Africa

Contract Farming in Mozambique: Implications for Gender Inequalities within and across Rural Households

Citation:

Navarra, Cecilia. 2019. "Contract Farming in Mozambique: Implications for Gender Inequalities within and across Rural Households" South African Journal of Economics 87 (2): 228-52. 

Author: Cecilia Navarra

Abstract:

This paper analyses the implications of contract farming for gender inequalities in rural Mozambique. Contract farming is often considered one of the major tools of agribusiness development. It broadly includes those arrangements under which producers commit to providing cash crop to a buyer firm. This paper exploits a panel dataset (2002–2005) collected by the Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture among a nationally representative sample of rural households to explore contracts’ implications for gender equality both across and within households. We look at both the participation of female-headed households in contracts and the impact of establishing a contract on a set of intra-household women empowerment indicators. Concerning the first, our results confirm a (small though significant) effect of selection out of contracts of households where a woman is the household’s head. With regard to the second, we expect contrasting effects to be at work: on the one hand, increased income may relax budget constraints improving women’s living conditions, and on the other, we may expect a shift in favour of men of the control over the household’s assets. We find different results according to the indicator used; after controlling for selection bias, we find no effect on control over land but a negative effect on women’s access to extension services.

Keywords: contract farming, gender inequalities, women empowerment, Mozambique, propensity score matching

Topics: Agriculture, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Mozambique

Year: 2019

Gendered Forests: Exploring Gender Dimensions in Forest Governance and REDD+ in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Citation:

Samndong, Raymond Achu, and Darley Jose Kjosavik. 2017. “Gendered Forests: Exploring Gender Dimensions in Forest Governance and REDD+ in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).” Ecology and Society 22 (4). https://www.jstor.org/stable/26799010.

Authors: Darley Jose Kjosavik, Raymond Achu Samndong

Abstract:

In this study we analyze gender relations legitimatized by socio-political institutions of forest governance in REDD+ pilots in Équateur Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Using data from interviews, focus group discussions, and field observations, we show that men and women have different knowledge and use of forests, but these differences are not given due consideration in forest governance. Women’s voices are often muted in decision-making arenas and they occupy only a nominal position in both forestry and development initiatives as compared with men. This status quo is extended to the REDD+ pilot projects as well. Women have limited information about REDD+ compared with men. The mechanisms used to establish new village organization for REDD+ exclude women from decision making in the ongoing REDD+ pilot project. We show that women’s bargaining power for equal inclusion in decision-making processes and for sharing benefits are constrained by existing social norms regarding local access to land and material resources, existing gender division of labor, local perceptions regarding women’s roles and contributions/responsibilities, as well as men’s dominant position in rural settings. For a gender transformative REDD+, we suggest that REDD+ actors should attempt to bring about institutional changes that transform gender relations and thereby increase women’s bargaining power.

Keywords: decision making, development initiative, Équater Province, DRC, forest governance, gender role, REDD+

Topics: Environment, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2017

The Gender Gap in Voting in Post-Conflict Elections: Evidence from Israel, Mali and Côte D’Ivoire

Citation:

Stockemer, Daniel, and Michael J Wigginton. 2020. “The Gender Gap in Voting in Post-Conflict Elections: Evidence from Israel, Mali and Côte D’Ivoire.” Conflict Management and Peace Science, 1-23. doi: 10.1177/0738894220966577.

Authors: Daniel Stockemer, Michael J. Wigginton

Abstract:

In this article, we first formulate some theoretical expectations about the development of the gender gap in voting in post-conflict situations. Second, we test these expectations on five cases, including two civil wars, the Ivorian Civil War (2011) and the Malian Civil War (2013–2015), and three major international Israeli conflicts, the Yom Kippur War (1973) and the First and Second Lebanon Wars (1982–1985 and 2006). We do so by comparing women’s and men’s turnout before and after a conflict using individual voting data and find that the sum of the nine factors we identify (i.e. duration of war, type of warfare, end of fighting after ceasefire/peace settlement, change in workforce participation, international involvement in the peace process, international development aid, the militarization of politics and female social movement activism) explain changes in the gender gap in voting after the conflict in three of the five cases we study.

Keywords: Gender gap in voting, post-conflict situation

Topics: Gender, Men, Women, Militarization, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Côte D'Ivoire, Israel, Mali

Year: 2020

Gender Implications of Biofuels Expansion in Africa: The Case of Mozambique

Citation:

Arndt, Channing, Rui Benfica, and James Thurlow. 2011. “Gender Implications of Biofuels Expansion in Africa: The Case of Mozambique.” World Development 39(9): 1649–62.

Authors: Channing Arndt, Rui Benfica, James Thurlow

Keywords: biofuels, 'gender', growth, poverty, land abundance, Africa

Annotation:

Summary: 

We use a gendered dynamic CGE model to assess the implications of biofuels expansion in a low-income, land-abundant setting. Mozambique is chosen as a representative case. We compare scenarios with different gender employment intensities in producing jatropha feedstock for biodiesel. Under all scenarios, biofuels investments accelerate GDP growth and reduce poverty. However, a stronger trade-off between biofuels and food availability emerges when female labor is used intensively, as women are drawn away from food production. A skills-shortage among female workers also limits poverty reduction. Policy simulations indicate that only modest improvements in women’s education and food crop yields are needed to address food security concerns and ensure broader-based benefits from biofuels investments (Summary from original source).

