Transcript Gender Equality in Value Chains Writeshop 22 – 30 November 2010 Karen Cooperative Training Centre Nairobi, Kenya Gender and value chain concepts.

Gender Equality in Value
Chains Writeshop
22 – 30 November 2010
Karen Cooperative Training Centre
Nairobi, Kenya
Gender and value
chain concepts
Value chain
• A value chain refers to the entire system of production,
processing and marketing of a particular product, from
inception to the finished product.
• A value chain consists of a series of chain actors, linked
together by flows of products, finance, information and
services.
• At each stage of the chain the value of the product goes
up, because the product becomes more convenient for the
consumer. Besides value, costs are added at each stage in
the chain.
Chain actors
• The chain actors are the individuals or organizations that
produce the product, or buy and sell it.
• When a farmer sells a product to a trader, two things change
hands: the product goes in one direction, and money goes in
the other. This exchange is repeated at each stage in the chain,
forming two parallel flows, of produce and money.
• In addition, each of the actors may be prepared to invest in the
chain and to support the other actors to make sure that it
functions smoothly. This gives rise to additional flows of
finance, information and services between the different
actors in the chain. These flows may go in either direction.
Chain supporters
Chain supporters
• Often other individuals and institutions, surrounding the chain
actors, provide services to them. We call these “chain
supporters”.
• Chain supporters may provide various financial services to the
chain actors. These supporters include moneylenders, savings and
credit groups, microfinance institutions, banks, equity funds, and so
on.
• Chain supporters may provide non-financial services to the chain
actors, such as technical assistance, support in business
management, financial management, organizational strengthening,
and so on.
Chain actors, chain supporters
and context
Pro-poor chain
development
Chain development is pro-poor only when:
1. It has impacts beyond an increase in the income of the
poor.
2. It should also lead to more economic control by the poor,
namely, a renewed power balance in the value chain.
Questions
•
•
How to improve the position of the poor and
marginalized in a value chain?
Who exactly are the poor, and why are they
poor?
Upgrading strategies
for the poor…
• capturing higher margins for unprocessed commodities
• producing new forms of existing and/or other
commodities (diversification)
• localising commodity processing or marketing
How do rural entrepreneurs
benefit?
• Upgrading can be hindered by
more powerful players, including
by governments, companies and
existing social structures
• Gains are often unequally
distributed
• Weakest actors in a chain often
enjoy very few opportunities to
upgrade their businesses
• Inclusion under unprofitable
terms
Chain empowerment
strategies
Chain activities
• 1. Chain actors: engaged in a
range of production
ACTIVITY
INTEGRATOR
2
CHAIN
ACTOR
1
CHAIN
CO-OWNER
4
CHAIN
PARTNER
3
Chain governance
• 2. Activity integrator: actor
involved in more than one
chain function
• 3. Chain partnerships: longterm alliances centered on
shared interests and mutual
growth.
• 4. Chain ownership: direct
linkages between producers
and consumers
Chain empowerment strategies
Chain activities
ACTIVITY
INTEGRATOR
2
CHAIN
ACTOR
1
CHAIN
CO-OWNER
4
CHAIN
PARTNER
3
Chain governance
• 1. Upgrading as a chain actor:
smallholders become crop
specialists with clear market
orientation
• 2. Adding value through vertical
integration: Smallholders move
into joint processing and
marketing in order to add value
• 3. Developing chain partnerships:
Smallholders build long-term
alliances with buyers that are
centered on shared interests and
mutual growth.
• 4. Developing ownership over the
chain: The farmers try to build
direct linkages with consumer
markets.
Beyond chain
empowerment…
Questions
Chain activities
ACTIVITY
INTEGRATOR
2
CHAIN
CO-OWNER
4
• What happens to the income
distribution and workload within
the household?
• What choices and alternatives do
women have regarding the chain
activities and management?
CHAIN
ACTOR
1
CHAIN
PARTNER
3
Chain governance
• Do women have a voice beyond
the chain, and if they have a voice
do they make use of it?
• And how are their perspectives
and needs linked to their
achievements in the chain?
Gender and value chains
"Mainstreaming gender analysis in value chain
development is likely to encourage creative
thinking about a range of different potential
strategies for upgrading of the value chain as a
whole and also protecting the interests of those
most vulnerable at specific stages within it."
Mayoux and Mackie (ILO) 2009
Case study questions
during the writeshop
• What strategy was used (why and how) to address what?
• Change process: what kind of change do we look at?
(What is the impact of that strategy on gender relations?)
• Why is it a good strategy in relation to achieving gender
equality?
• How do we get other actors on board of “our” agenda?
Gender
•What is Gender?
• Social meaning given to being a man or woman
• Characteristics used to define a man or woman that do not
stem from biological differences
Gender as
a social relation
• Gender relations are specific to societies and time
• Gender relations change in response to wider changes -- they
are not fixed for all time
• There are differences among women (and men) - class,
caste, religious community, race etc.
• Gender influences division of tasks, access to information,
knowledge, networks etc
• Gender relations are social relations of power
Gender relations
produced and reproduced
• Gender relations are produced and reproduced in institutions
• Institutions are understood as sets of rules - both formal
(such as law and policy) and informal (such as norms and
values)
• These formal and informal sets of rules are produced and
reproduced at multiple levels ( household, community, state)
• Gender relations shape men and women’s perception of their
needs and their roles.
