gender responsive ras afaas - fara scoping studies 2015-

Max Olupot and Ann Apekey

Hotel Africana Kampala

Eastern Africa Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services

Policy Dialogue

www.afaas-africa.org

Gender, RAS and Polices; Results from AFAAS-FARA Gender Scoping

Studies

Introduction Gender Context of Small Holder

Agriculture in Sub Saharan Africa:• Small holder (SH) agriculture is the most

dominant form of livelihood; • It is practiced both for family/household food

security and deriving income• small holder agriculture in SSA countries is

carried out as a way of life, influenced by culturally specific traditional methods and tools of cultivation and modes of organization of the production process.

• RAS Perspective !!!!

Introduction contd…• Gender responsive rural advisory

services (GRRAS) are defined as extension and advisory services that are designed and implemented in a way that effectively address the needs (practical and strategic), interests, and concerns affecting men, women, male and female youth farmers in rural areas (GFRAS 2013).

Introduction •November 2014, AFAAS & FARA commissioned scoping studies (7 Countries ) on Gender responsive approaches to rural advisory services (GRAS) in Africa;

•Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Sudan, & Uganda;

Objectives of the Scoping studies• Identify key innovations that have helped to improve the productivity of women and youth with a view to scaling up & out for use by other farmers and RAS providers;

• Identify and document the good practices of gender responsive approaches to RAS in the selected countries that can be shared and scaled up in other countries in order to improve the access of women and youth to RAS and promote poverty reduction;

• Determine the drivers, challenges or constraints that may facilitate or hinder scaling up and out of gender responsive RAS practices.

Rational • Identify policies, programmes, approaches

and tools that are gender responsive in providing RAS to farmers, with specific focus on women and youth;

• Propose a road map for mainstreaming gender sensitive approaches, tools and practices into RAS with a view to promoting sustainable agriculture in Africa.

Gender, Smallholder Agriculture in SSA and RAS

• SH Agric is fused with rural ways of life;• Carried out as an extension of the

obligations, roles and responsibilities of different household members in ensuring household nutrition, food security, earning income and enhancing social and economic status not only within households but also communities.

Gender, Smallholder Agriculture contd…• Gender, the social construction of masculine

and feminine identities, distinguishes and structures roles, rights and responsibilities of household members in smallholder agriculture;

• Access to, and control of land, labour and income are socio-culturally defined, with men, especially heads of household, making the broad management decisions of land allocation, labour organisation, cropping/animal rearing patterns and income expenditure.

Gender, Smallholder Agriculture contd…

• Nutrition and food security -women’s responsibilities;

• Income earning-men’s responsibilities;• Gender is not only a fundamental

principle governing the social organisation of small holder agriculture and its benefits;

• Informs the formulation of governmental and non governmental policies targeting small holder agriculture.

Gender, Smallholder Agriculture contd..• RAS therefore has considerable scope for

addressing gender inequalities • RAS acts as the link between agricultural

organisations, including governments and research institutions, and small holder farmers.

• It is within the small holder agricultural sub sector that gender inequalities are most entrenched, reproduced, justified and legitimised through interlinked household management and farming norms and practices.

• Therefore, for RAS to address gender inequalities, it must become gender responsive, thereby transforming into gender responsive rural advisory services (GRRAS).

Road Map• Road Map for Mainstreaming Gender Sensitive

Approaches, Tools and Practices into RAS With a View of Promoting Sustainable Agriculture in Africa

• Based on: identified key innovations that have helped to

improve the productivity of women and youth; the documented good practices of gender

responsive approaches to RAS; drivers and challenges/constraints that may

facilitate or hinder scaling up and out of gender responsive RAS practices

Road Map Getting Off the Policy Tables• Malawi, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Ethiopia have

gender responsive national development and agricultural sector policies and strategies;

• Most of these policies and strategies have not been operationalized;

• Lack of specific plans of action within government documentation for addressing gender disparities within smallholder agricultural sector (Malindi 2015);

• Gender in most SSA countries seems to be stuck on the tables where policies are formulated;

• There is need to “breathe life into the policies” so that they get translated into impact laden measurable actions amongst small holder farming communities.

Road Map Need for Shared Understanding of Gender

Equality and Its Significance• Policy makers and implementers and agricultural

institutions need to be engaged into dialogue to build shared understanding of gender equality and why it is important to pursue this goal, especially in RAS;

• Guide policy makers and implementers in designing actions for promoting gender equality in RAS at ideological, organisational, budgetary and logistical levels, and to become accountable to gender in their work.

Road Map Gender Budgeting• Introduction to the theory and practice of gender

budgeting would allay policy makers’ and implementers’ unease about extra costs for promoting GRRAS;

• Resources could be obtained from existing budgetary allocations through re-adjustments and re-allocations there-in, and at higher effectiveness of outcomes.

Ways of Promoting and Up-Scaling Gender Responsive Technologies and Innovations for Reducing Drudgery and Enhancing Productivity along the Agricultural Value Chains

• Drudgery is one of the key turn offs for youths in agriculture (Quaye 2015).

Road Map Promotion and Facilitation of Agricultural

Small and Medium Enterprises (Agri-SMEs) that Empower Women and Youth e.g. Ghana’s Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP)

Integration of Health and Nutrition into Agricultural Value Chains

• E.g. Ethiopia’s Empowering New Generations with Improved Nutrition and Economic Opportunities (ENGINE) project;

• Developing and adopting appropriate agricultural technologies that meet farmers’ needs, refines available technologies to fit actual farmers’ situations, and develops problem solving capacities amongst farmers

Road Map Enhancing Participation of Women, Men and

Youth• Explicitly stating within agricultural development

policy, programme and/or project documentation the proportions of men, women and youths that will benefit forestalls exclusion of some categories in society.

Inclusion Beyond Participation• Village Savings and Loans (VSL) models foster

financial inclusion since most rural farmers including women and youth are excluded from formal financial institutions.

Road Map Empowerment of Women• Women and youths may participate and be

included by GRRAS, but on unfavourable terms compared to men due to internalization of their subordination and exclusion;

• The structural environment within which women and youth do operate may also be so male dominated;

• GRRAS should therefore not be content with heightened participation and inclusion only;

• GRRAS should further have empowerment as its other goal.

Road MapTransformational GRRAS• Transforming the unequal gender status quo within

SSA small holder agriculture should be the ultimate goal of GRRAS

• The COS Sis project in Benin was so transformational that women not only extended the neem production skills within Benin but also abroad (Babadankpodji 2015).

Conclusion For GRRAS to be realised,• It is imperative that national gender responsive policies and

strategies are operationalized;• Requires conviction of policy makers and implementers about

the significance of pursuing gender equality goals within SH agric

• Technical expertise for designing and promoting GRRAS exists in some universities and amongst international NGOS;

• There are also a host of key innovations that have helped to improve the productivity of women and youth and good practices of gender responsive approaches to RAS that could be scaled up and out for promotion of GRRAS to reduce poverty and gender inequalities in SH Agric in Africa.

• AFAAS now is developing Gender Responsive Strategy

Thank you for your attention

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http://www.afaas-africa.orghttp://networking.afaas-africa.org

Take home questions

• Identify three concrete good practices and Innovations that are Gender responsive

• How can these good practices be scaled up & out; for use by RAS providers and farmers?

• What capacities are needed to deliver GRRAS

• Who are the potential key actors/ stakeholders in driving the GRRAS forward?