“Key questions for a

gender-focused climate

change research program”

Jacqueline Ashby

Senior Advisor,

Gender and Research

CGIAR Consortium

Artist: Ashley Cecil; image on Flickr by Piotr Fajfer Oxfam International

CGIAR Consortium Gender

Strategy (Dec. 2011) Objective

• To improve the relevance of the CGIAR's research to poor women as well as men (reduced poverty and hunger, improved health and environmental resilience) in all the geographical areas where the work is implemented and targeted by end of 2012.

• By 2015 progress towards these outcomes will be measurable.

CGIAR Consortium Gender

Strategy Deliverables

• All CRPs have an explicit gener strategy that is implemented within 6 months of their inception

• Research outputs in all CRPs bring demonstrable and measurable benefits to women farmers in target areas within 4 years following inception of the CRP.

• By 2014 Staff training and strategic partnerships ensure all CRPs have sufficient gender expertise.

Objective

• To improve the relevance of the CGIAR's research to poor women as well as men (reduced poverty and hunger, improved health and environmental resilience) in all the geographical areas where the work is implemented and targeted by end of 2012.

• By 2015 progress towards these outcomes will be measurable.

CCAFS’ Gender Strategy

(Feb. 2012) Central, strategic

question

“Which climate-

smart agricultural

practices and

interventions are

most likely to

benefit women in

particular, where,

how and why?”

Topics

• The “gender gap”

• What questions to ask about gender?

• When in the research process to ask these questions?

• Strategies and tools for seeking answers

Mali women collect firewood for cooking on the dry bed of the Niger

River (photo on Flickr by United Nations).

The “gender gap” in

agriculture (FAO, 2010)

In most regions of

the world, one out

of five farms is

headed by a

women

Women comprise

about 40% of

people working on

farms in low-

income countries

Mali women collect firewood for cooking on the dry bed of the Niger

River (photo on Flickr by United Nations).

The “gender gap” in

agriculture (FAO, 2010)

Inequalities between women and men that:

• hold back agricultural productivity (yield gaps of 20-25%)

• perpetuate poverty and unsustainable resource use

• make women more vulnerable to climate-change impacts on agriculture

• are obstacles to CGIAR impact

Mali women collect firewood for cooking on the dry bed of the Niger

River (photo on Flickr by United Nations).

The “gender gap” in

agriculture (FAO, 2010)

Pervasive inequalities between

women and men in:

• Assets for agriculture --land,

water, trees, fisheries,

livestock, especially insecure

property rights

• Labor markets

• Access to services- financial,

advisory, business

development

• Knowledge and skills

• Technology

• Organization

• Supportive institutions and

policy

Mali women collect firewood for cooking on the dry bed of the Niger

River (photo on Flickr by United Nations).

Framework :how the gender gap

affects development outcomes.

LivelihoodStrategies Full Incomes

Consumption

Savings/Investment

Well-being

Shocks

Context: Ecological, Social, Economic, Political factors, etc.

Women Joint Men

Assets

Legend:

Women’s Agricultural Empowerment

The Women’s Empowerment

Index (WEAI) Measures women’s control

over

(1) decisions about farming and agricultural production

(2) power over resources like land and livestock

(3) control over spending and income

(4) leadership in the community

(5) time use.

• Parity of control within the household

• Developed by USAID, IFPRI & OPHI (Oxford)

Climate-smart interventions

can:

• Improve gender

equity

• Benefit poor women

as well as poor men

• “Do no harm”- avoid

making inequities

worse

• Widen the gender gap

by privileging men

Photo P. Casier (CGIAR).

Risks of ignoring

the gender gap • Women don’t buy

into proposed adaptation strategies if technologies are inappropriate (eg. more labor intensive)

• Women don’t access or use climate information

• Women oppose or cannot invest in mitigation practices

Photo P. Casier (CGIAR).

Framing relevant questions

• Mind the gap! –

“must ask”

questions that

detect basic

gender differences

• Approach gender

as one aspect of

social

stratification and

differentiation

CCAFS’ strategic gender

question:

• “Which climate-smart agricultural practices and interventions are most likely to benefit women in particular, where, how and why?”

> Climate smartness depends on how men and women users’ make tradeoffs among short-term and long-term gains

Mind the gap! Between men and women

• Inequalities mean tradeoffs between short-term gains (food security or income) and long-term adaptation and mitigation may be different for women than for men

• Costs of adoption may be different for men and women

Mind the gap! Between men and women

Key question

How do perceptions

of risk and of

tradeoffs between

long and short

term gain differ

for women versus

men ?

“Must ask” questions for discerning gender

effects on agriculture:

comparing men and women.

• Who owns or controls

the assets?

• Who does the work?

• Who makes the

decisions?

• Who captures what

share of the benefits?

• Who is able to

participate?

Mind the gap!

Within households

• Households do not have a unified set of objectives or a single decision-maker

• Adoption decisions involve bargaining among competing interests within the household

“Must ask”questions for discerning gender

effects on agriculture:

men and women within households.

• Who owns or controls

the assets?

• Who does the work?

• Who makes the

decisions?

• Who captures what

share of the benefits?

• Who is able to

participate?

Mind the gap!

