Download Free A Qualitative Assessment Of A Gender Sensitive Agricultural Training Program In Benin Findings On Program Experience And Womens Empowerment Across Key Agricultural Value Chains Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online A Qualitative Assessment Of A Gender Sensitive Agricultural Training Program In Benin Findings On Program Experience And Womens Empowerment Across Key Agricultural Value Chains and write the review.

This study presents qualitative findings from an assessment conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute and Cultural Practice, LLC of the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) Agricultural Technical Vocational Education and Training program for women (ATVET4Women) in Benin, supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). ATVET4Women in Benin targets women working in value chains for four target commodities (soy, rice, chicken, and compost) to support capacity building in their respective nodes (production, processing, and marketing). The contributions of this study are multifold. First, it assesses program experiences and impacts. Second, it examines the gender dimensions of production, processing, and marketing activities in four specific value chains. Third, this research is a component of a broader study to adapt and validate the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index for market inclusion (pro-WEAI+MI) on key agricultural value chains in Benin and Malawi for ATVET4Women. This study employed multiple qualitative methods to assess beneficiaries’ program experiences and impacts. Fifteen key informant interviews were conducted with various actors along the value chain and agro-processing center managers involved in ATVET4Women. Thirty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with women beneficiaries of ATVET4Women, husbands of beneficiaries, women that were involved in the value chain but did not participate in ATVET4Women, and ATVET4Women trainers. Structured observations were conducted of five ATVET4Women training centers. In general, women beneficiaries and their husbands shared positive reviews of ATVET4Women in that the program increased women’s confidence in their abilities and taught women best practices for producing and selling higher quality products, generating higher incomes for women. Women noted several challenges and barriers to participate in ATVET4Women, including limited availability to travel to or partake in the trainings due to competing demands and priorities on their time, requiring their husbands’ permission to attend, and limited means to support travel to and from trainings. Related to findings around empowerment, results suggest that an empowered woman is closely tied to her ability to generate income, regardless of her decision-making autonomy, whereas an empowered man is one who generates higher incomes and is autonomous in his decision-making. A woman is expected to be submissive to her husband and defer to his decision-making, which holds implications for her ability to participate in activities outside of the household, including but not limited to ATVET4Women and similar programs. This study concludes with specific recommendations for ATVET4Women and similar programs to consider in future iterations of further programming to increase women’s empowerment in Benin.
Achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in food systems can result in greater food security and better nutrition, and in more just, resilient, and sustainable food systems for all. This paper uses a scoping review to assess the current evidence on pathways between gender equality, women’s empowerment, and food systems. The paper uses an adaptation of the food systems framework to organize the evidence and identify where evidence is strong, and where gaps remain. Results show strong evidence on women’s differing access to resources, shaped and reinforced by contextual social gender norms, and on links between women’s empowerment and maternal education and important outcomes, such as nutrition and dietary diversity. However, evidence is limited on issues such as gender considerations in food systems for women in urban areas and in aquaculture value chains, best practices and effective pathways for engaging men in the process of women’s empowerment in food systems, and for addressing issues related to migration, crises, and indigenous food systems. And while there are gender informed evaluation studies that examine the effectiveness of gender- and nutrition- sensitive agricultural programs, evidence to indicate the long-term sustainability of such impacts remains limited. The paper recommends keys areas for investment: improving women’s leadership and decision-making in food systems, promoting equal and positive gender norms, improving access to resources, and building cross-contextual research evidence on gender and food systems.
Many development agencies design and implement interventions that aim to reach, benefit, and empower rural women across the value chain in activities ranging from production, to processing, to marketing. Determining whether and how such interventions empower women, as well as the constraints faced by different value chain actors, requires quantitative and qualitative tools. We describe how we adapted the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Index (pro-WEAI), a mixed-methods tool for studying empowerment in development projects, to include aspects of agency relevant for multiple types of value chain actors. The resulting pro-WEAI for market inclusion (pro-WEAI+MI) includes quantitative and qualitative instruments developed over the course of four studies. Studies in the Philippines (2017), Bangladesh (2017), and Malawi (2019) were intended to diagnose areas of disempowerment to inform programming, whereas the Benin (2019) study was an impact assessment of an agricultural training program. The pro-WEAI+MI includes all indicators included in pro-WEAI, plus a dashboard of complementary indicators and recommended qualitative instruments. These tools investigate the empowerment of women in different value chains and nodes and identify barriers to market access and inclusion that may restrict empowerment for different value chain actors. Our findings highlight three lessons. First, the sampling strategy needs to be designed to capture the key actors in a value chain. Second, the market inclusion indicators cannot stand alone; they must be interpreted alongside the core pro-WEAI indicators. Third, not all market inclusion indicators will be relevant for all value chains and contexts. Users should research the experiences of women and men in the target value chains in the context of the programto select priority market inclusion indicators.
This Open Access book compiles the findings of the Scientific Group of the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 and its research partners. The Scientific Group was an independent group of 28 food systems scientists from all over the world with a mandate from the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. The chapters provide science- and research-based, state-of-the-art, solution-oriented knowledge and evidence to inform the transformation of contemporary food systems in order to achieve more sustainable, equitable and resilient systems.
This paper develops a new framework to measure and track women’s empowerment in governance of countries’ agrifood systems. All too often, women’s needs, priorities, and voices are missing from the policy process, even when women may be disproportionately affected by shocks or have distinct policy preferences. The Women’s Empowerment in Agrifood Systems Governance (WEAGov) is an assessment framework to help countries and stakeholders measure the extent of inclusion and leadership of women in agrifood systems governance and to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. WEAGov looks across three stages of the policy cycle: policy design, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. At each stage of the policy cycle, WEAGov asks three questions central to women’s empowerment in governance: Are women considered? Are women included? And are women influencing? This paper describes the process of conceptualizing and developing the WEAGov assessment framework by drawing together evidence, experience, and lessons from the literature and from over 30 stakeholder consultations across several countries and sectors to develop a practical and theoretically grounded framework.
