Gates Foundation: addressing women's needs in agricultural work

11 March 2010, Gates Foundation
URL: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/Pages/women-farming-africa.aspx

In sub-Saharan Africa, women do about 80 percent of the farm labor. That means that any effort to improve the region’s agriculture generally or the lives of its small farmers in particular must take women’s needs and roles into account. Despite efforts to address gender issues in agriculture, changing the lives of women farmers on the ground has remained an elusive goal.

Gender is an often unseen but almost always important factor in agriculture. Consider two very different examples: Studies have found that due to cultural norms in many African countries, it is difficult for male agricultural extension workers to talk to women as they travel from farm to farm. This deprives women of the expertise that agricultural extension is intended to spread. It's also inefficient, because the people doing most of the work get less of the knowledge.

Similarly, agricultural research, which is usually performed by men, is less effective when women's distinct perspectives and priorities aren't taken into account. For example, scientists have developed cowpea varieties that farmers can store for long periods of time, preventing the loss of food and income due to spoilage. However, these modified cowpeas tend to be very hard and take hours to cook, which is a burden that women alone have to bear-and which ultimately serves as a barrier to adoption.

We have started a process of mainstreaming gender in our existing agriculture grants so that it becomes part of the planning process, not the cause of unintended consequences. Working with the International Center for Research on Women and the International Food Policy and Research Institute, we developed an extensive checklist to help our grantees identify and then address gender-related issues as they develop and implement their strategies.

We are also re-evaluating our approach to monitoring and evaluation so that it reflects our goals for women. For example, we are working with our grantees to collect data that allows us to measure the impact of our grants on women wherever possible. (Some of the more traditional data, such as household income, tend to measure only how much grants are helping men.) We also are adding indicators of women's empowerment, such as how much control they have over decisions like what to plant and when to sell, and how often they're serving as leaders of local farming organizations we work with.

In addition to mainstreaming gender in existing grants, we have made a few grants specifically to help women in agriculture. For example, we are funding a program to get more women involved in the study of agricultural sciences.

Gender issues are often complex. And solutions can require approaches that aren't standard in the field of agricultural development. For example, one tactic in countries where many women aren't able to read or count is to teach literacy and numeracy so they can protect their interests when it comes time to sell crops at market. That approach has nothing to do with seeds and soil per se, but it can work.

We believe that getting gender issues right is fundamental to the success of our work in agriculture. As we work with agricultural organizations on the ground to address women's needs, we expect that our projects will have a greater impact.

Read our Gender Impact Strategy for Agricultural Development.
Learn more about our work in Agricultural Development.