INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Overview of the initiative

Presented at the Midterm Workshop, Rajendrapur, Bangladesh

November, 2011

INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK RESEARCH INSTITUTE

The Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project (GAAP)

Objectives and overview

Objective: To reduce the gap between men’s and women’s control and ownership of assets, broadly defined, by evaluating how and how well agricultural development programs build women’s assets;

Three-year project, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (mid 2010-mid 2013);

Jointly led by IFPRI and ILRI , including 8 core project collaborators working in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia;

Mix of qualitative and quantitative (Q2) expertise and evaluation methodologies;

Dreaming big and thinking ahead: Might be the start of a new paradigm in agricultural development programming!

Why assets? Why gender?

Increasing control/ownership of assets help create pathways out of poverty more than measures that aim to increase incomes or consumption alone;

Households do not pool resources nor share the same preferences Who receives resources or controls assets matters;

Evidence from many countries that increasing resources controlled by women improves child health and nutrition, agricultural productivity, income growth;

Although we know a lot about how to target women and increase participation with development interventions, methods are still not widely used in development projects and have not addressed the gender-gap in assets;

We define assets broadly: Natural capital, Physical capital, Financial capital, Human capital, Social capital, Political capital.

The big picture: Putting it together

Lots of buzz in Kenya: Inception workshop at ILRI, Nov 2010

More photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ilri/sets/72157625322903538/

Four components of GAAP

1. Capacity building (all grants, especially to facilitate gendered midcourse improvements);

2. Research (quantitative and qualitative impact assessments);

3. Identifying “good practice” (synthesis and lessons learned);

4. Dissemination and outreach (ongoing, not only at project end).

Left: Farmer shows off MoneyMaker irrigation pump to Enumerator team in Kenya.; Right: Asset transfers in Burkina Faso

Capacity building activities

Develop a conceptual framework for analyzing gender and assets in agricultural R&D programs;

Inception workshop in November 2010: training and planning workshop for potential projects (one evaluation person and one implementer per project);

Develop a capacity building strategy and train project members in gender-asset methodology for selected projects and for the overall initiative based on the KAP survey;

Midterm workshop (year 2): progress, research results, midterm adjustments to projects—NOW!

Final workshop (end of project): present evaluation results, effectiveness of different strategies, share lessons from evaluation

results and integrated strategies.

Research activities

Work with the evaluation partners in the selected projects, design additional gender-sensitive approaches or components to include in the evaluation plan for each project including data collection;

Conduct gender analysis together with evaluation partners, to include:

• Initial characterization of baseline data;

• Documentation of mid-course adjustments and their impacts;

• Impact analysis by project;

• Synthesis of findings across projects.

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Identifying “good practices”

Identify effective pathways for reaching women and reducing gender asset disparities, based on ongoing implementation and cross-project learning;

Some projects may want to implement midterm adjustments, as a result of findings. Changes will be documented so we can learn from them (“Gendered midcourse improvements”);

Develop alternative strategies for addressing gender disparities in assets in agricultural development projects, depending on context (sub-Saharan Africa versus South Asia).

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Dissemination and outreach

Document and widely disseminate methods, results, and lessons learned about how to build women’s assets and improve livelihoods through agricultural development projects;

Thinking “outside the box”: use web-based dissemination options—set up http://genderassets.wordpress.com;

Develop training materials and for supporting partners in data collection, analysis and implementation;

Prepare scientific papers, project reports, and policy briefs.

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Summary of Key points

Evaluate 8 agricultural development projects:

• Identify the projects’ impacts on women’s assets;

• Clarify which strategies have been successful in reducing gender gaps in asset access and ownership;

Participatory process between implementers, evaluation partners and GAAP team;

Use existing baseline surveys and new targeted studies (qualitative and quantitative) to document men’s and women’s assets and the change in those levels over the life of the project;

Provide training and technical assistance to program staff in methods to identify and address gender disparities in assets;

Contribute to a development toolkit to reduce gender asset disparities and help to place gender considerations at the center of agricultural development.

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Mind the gap!