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Gender, Women, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Mozambique

Year: 2011

How Women Can Save the Planet

Citation:

Karpf, Anne. 2021. How Women Can Save the Planet. Hurst Publishers.

Author: Anne Karpf

Annotation:

Summary: 
Here’s a perverse truth: from New Orleans to Bangladesh, women—especially poor women of colour—are suffering most from a crisis they have done nothing to cause. Yet where, in environmental policy, are the voices of elderly European women dying in heatwaves? Of African girls dropping out of school due to drought? Our highest-profile climate activists are women and girls; but, at the top table, it’s men deciding the earth’s future.
 
We’re not all in it together—but we could be. Instead of expecting individual women to save the planet, what we need are visionary, global climate policies that are gender-inclusive and promote gender equality.
 
Anne Karpf shines a light on the radical ideas, compelling research and tireless campaigns, led by and for women around the world, that have inspired her to hope. Her conversations with female activists show how we can fight back, with strength in diversity. And, faced with the most urgent catastrophe of our times, she offers a powerful vision: a Green New Deal for Women.

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Feminist Political Ecology, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe

Year: 2021

Women in Peacebuilding: A Criticism of Gendered Solutions in Postconflict Situations

Citation:

Erzurum, Kemal and Berna Eren. 2014. “Women in Peacebuilding: A Criticism of Gendered Solutions in Postconflict Situations.” Journal of Applied Security Research 9 (2): 236–56.

Authors: Kemal Erzurum, Berna Eren

Abstract:

Women are the most suffering part of populations in conflicts. They are required to fulfill different responsibilities during and after conflicts. Considering this fact, participation of women at peacebuilding efforts in postconflict areas has been considered as sine qua non requirement. However, active participation of women at these efforts, particularly decision-making activities, has been hampered due to diverse reasons. The barriers that block women involved in peacebuilding processes as decision-makers should be reexamined and eliminated by eradicating inequalities. In this article, gender-based violence, underestimated plight of women in conflicts, gendered approach of peacebuilding efforts, and the barriers in front of women's active participation in decision-making processes are examined.

Keywords: women, peace, peacebuilding, conflict, decision making, gender

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Women, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2014

Access, Control and Ownership: Women and Sustainable Environmental Management in Africa

Citation:

Kameri-Mbote, Patricia. 2007. “Access, Control and Ownership: Women and Sustainable Environmental Management in Africa.” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, no. 72: 36–46.

Author: Patricia Kameri-Mbote

Annotation:

"Both the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies (NFLS) and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) identify the need to upscale women's participation in environmental decision-making as a strategic action in the improvement of the overall status of women. This paper looks at the link between gender and environmental management, underscoring the disjuncture between the women's movement and the environment movement in Africa" (Kameri-Mbote, 2007, 37).

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Women Regions: Africa

Year: 2007

Water is Life: Women's Human Rights in National and Local Water Governance in Southern and Eastern Africa

Citation:

Hellum, Anne, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Barbara van Koppen, eds. 2015. Water Is Life: Women’s Human Rights in National and Local Water Governance in Southern and Eastern Africa. Weaver Press. 

Authors: Anne Hellum, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Barbara van Koppen

Abstract:

This book approaches water and sanitation as an African gender and human rights issue. Empirical case studies from Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe show how coexisting international, national and local regulations of water and sanitation respond to the ways in which different groups of rural and urban women gain access to water for personal, domestic and livelihood purposes. The authors, who are lawyers, sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists, explore how women cope in contexts where they lack secure rights, and participation in water governance institutions, formal and informal. The research shows how women – as producers of family food - rely on water from multiple sources that are governed by community based norms and institutions which recognize the right to water for livelihood. How these 'common pool water resources' - due to protection gaps in both international and national law - are threatened by large-scale development and commercialization initiatives, facilitated through national permit systems, is a key concern. The studies demonstrate that existing water governance structures lack mechanisms which make them accountable to poor and vulnerable waters users on the ground, most importantly women. Our findings thus underscore the need to intensify measures to hold states accountable, not just in water services provision, but in assuring the basic human right to clean drinking water and sanitation; and also to protect water for livelihoods.

