Development

Citation:

Burney, Jennifer, Halimatou Alaofè, Rosamond Naylor, and Douglas Taren. 2017. “Impact of a Rural Solar Electrification Project on the Level and Structure of Women's Empowerment.” Environmental Research Letters 12 (9). doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa7f38.

Authors: Jennifer Burney, Halimatou Alaofè, Rosamond Naylor, Douglas Taren

Abstract:

Although development organizations agree that reliable access to energy and energy services—one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals—is likely to have profound and perhaps disproportionate impacts on women, few studies have directly empirically estimated the impact of energy access on women's empowerment. This is a result of both a relative dearth of energy access evaluations in general and a lack of clarity on how to quantify gender impacts of development projects. Here we present an evaluation of the impacts of the Solar Market Garden—a distributed photovoltaic irrigation project—on the level and structure of women's empowerment in Benin, West Africa. We use a quasi-experimental design (matched-pair villages) to estimate changes in empowerment for project beneficiaries after one year of Solar Market Garden production relative to non-beneficiaries in both treatment and comparison villages (n = 771). To create an empowerment metric, we constructed a set of general questions based on existing theories of empowerment, and then used latent variable analysis to understand the underlying structure of empowerment locally. We repeated this analysis at follow-up to understand whether the structure of empowerment had changed over time, and then measured changes in both the levels and likelihood of empowerment over time. We show that the Solar Market Garden significantly positively impacted women's empowerment, particularly through the domain of economic independence. In addition to providing rigorous evidence for the impact of a rural renewable energy project on women's empowerment, our work lays out a methodology that can be used in the future to benchmark the gender impacts of energy projects.

Topics: Development, Economies, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Infrastructure, Energy Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Benin

Year: 2017

Citation:

Motala, Shirin, Stewart Ngandu, and Aubrey Mpungose. 2016. “Gains for Women from Farmland Redistribution in South Africa and Sustainable Pathways out of Poverty – Insights from Recent Evidence.” Agenda 30 (4): 85-98.  

Authors: Shirin Motala, Stewart Ngandu, Aubrey Mpungose

Abstract:

Equitable access to land and other natural resources aimed at significant rural poverty reduction are at the forefront of ambitious goals entrenched in post-1994 land and agrarian policies. Among other targets, redistributive land policies promise that women should make up at least one-third of all land reform beneficiaries. After two decades of farmland redistribution, disputes persist as to whether these outcomes have been achieved.

This focus piece systematically reviews evidence from a micro-level study based on blended information gathering strategies in three provinces that vary in terms of their agrarian structures and agro-ecology. The study uniquely overlays farmland transfer data with provisioning of agricultural development support information.

The analysis embeds the gender equity-land reform puzzle in the traditional poverty-land reform nexus. Its main question explores the extent to which land and agrarian reform interventions have produced an altered livelihood dynamic for land reform beneficiaries and more importantly to measure how this has translated into gendered sustainable livelihood impacts at household level. The study draws on the sustainable livelihoods framework as the lens for making sense of gender inequalities in the countryside and the extent to which there has been equitable redress in the interests of rural women.

The findings summarise trends in respect of access, ownership and control of land assets and the related livelihood outcomes by gender. Evidence suggests that shrinking numbers of black farmers gain ownership of land and enjoy access to Government-financed support for on-farm production and participation in agricultural value chains beyond the farm gate. This finding is more pronounced for women farmers. More importantly, it points to important design features of such interventions which can and do impact on promoting sustainable livelihoods, particularly for female headed households.

Keywords: land and agrarian reform, gender, gender inequality, sustainable livelihoods, pro-poor development, farmland transfer, land ownership

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Economies, Poverty, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Equity, Households, Land Tenure, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2016

Citation:

Doss, Cheryl, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Agnes Quisumbing, and Sophie Theis. 2018. “Women in Agriculture: Four Myths.” Global Food Security 16: 69–74.

Authors: Cheryl Doss, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Agnes Quisumbing, Sophie Theis

Abstract:

Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG) on gender equality and women’s rights and at least 11 of the 17 SDGs require indicators related to gender dynamics. Despite the need for reliable indicators, stylized facts on women, agriculture, and the environment persist. This paper analyzes four gender myths: 1) 70% of the world’s poor are women; 2) Women produce 60 to 80% of the world’s food; 3) Women own 1% of the world’s land; and 4) Women are better stewards of the environment. After reviewing the conceptual and empirical literature, the paper presents the kernel of truth underlying each myth, questions its underlying assumptions and implications, and examines how it hinders us from developing effective food security policies.

