Transcript Objectives of the workshop 1. To introduce participants to guiding concepts and a selection of tools needed to integrate a gender perspective.

Objectives of the workshop
1. To introduce participants to guiding concepts and a selection
of tools needed to integrate a gender perspective in the
different stages of the programme cycle of a VCD facilitation
process/intervention
2. To introduce the gender and value chain coaching trajectory
to generate interest and inform potential participants about
it
Gender & Value Chain Development
Coaching Trajectory – introduction to
guiding concepts and strategies
Rhiannon Pyburn and Anna Laven
Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam
March 2012
Gender & Value Chain Development
learning trajectory (2008-present)
• Dutch development professionals/organizations through APF to explore
how to better address gender in VC work
• Initial analytical framework and working paper 2009
• 2009-2010 short case collection from partners for discussion/analysis
• June 2010 – preparatory meeting with emerging thinkers in this new
feild
• Nov/Dec 2010 writehsop in Nairobi - 25 cases
• 2011-present preparation of the book chapters
• 2012 book launches/coaching trajectories in 4 countries (Rwanda,
Ethiopia, Kenya. Uganda)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Poverty & gender inequality in agriculture
•
Poverty is concentrated in rural areas; conditions in agriculture are especially
hard for women.
•
Women represent at least half of the workforce in agriculture; often women’s
work in agriculture is not visible, or is simply not valued.
•
Women often excluded from more profitable aspects of agricultural
enterprises.
•
Women often have limited access to resources, such as land, credit and other
services.
•
Women do unpaid work at home, face high levels of illiteracy and lack of
bargaining power
•
Women do not reach their potential as workers, entrepreneurs or consumers.
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The feminization of agriculture
•
Trend: women are being left to work in agriculture as men seek out paid
work off-farm. Why?
1. Men are leaving their rural homes seeking paid employment in
urban areas. In absence of their men, women are responsible for
taking care of the family farm.
2. Rural women searching for additional income in agriculture, mainly
as wage labourers in labour-intensive crops.
•
Feminization of agriculture does not automatically mean that women reap
the fruits of their labour; this trend is also associated with the decreased
viability of small-scale farming, in which smallholdings are less able feed
the family working the land.
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Risks for women in agricultural value chains
•
The work that women do is often insecure (e.g. women tend to be hired as
seasonal labour for only a few months of the year).
•
Women are often perceived as a source of cheap labour.
•
The types of work that women do can push them into (even) more
marginalized positions.
•
Productive work can become a serious burden for women who also have
domestic responsibilities such as cooking, cleaning, fetching wood and taking
care of the children.
•
Increased workload can come at the cost of other income-generating activities.
•
Household tensions may rise, especially for married women who try to exert
greater bargaining power. .
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Productive, reproductive & community
•
•
Women are involved in three categories of work - productive,
reproductive and community:
1.
Productive work – where people make things or provide
services for money.
2.
Reproductive work - domestic and care work such as cooking,
cleaning, childcare and looking after sick relatives, subsistence
agriculture, and collecting water, fuel and wild food.
3.
Community work - helping neighbours, organizing social
events, and so on.
Reproductive and community work tend to be unpaid and taken for
granted
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Gender equity in agricultural value chains
Three sets of arguments:
1. Social justice
2. Poverty
3. Business
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Social Justice Argument
• Social justice is the fair distribution of advantages, assets, and
benefits among all members of a society
• The denial of rights and opportunities based purely on an
individual’s sex is incompatible with social justice.
• Gender arguments focus on the equal distribution of these
advantages, assets and benefits between men and women within
a society.
Useful for:
• women organizations and other NGOs  lobbying for gender
equity and making governments, organizations and companies
accountable
• governments ensuring that their policies and regulations
contribute to the achievement of human rights for everyone
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Poverty Argument: “Fighting poverty
is hard if you’re (gender) blind”
• A striking majority of the poor in developing countries are women:
approximately 70%.
• Female poverty has various roots. In general, women face
discrimination in their access to education, health services and
employment opportunities, and in resource allocations and the
right to own property.
Useful for: development organizations and other private and public
actors interested in sound economic development
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Business Argument: Gender inequity
creates a missed business opportunity
•
Many women are disadvantaged due to their sex. As a result they
do not reach their potential as workers, entrepreneurs or
consumers
•
If women’s contribution the economy are hindered this results in
high costs both in terms of economic and human development.
•
When over half the population is not able to work efficiently
because of cultural, ideological or political constraints, economic
growth is undermined
Useful for: businesses that are part of such agricultural chains.
Investing in gender equity can smoothen both the operation of
individual businesses as well as the overall chain.