This year marks 20 years of implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which was broadened under the 2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods. The 2023 Annual Trends and Outlook Report generates evidence on the implementation of the CAADP/Malabo agenda and thus contributes to the design of the post-Malabo phase of CAADP implementation. The report assesses the current state of Africa's food systems, explores strategic issues related to food systems transformation, and reflects on necessary methodologies and approaches to provide a better understanding of key challenges and necessary actions to accelerate transformation.
One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is reducing food loss and waste (FLW) across all stages of food value chains, including the on-farm production, the off-farm postharvest, processing, and distribution, and the household consumption stages. We employ general equilibrium models for Bangladesh, Kenya, and Nigeria to assess the economywide implications of reducing FLW at different stages of value chains. Halving FLW results in GDP increases of between 1.1 and 2 percent, with up to 13 million people lifted out of poverty across the three countries. Diets also improve – especially in Kenya and Nigeria – due to greater availability and lower prices of healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables. Although most of the gains originate from reducing FLW in the on-farm production stage, strong intersectoral linkages mean around 30 percent of measured GDP gains are realized in non-agricultural sectors. Reducing waste at the final consumption stage has small negative impacts on GDP as households purchase less food without reducing their food intake. We conclude that the significant economywide gains provide a justification for adopting FLW reduction strategies, although costing the policy and investment options needed to reduce FLW is an important area for future research.
This report presents the final evaluation results of the project “Disposal of persistent organic pollutants and obsolete pesticides and implementation of sound pesticides management in Benin” (GCP/BEN/056/GFF), implemented by FAO and the Government of Benin from March 2015 to September 2021. The project is consistent with the country and its partners’ priorities. The project was able to implement the farmer field school approach, integrated production and pest management (IPPM) and relevant partnerships. Nevertheless, gaps in pesticide life cycle management were identified and corrective measures proposed. Regulatory framework has been strengthened as well as national capacities in decontaminating polluted sites, securing obsolete pesticides and persistant organic pollutants, analysing polluted soil samples, recycling and managing empty pesticide containers, and testing and adopting IPPM-based alternative techniques and systems.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Federal Government of Nigeria implemented the Nigeria Value Chain Development Program (VCDP) across six Nigerian states with the objective to improve farmer organizations’ collective efficacy, and alleviate poverty via improving rice and cassava production, farmers’ incomes, and value chain integration. The VCDP incorporated a gender-sensitive design to target women beneficiaries and improve empowerment by expanding access to training, opportunities, and resources. The VCDP also aimed to improve local infrastructure. This study presents qualitative findings from the VCDP impact evaluation. Four communities from two of the six treatment states were selected for this study: Niger and Anambra. Across study areas, sex disaggregated key-informant interview were conducted with 10 service providing agents (technical and capacity building), 8 farmer organization leaders, 14 producers, 13 processors, and 15 marketers. And 8 sex disaggregated FGDs were conducted with members of farmer organizations; 2 FGDs were also conducted with youth-only farmer organizations. Service providing agents found general success in delivering services to beneficiaries and benefitted themselves by working for the VCDP. Agents developed new skills that better enabled them to deliver services, and they benefitted from higher social standings as a result of their work. The VCDP was generally well received and improved target farmer organizations’ collective efficacy. These factors lead to improved rice and cassava production and processing, increasing access to necessary resources for value chain actors, and fostering cross node integration. Beneficiaries found that the different VCDP technical trainings that supported linkages to buyers were particularly useful for improving their outcomes within the value chains. Additionally, VCDP supported infrastructure development positively impacted value chain actors, particularly women, by reducing the time they spent on certain domestic chores and facilitated their ability to better participate in value chain activities. Some challenges persisted. Cultural norms restricted interaction between men and women in Niger state. Weak governance of participating farmer organizations, high levels of corruption, and security concerns that limited mobility and access to remote areas were especially challenging. Beneficiaries also noted that access to suitable financing was a significant challenge; the VCDP is rolling out a new financial linkages component to address this directly in 2020. Finally, beneficiaries were sometimes frustrated with what was perceived as unmet expectations or slow delivery of services by VCDP. In future iterations of VCDP and similar programs, it is recommended to continue strengthening the capacity building services to improve organizations’ collective efficacy, embed anti-corruption measures to ensure all intended beneficiaries have access to program resources, ensure appropriate and timely delivery of services to meet beneficiaries’ needs, and to strengthen the gender component of the program by increasing gender-sensitization trainings for beneficiaries, further targeting women beneficiaries for inclusion, and delivering context-specific solutions that enable all women beneficiaries have equal access to program support and resources.
"The 2012 report recognized that expanding women's agency - their ability to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities is key to improving their lives as well as the world. This report represents a major advance in global knowledge on this critical front. The vast data and thousands of surveys distilled in this report cast important light on the nature of constraints women and girls continue to face globally. This report identifies promising opportunities and entry points for lasting transformation, such as interventions that reach across sectors and include life-skills training, sexual and reproductive health education, conditional cash transfers, and mentoring. It finds that addressing what the World Health Organization has identified as an epidemic of violence against women means sharply scaling up engagement with men and boys. The report also underlines the vital role information and communication technologies can play in amplifying women's voices, expanding their economic and learning opportunities, and broadening their views and aspirations. The World Bank Group's twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity demand no less than the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys, around the world." -- Publisher's description.