A strategy to address what?
• What issues shape gender relations in my case
study? (gender analysis)
• What do we try to achieve in our case studies to
contribute to gender equality? (interventions
based on gender analysis)
Introducing Gender Analysis
• Gender analysis is a social analysis to distinguish the
resources, activities, potentials and constraints of women
relative to men in a given socio-economic group
Key questions in
Gender Analysis
• Who does what (division of labour)?
• Who has what (access and control)?
• Who decides? How?
• How to establish change?
Gender Analysis Concepts
 Gender Division of Labour/gender roles
Access to and Control of Resources & benefits
Practical Gender Needs and Strategic Gender
Interests/Condition and Position
What change did my strategy/intervention
focus on?
Productive Role
•Activities involving the production of goods and
services that can be exchanged for cash or kind.
•Both men and women engage in productive work
•Women's work usually undervalued and invisible
Reproductive Role
•Activities carried out to reproduce and care for
children and household
•Includes child birth, child rearing, family planning,
food preparation, water and fuel collection,
shopping, housekeeping and family health care.
•Usually unpaid, manual work done mostly by women
and girls
Gender Division of Labour
• In simplest form:
• Allocation of particular tasks to a particular gender
• But also
• refers to roles and responsibilities
• leads to division of skills
• becomes social rules
• becomes part of gender identity
• AND
• Divisions of labour change!!
Gender Analysis Concepts
 Gender Division of Labour/gender roles
 Access to and Control of Resources & benefits
Practical Gender Needs and Strategic Gender
Interests/Condition and Position
Change
Resources and benefits
Resources include time, money, land etc. used to
carry out activities. They can be defined in political,
economic and productive terms.
•Human resources (labour power, health and skills)
•Tangible resources (money, assets, commodities)
•Intangible resources (solidarity, contacts,
information, political clout)
Benefits are the result of the use of a resource and
include having basic needs met, money, asset
ownership, education and status
Access and Control of
Resources and Benefits
Access: the opportunity to use something
Control: being able to define and impose its use
NOTE:
•Equal access to resources does not necessarily
mean equal benefit (same result of resource usage)
•Equality of opportunity does not mean equal benefit
(outcome)
•This challenges the assumption that, if allowed to
participate, women will automatically benefit in the
same manner as men
Gender Analysis Concepts
 Gender Division of Labour/gender roles
 Access to and Control of Resources
 Practical Gender Needs and Strategic Gender
Interests/Condition and Position
Change
Condition and Position
•Condition refers to a person’s everyday material
state and immediate environment. It usually
includes basic needs and daily routine.
•Position refers to a person’s economic, social and
political standing relative to another person (women
versus men for example)
•Most development programmes attempt to improve
women's condition (poverty as lack of resources)
•Only few address their position in society (poverty
as lack of opportunities and capabilities).
Practical Needs
& Strategic Interests
•Practical needs arise from a person’s condition
•Strategic gender interests arise from a person’s
position in social relations
Practical Gender Needs
• Practical gender needs are immediate, perceived
needs that are a result of the gendered division
of labour and related to men’s and women's
condition.
• They are different for men and women because
women’s and men’s roles and experiences are
often different
• However, men and women with the same living
conditions share many practical needs
Strategic Gender Interests
•Interests that are related to improving the
relative position of women and men.
•Due to men and women’s different positions,
these interests often differ.
•But are shared among women in similar
positions (i.e. of the same class)
Gender Analysis Concepts
Gender Division of Labour/gender roles
Access to and Control of Resources
Practical Gender Needs and Strategic Gender
Interests/Condition and Position
Change
What Change?
 What change in gender relations did our cases contribute to?
 1. Does it include an understanding of women’s position versus
men (who does what, has what and who decides?) both inside
and outside of the chain?
 2. Did the strategy try to leave these relations as they are or
tries to change them to empower women? How?
For example:
 Do strategies take into account institutional structures through
which rights get interpreted and implemented?
• And political processes through which claims are made?
 If not based on this understanding, interventions will be gender
blind
Gender blind
• Gender Blind policy/programmes are those which
are implicitly premised on the notion of a male
development actor
–usually in gender-neutral language
–but implicitly male-biased because they
privilege male needs, interests and priorities in
the distribution of opportunities and resources
Change
• Gender neutral - accurate assessment of the
existing gender division of resources and
responsibilities (focus = do no harm)
• Gender specific - intended to target and benefit
a specific gender in order to achieve certain
gender-equality goals (women’s empowerment)
• Gender transformative - interventions designed
to transform gender relations more equitably
(institutional transformation)
Gender transformative
ACCOUNTABILITY
• Built institutions that are accountable to the demands of
small farmers (men and women). Markets that work for the
poor (financial service that work for the poor). Policy
regulations that work well and public services that assist the
disadvantaged
• Institutions are understood as sets of rules – both formal
(such as laws and policy) as well as informal (norms and
values). Meaning also referring to traditional and cultural
context – that can change!
Gender Transformative
VOICE
• Empower farmers (men and women) to improve their position in
a global and or local context,
•
•
•
•
This can be through:
-building linkages and relations,
-developing a quality product that matches the (global) demand
-negotiating an increase value share in the chain
• Recognise that both men and women maintain and accept
gender roles and relations, are affected by them, and also
challenge them