Within Communities

• There is no such thing as “the community”

• Rural communities are deeply stratified

• Women in different social strata do not have the same interests

Social Stratification

• Gender is just one

facet of social

stratification in

rural populations

• i.e. differences

between the

“haves” and the

“have-nots”

Social stratification of rural

men and women

• Landless laborers

• Semi-landless

• “Landed poor” (who lack capital)

• Semi-commercial small producers or

traders

• Commercially viable small producers or

traders in local markets

• Industrial-scale or export-oriented

producer groups

“Must ask”questions for discerning gender effects

on agriculture:men and women within different

social strata.

• Who owns or controls the assets?

• Who does the work?

• Who makes the decisions?

• Who captures what share of the benefits (consumption, investment, wellbeing)?

• Who is able to participate?

Key question reframed

How do perceptions of risk and of tradeoffs between long and short term gain differ between men and women in different social strata ?

Photo

Questions posed through the

research cycle

• Unpack the

reframed key

question

• Define sub-

questions to ask

progressively

through the

research cycle

Gender in the research cycle

(not pipeline)

Planning

Discovery

Testing and

development

Evaluation

1. Improve targeting

• Gender differences require us to seek the gender and socially-disaggregated information needed to characterize beneficiaries of research more accurately

• What are our intended beneficiary groups (men and women in which social strata of the rural population)?

Defining CCAFS’ intended beneficiary groups will

be fundamental to achieving impact

for climate-smart agricultural interventions:

• Shotgun approach = poorly defined beneficiary groups

“small farmers”

“women”

“communities”

• Leads to a weak, “generic” theory of change, confounded effects and interventions with confusing social outcomes

• Why some men and women adopt new practices and others do not remains opaque – Farm size? Assets? Empowerment?

Defining CCAFS’ intended beneficiary groups will

be fundamental to achieving impact

for climate-smart agricultural interventions:

Beneficiary groups that are differentiated socially and gender-wise provide clear “recommendation domains”

• Interventions can be tailored to suit a given group and tested with them

• Probabilities of successful impact increase

• Easier to interpret success and failure

• Approach commonly used in the health and education sectors

2.Understand constraints

• Planning requires information on how gender and other social differences affect resilience as well as exposure and sensitivity to threats

• How do gender differences influence the vulnerability and empowerment of different intended beneficiary groups to climate-change in agriculture?

Case – Tanzania village

studies • The increasing unpredictability of the rainfall

season has led to more people having to use oxen ploughs.

• Ploughing land using oxen is much faster than by hand, and this speed allows maximum use of the shortened, often intermittent rainy period for crop production.

• The poorest households can rarely afford to plough using oxen, and the wealthier owners prepare their own fields first. Poorer women struggle with increases in demand for their labor and increased costs for hiring oxen ploughs

Nelson & Stathers (2009)

3.Identify decision-making

criteria and scenarios • Discovery research needs

information about how men and women in different social beneficiary groups perceive risks and the payoff to different climate-smart options

• How do gender differences influence the kinds of incentives people in different beneficiary groups face and the tradeoffs they are prpared to make?

Case –Tanzania village studies

• Rainy season is now much shorter.

• Farmers in two villages studied adapted by growing more drought-tolerant crops, faster-maturing sorghum varieties, sesame and sunflower have been introduced

• Grain is typically sold by men, and women are less likely than men to control the cash that is received.

• Switches in crops grown in response to drought has led to increased marketing of traditional food crops, sorghum and maize, which are grown by women and increases their workloads

• Women do not benefit from the profits.

• Increased sale of groundnuts, bambara nuts, and cowpeas traditionally sold by women is providing women with more access to, and control of, income.

• The introduction of sesame and sunflower increased income, but control of this cash is not always shared and these crops have led to more weeding work for women.

Nelson & Stathers (2009)

4. Understand innovation

strategies • Development and

testing need information on how gender and social difference affect actual responses to interventions

• How may gender differences influence the innovation strategies to reach intended beneficiary groups?

5. Evaluation- micro level

(field site)

• How have different

dimensions of the

gender gap changed?

• Use the checklist of

“must-have”

questions about

gender differences

• CCAFS Gender

manual and training

• Many methods and

tools are available

5. Evaluation- macro-level

• What changes have occurred in women’s empowerment ? ( an intermediate outcome)

• Have changes occurred in the distribution of assets, income, investment, consumption and wellbeing ? (using the framework for gender effects)

Useful tool: The Women’s Empowerment Index

Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Survey Instrument

WEAI measures empowerment in:

• Individuals

• Groups

• Areas

• e.g. in pilot areas

in Bangladesh

shows 31.9

percent of women

are empowered

Sources of low empowerment:

• In the Bangladesh sample areas lack of control over resources, weak leadership, low influence in the community and lack of control over income are the most important contributors to low empowerment

WEAI Survey pilot areas in Bangladesh

Generating data

• Mind the gap! Filter

all proposed

interventions through

the basic set of

questions about

gender differences

• Improve the gender

and agriculture data

collection and

information system

(CRP2 Policies)

Generating data

• Focus effort in

sentinel sites

where a combined

investment in

gathering

information on

gender can be

efficient

Generating data

• Consider large scale, policy-oriented experiments to pilot interventions with beneficiary groups that are differentiated socially and gender-wise from the start

Thanks!