The document describes the development and testing of the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) to measure women's empowerment and inclusion in the agricultural sector. The WEAI measures empowerment across five domains and compares women's empowerment to men in their households. Pilots of the WEAI were conducted in Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Uganda with around 350 households surveyed in each country. The results showed varying levels of women's empowerment across domains and countries. Further research on the WEAI aims to help identify how to increase women's empowerment and evaluate development programs' impacts on women.

2. Construction of the Women’s
Empowerment in Agriculture Index
and pilot results

3. Purpose
• Design, develop, and test an index to measure the greater
inclusion of women in agricultural sector growth that
has occurred as a result of US Government intervention
under the Feed the Future (FTF) Initiative
• What is “greater inclusion”?The concept of Inclusive
Agricultural Sector Growth is broad and multi-
dimensional
• Feed the Future defines it as:“the empowerment of
women in their roles and engagement throughout the
various areas of the agriculture sector, as it grows, in
both quantity and quality”

4. What is empowerment?
• Similar to Kabeer (2001), we define
empowerment as the expansion of people’s
ability to make strategic life choices, within
their households and their communities,
particularly in contexts where this ability has
been limited

5. Why focus on women?
• Women are important in agriculture, account for 43% of
the agricultural labor force worldwide (SOFA 2011)
• Yet women consistently have less resources than men:
land, education, access to extension and credit, inputs--
resulting in yield gaps of between 20-25%
• Closing the gap in access to resources could increase
agricultural productivity—with benefits for families and
the next generation

6. What is new about the WEAI?
• An aggregate index in two parts:
– Five domains of empowerment (5DE): assesses whether
women are empowered in the 5 domains of empowerment in
agriculture
– Gender Parity Index (GPI): reflects the percentage of
women who are as empowered as the men in their households
• It is a survey-based index, not based on aggregate statistics or
secondary data, constructed using interviews of the primary male
and primary female adults in the same household

7. Innovations in survey design and
implementation
• Index components designed to be applicable across countries
and cultures
• Men and women from the same household are interviewed
• The survey questionnaire modules focus on men’s and women’s
empowerment in agriculture
• The index applies to women in households with male adults--as
well as those with only female adults.

8. Scope of the WEAI
• Focus is strictly on empowerment in agriculture, distinct
from:
– Economic status
– Education
– Empowerment in other domains
This enables clear analysis of external determinates of
empowerment in agriculture.
• WEAI is international; Local adaptation possible.

9. How is the Index constructed?
Five domains of
empowerment
(5DE)
A direct measure of
women’s empowerment
in 5 dimensions
Gender parity
Index (GPI)
Women’s
achievement’s relative
to the primary male
in hh
Women’s
Empowerment
in Agriculture
Index
(WEAI)
WEAI is made up of two sub indices
All range from zero to one;
higher values = greater empowerment

10. FivedomainsofempowermentA woman’s empowerment score shows her own achievements

11. Who is empowered?
A woman who has achieved
‘adequacy’ in 80% or more of
the weighted indicators
is empowered

12. • The 5DE is based on the Alkire Foster methodology and
reflects:
– Incidence of Empowerment - The percentage of women who are
empowered
– Adequacy among the Disempowered - The weighted share of
indicators in which disempowered women enjoy adequate achievements
• Based on each woman’s empowerment profile
• Identifies who is empowered
• Shows how women are disempowered
• Rigorous properties
5DE Methodology
Alkire and Foster 2011. J of Public Economics.

13. Gender Parity Index (GPI)
Reflects two things:
1.The percentage of women who enjoy gender parity. A
woman enjoys gender parity if
– she is empowered or
– if her empowerment score is equal to or greater than the empowerment
score of the primary male in her household.
2. The empowerment gap - the average percentage shortfall that
a woman without parity experiences relative to the male in her
household.
The GPI adapts the Foster Greer Thorbecke Poverty Gap measure to reflect gender parity.

14. 5DE = He + Hd × Ae
He is the percentage of empowered women
Hd is the percentage of disempowered women
Ae is the average absolute empowerment score among the
disempowered
GPI = I – (HGPI × IGPI)
HGPI is percentage of gender parity-inadequate households
IGPI is the average empowerment gap between women and men
living in households that lack gender parity
Formula

15. The Pilots
• Tested feasibility in a real-world setting before scale-up
• An innovation in the measurement and monitoring of
women’s empowerment in agriculture—not the final word
on it!
• Representative of the zone of influence (not nationally)

16. Country choice
Three Feed the Future countries in different regions and
different socio-cultural contexts, focused on the zone of
influence:
• Bangladesh, Guatemala, Uganda
• Split roughly 20/80 between single female and dual adult
households
• ~350 households/625 individuals each
Collaborators:
• Data Analysis and Technical Assistance, Ltd. (Bangladesh),
• Vox Latina (Guatemala),
• Associates Research Uganda Limited (Uganda).

