April 2010

The good news is …

Livestock  are  one  of  the  assets  that  women  can  easily  own  and  therefore  has  poten6al  to  increase  their  economic  empowerment  and  the  wellbeing  of  their  families  

And the not so good news is …

Women and Livestock: Revisiting the Agenda

Livestock  research  carried  out  without  a  gender  lens  can  be  a  threat  to  women’s  ownership  of  livestock,  their  benefits  from  livestock  markets,  and  their  health    

Why Women and Livestock Women play important roles as producers of food, managers of natural resources, income earners, and caretakers of household food and nutrition security. Livestock offer a fundamental way in which poor people in rural areas, particularly women, accumulate the assets that allow them to climb out of poverty. Livestock is often the only asset women can own/control. Thus an explicit targeting of efforts towards women livestock keepers and participants in livestock marketing chains can help increase the number of households that escape poverty and decrease the number that fall into it.

The ultimate objective of this area of work within ILRI is to improve household welfare through increasing women’s access to livestock assets, information, technologies, and social capital, and participation in livestock and livestock product markets.

Key issues on women and livestock and strategies for addressing them

Women’s  economic  empowerment:  

 Improved  family  well  being  (income  +  food  security,  nutri=on    

Increasing  and  securing  

livestock  assets  

Improving  access  to  resources,  

technologies,  informa=on  and  

services  

BeAer  integra=on  and  

increased  benefits  from  livestock  markets  

Understanding  gender  

constraints,  roles  in  livestock  

produc=on  

1. Understanding context, gender roles and responsibilities

Figure 1. Key gender issues and potential outcomes

2. Increasing and securing women’s access to livestock assets

3. Increasing women’s access to information, technologies and services

4. Increasing participation in and benefits from markets

5.Understanding the links between gender food security and nutrition

Understanding gender roles in livestock helps in targeting resources such as capacity, technologies, and other services. These roles change with context, country, culture or production system. In general however women perform 50-90% of the labour in livestock production.

Cattle Poultry Goats Mozambique 11 13 Kenya 12 80 11 Rwanda 15 38 41 Uganda 14 36 64

Women’s priorities and constraints are often, but not always, different from men’s. They have less access to inputs and services. Some strategies to increase access to inputs include collective action, farmer to farmer extension and participatory approaches..

Sale of livestock and livestock products are often the most important source of income for women. Women’s control of the income from sales is often challenged in the household. Women are more likely to sell in informal, local markets and derive more income from these markets

1

Figure 2: Who received money from milk

0%  

10%  

20%  

30%  

40%  

50%  

60%  

70%  

80%  

90%  

100%  

Individual  customer     Private  milk-­‐traders   Dairy  coop.  collec=on  center   Chilling    Male   Female     Mixed  

Within households, women are the key mediators for the nutrition of children and other household members. Lack of access to key assets such as livestock and services such as training can undermine nutrition and health.

Livestock are often one of the key assets that women can own. Ownership of assets by women has been associated with improved nutrition and health as well as household wellbeing. Women have different ways through which they acquire livestock and threats to their livestock also differ.

Table1 Sex of owner of livestock within households

1 EADD, 2010: East Africa Dairy Development Project. Baseline Report No. 6: Gender issues in dairy production and Marketing. EADD