Designing for
empowerment impact
The Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages
(ANGeL) project in Bangladesh
Presented by: Akhter Ahmed, Country Representative, IFPRI-Bangladesh
Seeds of Change Conference | Canberra, Australia | April 3, 2019

Agriculture-Nutrition-Gender Nexus:
Evidence from IFPRI Research
 Findings from IFPRI’s 2012 Bangladesh
Integrated Household Survey (BIHS):
 Agricultural diversity promotes
household and child dietary
diversity, and hence, diet quality
 Women’s empowerment (measured
by WEAI) improves household, child,
and maternal dietary diversity
 Agricultural diversity increases if
primary woman is empowered
(measured by WEAI)
Agriculture
NutritionGender
ANGeL aims to strengthen the
agriculture-nutrition-gender nexus

Research Design
ANGeL aimed to identify actions and
investments in agriculture to improve
nutrition and empower women.
RCT with 5 interventions delivered to both
men and women in farm HHs over 17
months:
 T1: Nutrition BCC (DAE)
 T2: Nutrition BCC (trained community
women, or ANGeL Pushti Kormi)
 T3: Agriculture Production (DAE)
 T4: Agriculture+Nutrition (DAE)
 T5: Agriculture+Nutrition+Gender (DAE
and HKI)
 C: Control
Agriculture
GenderNutrition

All interventions Statistically Significantly Improved
Nutrition Knowledge, with Women Outperforming Men
Respondents correctly answered 75% of nutrition questions obtained from training
66.6
63.7
58.1
66.5 67.6
26.1
86.2
92.0
67.9
92.2 93.6
44.4
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 Control
Percentageofrespondents
Male Female

Men’s agricultural production knowledge
improved, especially for interventions with
agriculture training (All impacts statistically significant)
9 8
40 38 36
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Nut
(DAE)
Nut
(APK)
Ag Ag+Nut Ag+Nut+Gen
Percentagepointdifferencefromendline
controlmean
Endline Control Mean: 18%

…But impacts on women’s agricultural
production knowledge are even greater
(T3, T4 and T5 impacts statistically significant)
7
3
59
70
65
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Nut
(DAE)
Nut
(APK)
Ag Ag+Nut Ag+Nut+Gen
Percentagepointdifferencefromendline
controlmean
Endline control mean: 5%

Women became more empowered in asset ownership &
income decisions. Men became more empowered in
production & income decisions
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
F: Asset ownership
(EL C mean: 96%)
F: Income decisions
(EL C mean: 93%)
M: Prod'n decisions
(EL C mean: 99%)
M: Income decisions
(EL C mean: 99%)
%changefromendlinecontrolmean
Selected A-WEAI component indicators
ANCOVA impacts of ANGeL treatment arms on selected A-WEAI
component indicators (where significant impacts are found)
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Significant improvements in women’s and
men’s total gender attitude scores,
particularly from T5
0.88
1.12
1.80
0.24
0.48 0.52
2.03
1.16
2.64
1.45
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Female: Total gender attitude score
(EL C mean: 39.9)
Male: Total gender attitude score
(EL C mean: 40.2)
%changefromendlinecontrolmean
Female and male total gender attitude score
Single-difference impacts of ANGeL treatment arms on total
gender attitude score (out of 50)
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5
8

Improved
relationships
and joint
decisionmaking
“As my son fell in love and got
married [without my consent], I
didn’t accept his wife. I sent them
out of house. They have two
children and I have never seen
their faces. For the last 13 years, I
didn’t talk with them. But, after
attending six ANGeL sessions, I
realized my mistake and feel how
wrong I was! Now we are talking to
each other and have a lovely
relationship between us.”

Conclusions
 Women consistently learned more and applied more improved
agriculture and nutrition practices than men who attended the same
trainings.
 Training men and women together creates a mutually supportive
environment of learning.
 Integrated programming that includes gender sensitization is
effective in empowering women and men.
 Helen Keller International’s Nurturing Connections curriculum was
effective in changing attitudes on gender for men and women
 In January 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture committed to scale up
ANGeL nationally – rolling out the combination of 3 interventions
that were most effective: trainings to men and women in farm
households on agriculture, nutrition, and gender.

gender.cgiar.org
We would like to acknowledge all CGIAR Research Programs
and Centers for supporting the participation of their gender
scientists to the Seeds of Change conference.
Photo: Neil Palmer/IWMI