17. Bangladesh
• Southern part of the country
– 25 villages from 5 rural districts
(Khulna, Madaripur, Barguna,
Patuakhali and Jessore)
– 18 households randomly selected
from each village (14 dual adult; 4
female adult only)
• Sample size: 450 households
(800 individuals)

18. Guatemala
• Western highlands, large
indigenous population
– 25 villages from 28 targeted
municipalities from 5
departamentos (Quetzaltengo,
San Marcos, Huehuetenango, El
Quiché and Totonicapán)
– 14 households randomly selected
from each village (11 dual adult; 3
female adult only)
• Sample size: 350 households
(626 individuals)

19. Uganda
• Northern, Central, and Eastern
– 25 Local Councils in 25 Parishes in 5
preselected rural districts: Kole and
Amuru (North), Masaka and Luwero
(Central) and Iganga (Eastern)
– 14 households randomly selected
from each LC (11 dual adult; 3 female
adult only)
• Sample size: 350 households (625
individuals)

20. Case studies
Case studies consisted of interviews
on five domains with narratives to
explain answers, describe “life
stories,” and get concepts of
empowerment from men and women
themselves
“Being empowered, it means that
the woman can do things too, not
just the man”
~ Woman, Guatemala aged 63

21. Lilian, Uganda
Empowerment Score = 83%
Has achieved parity with her
husband Wilson

22. Lilian is Empowered

23. Seema, Bangladesh
Empowerment Score
= 64%
She has not achieved parity with her
husband
On average, disempowered women in
the Bangladesh pilot have
empowerment scores of 61%

24. Seema is Disempowered

25. • 39% of women are empowered
• Disempowered women have adequate
achievements in 58.4% of domains
• 59.8% of women enjoy gender parity
• Households without gender parity have a
25.2% empowerment gap between the
woman and man
Bangladesh Pilot results
Overall, theWEAI
score is 0.762

26. Bangladesh: How to increase empowerment?
Proportion of women not
empowered and who have
inadequate achievements by
indicator in Bangladesh
sample

27. Bangladesh: How to increase empowerment?
Policies need to
focus on
improving
women's control
over income

28. • 28.7% of women are empowered
• Disempowered women have adequate
achievements in 56.5% of domains
• 35.8% of women have gender parity
• 29.1% empowerment gap
Guatemala Pilot
results
Overall, theWEAI
score is 0.702

29. Guatemala: How to increase empowerment?
Women's
achievements are
worse than men's in
every indicator
Improving gender
parity is extremely
important

30. • 43.3% of women are empowered
• Disempowered women have adequate
achievements in 62.8% of domains
• 54.4% of women have gender parity
• 22.4% empowerment gap
Uganda Pilot results
Overall, theWEAI
score is 0.800

31. Uganda: How to increase empowerment?
Policies need to focus on
time use, where women
have greater burdens
than men

32. Empowerment, wealth and education
• Wealth – clear association with empowerment in Uganda, but an
imperfect proxy in Bangladesh and Guatemala:
– 76% in top three quintiles are disempowered in Guatemala
• Education – significant influence in Guatemala and Uganda but
insignificant for men and women in Bangladesh:
– In Uganda, 35% of women with less than primary schooling are empowered vs.
45% with primary education
– 31% of women with less than primary education were empowered in
Bangladesh vs. 33% with primary schooling
The new survey questions used for theWEAI show that having money
or being educated does not guarantee that women are empowered.

33. Innovations in the Index
1) Captures empowerment directly:
– Not through proxies – education, income etc.
– The results show what has been missing from our view of
empowerment to date
2) Three ways to change it:
– Empower women
– Increase the adequacy among disempowered women
– Increase gender parity

34. How will WEAI be used?
1. As a monitoring indicator for FTF to evaluate whether
programs are having intended effect on women's
empowerment
2. As a diagnostic tool to help identify areas in which women
and men are disempowered, so that programs and policies can
be targeted to those areas
3. Conducting more research: testing new indicators/assessing
validity in different contexts, etc.

35. 4WEAI Dissertation Fellowships Awarded
• To strengthen understanding and evidence of the
WEAI
• To expand understanding of WEAI dynamics through
complementary qualitative and ethnographic work
• To support promising researchers interested in
gender and agriculture

36. • For more information, please refer to the
WEAI Resource Center: http://www.ifpri.org/book-
9075/ourwork/program/weai-resource-center
• Or contact Hazel Malapit: h.malapit@cgiar.org

37. Source:
Alkire, S., Meinzen-Dick, R., Peterman, A., Quisumbing, A. R.,
Seymour, G. and A. Vaz. 2012. “TheWomen’s Empowerment
in Agriculture Index,” Poverty, Health & Nutrition Division,
International Food Policy Research Institute, IFPRI Discussion
Paper No. 01240, December 2012.
http://www.ifpri.org/publication/women-s-empowerment-agriculture-index
Presentation prepared by:
Hazel Malapit and Chiara Kovarik