Annotation:

Table of Contents 
 
Part I Introduction
1. The Human Right to Water and Sanitation in a Legal Pluralist Landscape: Perspectives of Southern and Eastern African Women
 
2. Turning the Tide: Engendering the Human Right to Water and Sanitation 
Anne Hellum, Ingunn Ikdahl and Patricia Kameri-Mbote
 
Part II Kenya
3. Human Rights, Gender and Water in Kenya: Law, Prospects and Challenges 
Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Francis Kariuki
 
4. Not so Rosy: Farm Workers’ Human Right to Water in the Lake Naivasha Basin 
Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Edna Odhiambo
 
5. Watered Down: Gender and the Human Right to Water and Reasonable Sanitation in Mathare, Nairobi 
Celestine Nyamu Musembi
 
6. Gender Dimensions of Customary Water Resource Governance: Marakwet Case Study 
Elizabeth Gachenga
 
Part III Malawi 
7. The Political Economy of the Human Right to Water and Women in Malawi 
Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Timothy Chirwa, Asiyati Chiweza and Michael Chasukwa
 
8. Women’s Right to Water and Participation in Practice: Insights from Urban Local Water Governance Systems 
Asiyati Lorraine Chiweza, Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Michael Chasukwa and Timothy Chirwa
 
9. Primary Actors on the Back Seat: Gender, Human Rights and Rural Water Governance in Malawi – Lessons from Mpemba and Chileka 
 
Part IV Zimbabwe
10. Governance, Gender Equality and the Right to Water and Sanitation in Zimbabwe: Contested Norms and Institutions in an Unstable Economic and Political Terrain 
Anne Hellum, Bill Derman, Ellen Sithole and Elizabeth Rutsate
 
11. Zimbabwe’s Urban Water Crisis and its Implications for Different Women: Emerging Norms and Practices in Harare’s High Density Suburbs 
Anne Hellum, Ellen Sithole, Bill Derman, Lindiwe Mangwanya and Elizabeth Rutsate
 
12. Securing Rural Women’s Land and Water Rights: Lessons from Domboshawa Communal Land 
Anne Hellum, Bill Derman, Lindiwe Mangwanya and Elizabeth Rutsate
 
13. A Hidden Presence: Women Farm Workers Right to Water and Sanitation in the Aftermath of the Fast Track Land Reform 
Elizabeth Rutsate, Bill Derman and Anne Hellum
 
Part V South Africa 
14. Fixing the Leaks in Women’s Human Rights to Water: Lessons from South Africa 
Barbara van Koppen, Bill Derman, Barbara Schreiner, Ebenezer Durojaye and Ngcime Mweso
 
15. Gender-Equality in Statutory Water Law: the Case of Priority General Authorizations in South Africa 
Barbara van Koppen and Barbara Schreiner
 
16. Gender, Rights, and the Politics of Productivity The Case of the Flag Boshielo Irrigation Scheme, South Africa 
Barbara van Koppen, Barbara Tapela and Everisto Mapedza
 

Topics: Class, Governance, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Livelihoods, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Year: 2015

Hashtagging Girlhood: #IAmMalala, #BringBackOurGirls and Gendering Representations of Global Politics

Citation:

Berents, Helen. 2016. “Hashtagging Girlhood: #IAmMalala, #BringBackOurGirls and Gendering Representations of Global Politics.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 18 (4): 513–27.

Author: Helen Berents

Abstract:

This article explores how gendered, racial and youth-ed concepts of girlhood shape the way conflict, violence and the lived experiences of girls in conflict-affected environments are understood globally. In particular, it examines the broader context and effect of social media campaigns that specifically invoke a concept of “girlhood” in their responses to crisis or tragedy. It focuses on two hashtags and their associated social media campaigns: #IAmMalala, started in response to the attempted killing of Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012 by Taliban gunmen, and #BringBackOurGirls, started by Nigerians and adopted globally in response to the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by terrorist group Boko Haram. In both instances, understandings of the broader political context are shaped by the focus on girls. Both hashtags also appropriate an experience: claiming to be Malala and claiming the Nigerian girls as ours. Through this exploration, I argue that particular ideals of girlhood are coded within these campaigns, and that these girls’ experiences are appropriated. I critique the limited representations of girlhood that circulate in these discussions, and how these limited representations demonstrate the problematic narrowness of dominant conceptions of girlhood.

Keywords: Girlhood, activism, social media, Malala Yousafzai, Chibok girls

Topics: Age, Youth, Education, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Media, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups, Race, Terrorism, Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa, Asia, South Asia Countries: Nigeria, Pakistan

Year: 2016

Masculinity on Unstable Ground: Young Refugee Men in Nairobi, Kenya

Citation:

Jaji, Rosemary. 2009. “Masculinity on Unstable Ground: Young Refugee Men in Nairobi, Kenya.” Journal of Refugee Studies 22 (2): 177–94.

Author: Rosemary Jaji

Abstract:

A gender perspective in refugee studies usually conjures up images of refugee women. Such images are an outcome of the association of vulnerability with women and children. Yet, it is not only refugee women who face monumental challenges in the country of asylum; refugee men also encounter a wide range of problems. Exile comes with obstacles for refugee men's quest to conform to culturally defined masculinity. This paper presents the nature of the challenges young refugee men predominantly from the Great Lakes region face in exile and the struggles they engage in as they seek to maintain and live up to their pre-flight notions of masculinity. The paper also shows how the men create alternative masculinities that are sustainable in a context that is largely characterized by existential uncertainties.

Keywords: masculinity, refugee men, Great Lakes, Kenya

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Gender, Gender Roles, Masculinity/ies, Men Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Kenya

Year: 2009

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