnerability, constraints and CSA priorities among different social groups (gender) and agro-ecological zones. Thus, the CSA-RA allows stakeholders to simultaneously take into account biophysical and socio-economic aspects to target and implement CSA.
•CSA-RA: tool to prioritize context specific climate smart agriculture technologies•Novel mixed method approach employing participatory, qualitative, and quantitative tools•Innovative combination of gender-disaggregated methods and climate analysis•Bottom-up approach, incorporating multiple scales and actors•Rapid and comprehensive
Strategies to empower women in development contexts frequently address their authority to take decisions within their household, including decisions that are taken jointly by couples. Assessing ...empowerment in joint decision-making has traditionally followed a dichotomous approach: decisions are either joint or not, with the former associated with women's empowerment. This paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the empowerment effects of joint decision-making, based on case study data from Uganda. We present survey data revealing significant gender differences in perception of decision-making over the adoption of agricultural practices and consumption expenses. Women reported joint decision-making more often than men, who presented themselves more as sole decision makers. We supplement the survey data with an in-depth study in Lodi village, where we reconstruct meanings attached to joint decision-making using focus group discussions, a decision-making game and participant observation. Reported joint decision-making included a range of practices from no conversation among partners to conversations where female spouse's ideas are considered but the man has the final say. The findings suggest that local interpretations of joint decision-making, in at least this case of a dominantly patriarchal context, can limit its potential for assessing women's empowerment.
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