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Analytical Framework
• Value Chain Empowerment – the chain empowerment matrix
• What’s missing?
• Gender and Development concepts
• A new framework
Value Chain Development
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Chain Empowerment matrix
Chain activities
ACTIVITY
INTEGRATOR
2
CHAIN
ACTOR
1
CHAIN
CO-OWNER
4
CHAIN
PARTNER
3
Chain governance
• Who does what in the chain?
• Who determines how things are done? (KIT et al., 2006)
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Chain Empowerment through Upgrading
Upgrading as a chain actor: Farmers do what they do better. For
example, farmers become crop specialists with a clear market
orientation.
Upgrading by adding value through vertical integration: Farmers
enter into activities further up the chain. For example, farmers move
into joint processing and marketing in order to add value.
Upgrading by developing chain partnerships: Farmers build longterm alliances with buyers, centred on shared interests and mutual
growth.
Upgrading by developing ownership over the chain: Farmers
become owners of chain enterprises. For example, farmers build
direct linkages with consumers or become shareholders in a retail
company.
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A Gender lens on Chain Empowerment
The concept of ‘upgrading’ highlights options available to small rural
entrepreneurs for obtaining better returns (create value) and
controlling this value.
But inequality is not only about income and control over income but
about inequality in terms of the opportunities available for
expanding one’s capabilities.
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Juanita’s ‘empowerment’
through upgrading in the
mango chain
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Through a gender lens- what’s missing?
Constraints to Empowerment through Upgrading. The matrix shows a shift
in a farmer’s activities or governance in the chain. But we don’t see the
challenges or obstacles involved. What constraints do farmers face in trying to
improve their positions? How do they overcome these constraints?
Diversity. We get a sense of the ‘who’ in a general sense: “Who does what in
the chain?” and “Who determines how things are done?”. But, we do not see
the individuals involved – which farmers are upgrading? Are the farmers who
successfully upgrade men or women, old or young, are they from a particular
ethnic group or class?
Outcomes. We simply do not know whether outcomes are different for women
than for men or how outcomes vary for different categories of farmers. What
happens when women do more chain activities? Do they enjoy more
recognition and respect for their contributions? Does their income increase?
Or do they simply have more work to do and less time to meet household and
community obligations? Because we cannot see the outcome of the strategy,
the matrix does not help us to design interventions, including those that are
potentially gender equal or ‘pro poor’.
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Through a gender lens- what’s missing? (2)
Changes beyond the chain – household and institutional levels. The
framework looks at the value chain in isolation without considering the
context.
Empowerment. It looks at farmer empowerment only in terms of activities and
governance within the value chain. We can enrich this concept through
exploring what a gender perspective has to say.
e.g. Kabeer distinguishes three levels of empowerment:
• “Deeper” (structural relations of class, ethnicity, gender)
• Intermediate (institutional rules and resources)
• Immediate (individual resources, agency and achievements)
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Aicha the sesame farmer to
explain structure and agency
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Two key gender concepts
Agency is the capacity of an agent (an individual person or other entity)
to act independently, to make their own free choices and to impose
those choices on the world. These agents engage with social
structures.
Structure refers to institutions that either limit or create the opportunities
available to individuals. Institutions can be both formal and informal.
Informal institutions include: social class, values, religion, customs,
and ways of doing things (habits) etc; while formal institutions refer to
laws and regulations. Furthermore, structures can refer to different
levels (local, national, regional, international) and to different
domains (economic, political, social and cultural).
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A new framework
Additional Objectives:
1) To support the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of
value chain interventions that contribute to gender equality in a given
context;
2) To understand how gender equality contributes to pro-poor and
economically efficient value chain development.
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A new framework
1. Doing better and being seen
Women smallholders become visible as crop
specialists and their contributions are
recognized and valued
2. Choosing and being capable of
moving up: Women choose to move into
activities further up the chain, and they
control the income that they earn. They gain
the skills required and are confident.
3. Constraints to women’s leadership
are removed: Developing chain
partnerships and removing constraints to
participation in decision-making. Rules,
regulations and policies are gender
sensitive.
4. Women take up positions of
leadership. Women both possess the
capacities and have the opportunity to coown enterprises and build direct linkages
with other chain actors, including consumer
markets. Rules, regulations and policies
support women’s leadership.
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Five Strategies
1: Mitigating resistance by building on tradition
2: Creating Space for Women
3: Organizing for Change
4: Standards and Certification
5: Improving business: improving women’s positions
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Where the 5 strategies fit in the value chain
4
1&2
5
3
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More on the strategies, when and how
to use them, at the book launch in May!
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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