April 29, 2011
A Smart Gender Approach Strengthens Food Security
ACDI/VOCA Gender Expert Points to Practical Ways to Improve Gender Roles, Increase Food Security
ACDI/VOCA gender specialist Lindsey Jones addressed an audience of development practitioners on April 22 in a panel discussion on "The Hidden Role of Gender in Food Security & Value Chain Development" at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The event was organized by the Gender in Development Workgroup of the Society for International Development (SID) to share strategies for integrating gender approaches into value chain efforts to alleviate poverty and food insecurity.
In addition to Jones, the panel included Emmanuela Mashayo, Purchase for Progress project coordinator in Rwanda; Florizelle Liser, assistant U.S. trade representative for Africa for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; Kathleen Vickland, director of Latin America and the Caribbean for the CARANA Corporation; and Sharon Phillips, program office and gender advisor for USAID.
Women Face Extra Barriers in Weak Value Chains
The speakers noted the challenges women face in many food-insecure countries, including a lack of access to credit, farming inputs and markets. They also acknowledged the pitfalls of development interventions that do not take gender roles into account, such as adding to women’s workloads without increasing their ability to control income and resources.
Jones said that understanding and addressing gender roles in value chains can both strengthen the targeted value chains and empower women.
ACDI/VOCA’s approach to development is to look for opportunities to strengthen the position of women, especially at the smallholder farmer level, while mitigating the adverse effects that such interventions can have on women.
Jones illustrated this point with examples from programs working with smallholder farmers in Kenya and India.
Whole Family Benefits from Women’s Empowerment in Kenya
In Kenya ACDI/VOCA modified its signature training curriculum in Farming as a Business to address gender roles to increase the training benefits for smallholder maize farmers.
The resulting Farming as a Family Business module trains men and women together and incorporates the message that everyone benefits if labor and control of assets are allocated more equitably. Much of the messaging is targeted at men to incentivize them to share in the decision-making on farm management and spending of profits with female members of the household, who typically engage in a large portion of the farm work.
FaaFB is a powerful tool for gender integration, according to Jones, even in projects that are not specifically designed to be focused on women’s empowerment.
Collective Action Puts Women in Stronger Market Position in India
In India, the Sunhara project integrated gender analysis into its baseline study and incorporated gender-specific interventions into its efforts to reduce poverty.
The program looks for opportunities to strengthen women’s roles in agriculture. As an example, Sunhara capitalizes on women working together through producer groups, which give them greater access to resources and authority to negotiate prices with traders. A key approach is leadership training for female group members. The trainings bring to the forefront inequalities that stand in the way of progress and builds the women’s confidence and leadership skills to assert their rights in the face of these barriers.
Looking to the Future
The panelists agreed on the need to find innovative ways to get women more active in roles higher in the development value chain. They also acknowledged the need to incorporate health and nutrition information, traditionally the purview of women, into agricultural value chain programming to ensure that families do not suffer from increased food insecurity as a result of market-oriented interventions.
Jones said that ACDI/VOCA’s goal is to embed gender-sensitive interventions, such as Farming as a Family Business, as a service offered by an entity within the value chain. To achieve this, she says, it is necessary to rigorously test and evaluate interventions to learn which are effective and which are not and to then use that evidence to make a business case for gender-responsive business practices.
Learn more about our programs in Kenya and India.
Learn more about ACDI/VOCA’s work with women.
Lindsey Jones (center) speaks in a panel discussion on "The Hidden Role of Gender in Food Security & Value Chain Development" at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