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights, Security, Food Security, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Year: 2018

Citation:

Doghle, Kizito, Rudith Sylvana King, and Paul Bniface Akaabre. 2018. “Legal Establishments and Gendered Access to Land in Patriarchal Societies of North-Western Ghana.” African Journal on Land Policy and Geospatial Sciences 2: 77–99.

Authors: Kizito Doghle, Rudith Sylvana King, Paul Bniface Akaabre

Abstract:

Denial of women in land entitlements especially in patriarchal societies has been a major development concern in Ghana, resulting in promulgation of legal establishments that seek to enhance equality in access to land. This paper examines the underlying factors for gender inequality in land access and usage despite laws established to bridge the gap. Interviews with land custodians and households in North-Western Ghana revealed the desire to preserve cultural heritage as the primary reason for non-inclusion of women in access rights. The interpretation of these laws also tend to look at all other things except access to land. Further, limited knowledge about the existence of legal establishments that seek to ensure gender equality accounts for the persisting exclusion of women in access to land. Consequently, legal establishments need not only strict enforcement but also sensitization programs if the persisting gender inequality gap in patriarchal societies is to be bridged.

Keywords: land, gender, ownership and access, patriarchal societies, rights and interests, legal establishments, Nandom District, North-Western Ghana

Topics: Development, Gender, Gender Roles, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Patriarchy, Households, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Ghana

Year: 2018

Citation:

Kristjanson, Patricia, Elizabeth Bryan, Quinn Bernier, Jennifer Twyman, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Caitlin Kieran, Claudia Ringler, Christine Jost, and Cheryl Doss. 2017. “Addressing Gender in Agricultural Research for Development in the Face of a Changing Climate: Where Are We and Where Should We Be Going?” International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 15 (5): 482–500.

Authors: Patricia Kristjanson, Elizabeth Bryan, Quinn Bernier, Jennifer Twyman, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Caitlin Kieran, Claudia Ringler, Christine Jost, Cheryl Doss

Abstract:

Agricultural development efforts that do not address persistent gender gaps miss opportunities for greater impact. This synthesis reflects on key findings from integrated quantitative and qualitative analyses at the nexus of gender, agricultural development, and climate change. Linked farm household-, intrahousehold-, community-, and institutional-level data highlight significant and nuanced gender differences in adaptive capacity of individuals and communities to respond to climate change. The gender gap is also substantial in exposure to climate change and its impacts, and uptake of new practices that lower vulnerability. Women in agriculture will remain largely neglected by information and service providers unless their differing needs, access to, and control over resources are considered at policy and project design stage. Yet clear guidelines for addressing the needs of both men and women in different environments and agricultural systems are still lacking. Participatory ‘action research’ approaches with a focus on co-learning, and using innovative cell phone or social media-based approaches offer exciting new opportunities. Agricultural development decision-makers and project designers need to ‘design with gender in mind’. Equipping them with tools and knowledge of innovative gender-transformative practices and intervention options and creating accountability for serving women and men will be key.

Keywords: gender gap, agricultural development, climate change, development, adaptive capacity, resilience, vulnerability

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality

Year: 2017

Citation:

Macdonald, Catherine. 2017. “The Role of Gender in the Extractive Industries.” Working Paper 2017/52 United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, Helsinki.

Author: Catherine Macdonald

Annotation:

Summary:
In recognizing that women’s participation and gender equity is a precondition for the achievement of acceptable development outcomes, extractives industry companies are increasingly making public commitments to integrating gender equality, inclusion, and women’s economic empowerment into aspects of their operations.

This paper reviews recent literature on gender and the extractives industries and then considers the following questions that emerged from the scholarship. How is gender understood in the extractives sector and has this changed over time? What are the gendered impacts of the extractives industries? Are women passive victims of the sector rather than active participants or even resisters to industrial expansion? What is the nature of extractives-associated sex-work and gender-based violence in various settings?

In addition, the paper presents available information on women’s participation in the extractives industry, both formal and informal, and how these differ, and evaluates industry efforts towards achieving improved gender balance and equity in the sector. (Summary from UN WIDER)

Topics: Development, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods

Year: 2017

Citation:

Argade, Shivaji, Ananta Sarkar, B.C. Behera, and A.C. Hemrom. 2019. “Access to Agri-Production Resources and Decision Making: Gender Gap in Odisha.” Journal of Global Communication 12 (1): 48-54.

