Gender equality in food systems: The ‘new normal’
“We are working across the entire CGIAR system to innovate and incorporate gender into everything we do,” said Nicoline de Haan, Director of GENDER, which was officially launched at the Africa Green Revolution Forum 2020 virtual summit. Read more.
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What’s at stake: Gender, agriculture and crisis
As women face unprecedented upheavals, the development community has an opportunity to not only meet immediate needs, but to support a more innovative, equitable future. Read more.
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She’s a farmer. She sows and harvests. She feeds and tends her family’s animals, collects fuelwood, carries water. Despite all of this, Amina has less access to assets, opportunities and benefits than her husband, her brother, her father or her son.
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Gender considerations during a climate emergency: News from across One CGIAR
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Building back better with gender equality
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Climate change affects women and men differently. How women and men's needs, priorities, and challenges in relation to climate change differ must be taken into account in development interventions.
For example, one study on the adoption of climate-smart agriculture technologies in Vietnam has shed light on how climate change influences women and men's social expectations, roles, status, and economic powers in different ways. In Southeast Nigeria, women play crucial roles in addressing food insecurity, but gender-specific obstacles impede their abilities to cope with climate impacts. In Uttar Pradesh, India, one woman has planted stress-tolerant rice and is successfully managing climate change impacts, and in Odisha women drive climate-resilient farming. All the while, rural women in Myanmar are reaping the benefits of sustainable rice farming practices.
However, climate change is likely to limit structural transformation and job creation for youth outside the agricultural sector, which demands investment in technology, education, and infrastructure.
At the same time, COVID-19 and zoonotic diseases continue to threaten women and men farmers. Understanding the intersections of COVID-19, gender, and food security is crucial for protecting both women’s food security and their roles in the food value chain. In fact, it is worth asking whether COVID-19 represents a setback or an opportunity for gender equality.
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Understanding gender and driving social change
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Despite the importance of gender-sensitive policies and approaches, 'gender-blind' and biased terms still dominate global discussions and agendas. Investing in understanding local gender norms and dynamics is key to sustainable development.
For example, men and women often disagree when asked the same questions—a new study points out that it might be because wives own assets or make decisions that their husbands are unaware of. What's more, women's ability to empower themselves is partly dependent on the empowerment of others, such as their parents and spouses.
In rural Tanzania, local discourse appears to embrace the idea of gender equality, but practice remains quite different. Another study, also in Tanzania, indicated that ensuring households' food and nutrition security are two distinct gender roles linked to women’s empowerment. In South Mali, farmers, regardless of gender, age, or education, are well aware of land degradation, and their responses shape options for restoration and outcomes.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam, a team of scientists found no clear trend of a ‘feminization’ of agriculture, countering a view of women as one unified category with generalized gendered trends. However, in Nigeria, women are found to be constrained by powerful gender norms, which privilege men’s agency.
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Designing crops and technologies
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A gender perspective can contribute to improving crop production and scaling up of existing technologies and practices as well as provide gains in pest and disease management. For example, men and women play different roles on the farm, and potentially prefer different varieties of roots, tubers, and bananas. Similarly, women and men have specific, and different, preferences for livestock breeds and traits.
Evidence on gender differences in maize adoption from Uganda and Tanzania shows the need for targeted and disaggregated strategies when scaling modern varieties. Gender-intentional product profiles might help reach women with improved maize and wheat seeds. Also, gender-specific research along the banana value chain can help ensure that farmers do adopt new cultivars.
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Creating opportunities in business, markets and value chains
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In India, a women’s cooperative has evolved into one of the country's more successful dairy businesses, and women play important roles throughout the value chain. In Senegal, scientists are supporting women to start and identify suitable business models for improved rice seed production, while in Peru, inclusive dialogues inspire and provide resources for young people and women to pursue careers cultivating high-quality varieties of cacao.
Interviews with women and men in Kenya and Uganda showed that initiatives that include women construct new pathways for women's participation in dairy development. In Nigeria, however, young women in particular have less access to information and irrigation, and are less likely to benefit from farmer cooperatives. In general, women have difficulty accessing livestock vaccines because delivery and distribution chains tend to target men.
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Improving research, methods and capacities
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A new guidance note explains how gender-transformative approaches might improve farmer decision-making, strengthen women and men’s empowerment, and ensure that development gains are more equitably distributed. Elsewhere, scientists are piloting tools to enhance gender-responsiveness when setting crop breeding priorities.
Likewise, a how-to-do note provides guidance on tools and processes to use when investing in pastoralist women, and the Women's Empowerment in Livestock Index (WELI) is a new index to assess the empowerment of women in the livestock sector.
A recently published tool describes how to enhance social inclusion in and through natural resource management. In the Barotse Floodplain of Zambia, for example, scientists have used local knowledge from women and men to understand which ecosystem services are important. In Ethiopia, community conversations are helping women and men identify and analyze gender relations standing in the way of detecting and treating zoonotic diseases.
In light of COVID-19 and related travel restrictions, evidence is emerging that phone surveys might not be good enough for obtaining reliable and quality information from women, although such surveys might represent both opportunities and shortcomings.
Gender-disaggregated data on human resource capacity in science can help set benchmarks and determine future priorities. By the mid-2010s, women constituted 22 percent of the total number of agricultural researchers in Africa south of the Sahara, compared to an average of 48 percent in the European Union.
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Vacancy: Science Officer, CGIAR GENDER Platform
GENDER is seeking to recruit an innovative and creative science leader to serve as the GENDER Platform’s Science Officer. Read more.
Vacancy: Gender Senior Scientist with the International Potato Center (CIP)
CIP is seeking a dynamic and innovative researcher on gender to enhance the impact of research and development programs on poverty, malnutrition and climate change. Read more.
Vacancy: (Senior) Scientist – Gender and Agriculture Researcher with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
CIMMYT is seeking an experienced, dynamic, pro-active, resourceful and results-oriented gender and agriculture researcher to join its Socio-Economics Program in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Read more.
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Gender and climate change in the Alliance of Bioversity-CIAT and CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
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Follow the conversation on @CGIARgender and #GenderInAg.
Sign up for our online discussion group to participate in exchanges about GENDER and related resources and opportunities.
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Thank you
Thank you to CGIAR research centers, programs and platforms that contributed to this newsletter: AfricaRice, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), International Potato Center (CIP), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), World Agroforestry (ICRAF). Also to the CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS); Livestock; Maize; Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM); Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB); Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE); Wheat as well as Excellence in Breeding (EIB).
Photo credits from the top: S.Kilungu/CCAFS; GENDER; S. Saini/CCAFS; IRRI; M. Yousuf Tushar/WorldFish; Peter Lowe/CIMMYT; E.Masias/Alliance; Simone D. McCourtie/World Bank.
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