Authors: Shivaji Argade, Ananta Sarkar, B.C. Behera, A.C. Hemrom

Abstract:

Agriculture remains as a prime source of women's livelihood and women remain as the backbone of agricultural workforce. In spite of women making up the prime workforce in agricultural production and processing in India, they lag well behind men in ownership of assets, access to agri-production resources and decision making. This paper explores the gender gap in access to agri-production resources and decision making in order to suggest strategies that can be useful in ensuring gender-equitable access to agri-production resources and decision making. A multistage, simple random sampling was used to select 80 respondents comprising 40 men and 40 women farmers from four villages covering two blocks of Khordha district in Odisha. The study reveals that men farmers predominate in accessing agri-production resources as compared with women. The chi square (p=0.0065) on difference between gender and access to agri-production resources affirms that it is strongly influenced by the gender. It is suggested that gender sensitisation, women education and land rights to women are to be prioritised in development initiatives to improve women's access to agri-production resources. There was wide variation in decision-making pattern among men and women related to crop and livestock production aspects. Six variables, namely, gender, education, land holding, gender of family head, family type, family size and access to production resources were significantly contributed towards variations in the decision-making pattern.

Keywords: acces, agri-production resources, Control over resources, decision making, gender gap, Gender Perception, Multiple linear regression model

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Economies, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Hierarchies, Households, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2019

Citation:

Jerneck, Anne. 2018. “Taking Gender Seriously in Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainability Science Research: Views from Feminist Debates and Sub-Saharan Small-Scale Agriculture.” Sustainability Science 13 (2): 403–16.

Author: Anne Jerneck

Abstract:

People, places, and production contributing the least to climate change will suffer the most. This calls for adaptation as a key climate change response. But adaptation is surrounded by problems. Finance is uncertain and fragmented, mainstreaming into development is complicated, and technical solutions often overshadow existing social relations and institutions. From a gender perspective, and as a critical research initiative to support the building of sustainability science as an umbrella field, this article raises three pertinent questions on adaptation in the global South: what is its purpose, how can development inform it, and what institutions in terms of rights and responsibilities are core to it? Focusing on sub-Saharan small-scale agriculture, three main points emerge. Regarding the purpose, adaptation should be a transformative pathway out of poverty, ill-health, and food insecurity. Regarding development, adaptation can learn from how development theory, policy, and practice have addressed women, gender, and environment in varied settings and debates. Regarding core institutions, adaptation must address gender regimes that regulate access to, use of, and control over resources, especially those defining land distribution, labour division, and strategic decision-making power. To conclude, I propose gender-informed research questions for further inquiry.

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Women, Health, Land Tenure, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa

Year: 2018

Citation:

Chowdhury, Elora Halim. 2016. “Development Paradoxes: Feminist Solidarity, Alternative Imaginaries and New Spaces.” Journal of International Women's Studies 17 (1): 117–32.

Author: Elora Halim Chowdhury

Abstract:

In his seminal work Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (1995), post-development scholar Arturo Escobar likens development to a chimera. My work builds on a sophisticated body of post-development and transnational feminist theory drawing on conceptions of the relationship of representations of development in the Third World to the interconnected webs of various transnational patriarchal and economic dominations that affect, and are affected by, the realities of marginalized communities in the Global South. In particular, I am concerned with how development discourses interlock with global systemic hierarchies of race, gender, class as well as structural oppressions, including uneven global systems of economic restructuring, neo-colonial interventions, and donor-structured development operations that hinder global solidarity and cross-border feminist organizing. Enjoining development debates to cultural texts, I explore what disparate fields such as post-colonialism, feminism, post-development have to offer and enrich the ideas about the conflicted terrain of development discourse.

Keywords: development, post-development, post-coloniality, neocolonialism, transnational feminism, knowledge production, culture

Topics: Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Development, Economies, Feminisms, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Patriarchy, Race

Year: 2016

Citation:

Carr, Edward R. and Sheila N. Onzere. 2018. “Really Effective (for 15% of the Men): Lessons in Understanding and Addressing User Needs in Climate Services from Mali.” Climate Risk Management 22: 82-95.

Authors: Edward R. Carr, Sheila N. Onzere

Annotation:

Summary:
"If we are to design and implement climate services that truly help users address their weather- and climate-related vulnerabilities, we must understand who our users are in all of their diversity, what challenges these different users face, whether or not weather and climate information can address any of these challenges, and what information best addresses these challenges for different members of the same user population. Simply put, it is possible to design climate services that, in the context of a specific stressor for a specific group of people, work brilliantly, but when applied to a wider group of users for new purposes, fail dramatically. Our work assessing Mali’s l’Agence Nationale de la Météorologie’s (Mali Meteo) Agrometeorological Advisory Program serves to illustrate this important lesson, one which can inform the design and scaling-up of climate services for development, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of such services, going forward" (Carr & Onzere 2018, 83).

Topics: Development, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gender Mainstreaming Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Mali

Year: 2018