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From theory to practice: a social norms approach to exposing, defining and addressing agricultural gender gaps
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This presentation was given by ?? (GROW), as part of the Annual Scientific Conference hosted by the University of Canberra and co-sponsored by the University of Canberra, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research. The event took place on April 2-4, 2019 in Canberra, Australia. Read more: https://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research-centres/aisc/seeds-of-change and https://gender.cgiar.org/annual-conference-2019/
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From theory to practice: a social norms approach to exposing, defining and addressing agricultural gender gaps
- Seeds for Change, April 2019 From theory to practice: A social norms approach to exposing, defining and addressing agricultural gender gaps
- • Private sector development programme in Liberia • Bilaterally-funded by SIDA • Implemented by Adam Smith International since 2013 • Focuses on cocoa; agro- inputs; agro-processing and trade; oil palm and rubber.
- Hidden Roles but Visible Value: Women in Liberia’s Rubber Sector Liberian rubberLiberian rubber
- Gender and social norms analysis in adaptative programming Gender analysis for specific sectors and interventions Annual impact analysis Gender and Youth Analysis and Strategy 2016 Guiding principles • Quick and timely • Collaborative team effort • Operationally relevant recommendations • Making the most of existing data
- Gender and social norms analysis in adaptative programming Gender analysis for specific sectors and interventions Annual impact analysis Gender and Youth Analysis and Strategy 2016 Guiding principles • Quick and timely • Collaborative team effort • Operationally relevant recommendations • Making the most of existing data Objectives: • To have a better understanding of the roles of women in rubber • Understand challenges • Uncover factors and entry points
- Analysis: Gendered responsibilities for activities along the value chain Household work, cooking and child care
- The emerging business case to employ female tappers Absenteeism is higher among male tappers (monthly average days) Efficiency There is no difference in the tapping output between male and female tappers
- https://www.growliberia.com/
- Challenges women face to take on higher-value roles in the rubber sector (and entry points for GROW) minor medium major Physical labour Childcare & family planning Working conditions Access to training Literacy & numeracy Access to finance Access to markets Employer perceptions Unpaid care Social norms
- Discussion for GROW interventions Household work, cooking and child care 2. Upgrading women’s roles 3. Upgrading women’s roles 1. Do no harm 4. Building partnerships for family planning
Editor's Notes
- Intro Myself. Manager at Adam Smith International (global international development consultancy firm), currently based in Myanmar. The presentation today is on behalf of my colleague, Sabine Garbarino, who is a Women’s Economic Empowerment specialist, based in London. Caveat – not my work! GROW. Private sector development programme in Liberia, bilaterally-funded by SIDA, and is implemented by Adam Smith International since 2013.
- GROW collaborates with businesses, investors, associations, and government agencies which aimS to accelerate systemic solutions that transform high growth sectors and drive inclusive economic growth within the cocoa; oil palm; Vegetable (agro-inputs, agro-processing and trade); and rubber value chains. The latter of which we will be looking at. To increase the competitiveness of the Liberian rubber sector, our approach for GROW has been to use a market systems approach (which was conceptually a new approach in Liberia after a long history of direct delivery aid.). Not dissimilar to our other market development work, such as Strongim Bisnis and TOMAK (presented by colleagues here), is that a large component of all of our programming is committed to support women’s economic empowerment, as it is our belief that gender inclusion and opportunity is not only the right thing to do but also the smart thing to do economically. What I want to focus on today is how we used a RAPID social norms and gender research approach to expose, define and hopefully address some of the gender gaps in the Liberian rubber sector.
- First, some background on rubber. Rubber is an important sector for Liberia, providing the majority of its export revenues. Large, historic companies (such as Firestone) have a dominant position within the industry, and there is a historic reliance on one type of latex and latex processing with contract farmers, which makes the Liberian rubber sector vulnerable to world price fluctuations (which is currently on the decline). Most rubber trees are aged with very low productivity; which will require mass replanting and improved tapping practices to increase productivity and return. In recent days I have heard similar issues being raised in other value chains. Yet, regardless of this, many contract famers and labourers have little opportunity for upskill, diversification or product alternative options o it’s through this this realisation, we have explored any areas were we might be able to better enable market options for producers, specifically for women. Therefore we needed to better understand the VC and the gender norms and roles which lay beneath it. In Liberia, rubber is often perceived as a predominately male sector, yet under the surface therein lie some very active female-dominated roles, which I will come to shortly. GROW has undertaken primary research through Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions with male and female rubber farm owners and workers to look beyond the surface and uncover women’s – often hidden – roles along the rubber value chain. This required a Gendered value chain mapping, and was undertaken applied using questions in Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussion (FGDs). Now, what’s important to raise here is that GROW differs from the likes of my colleagues’ programming is that, while GROW had undertaken a Gender and Youth analysis and strategy in 2016, GROW, unlike TOMAK and Strongim Bisnis, was not particularly designed nor geared up for specifically WEE interventions, and took more of a mainstreaming or participatory approach, so it was only last year that this particular piece of research took place. Also, what’s important to underline here is that thin and fragile markets change. Some things work, other don’t work, and programming needs to adjust accordingly. GROW has therefore, in particular over the last two years, tried to be adaptive, it has entered new sectors, some have scaled up and others have been scaled down, depending on responsiveness. With a re-committed focus on gender and the annual impact analysis in recent years, it was clear that the project would likely benefit from rapid-type gender assessments. But this does not necessarily mean that corners were cut, and that it’s rather more an adaptive or iterative approach to research and programming. This of course, requires some guiding principles to underline it.
- Quick: with up to 5 days fieldwork and in time before new intervention decisions are taken. For the rubber sector there was a push on training. So it was important that we could get a get an understanding in which roles women currently working in, where (or how) they could possibly progress. We found that this was essential for a well defined training. (it needs to be) Collaborative: These operational research pieces were undertaken in partnership between gender advisor and intervention teams. This maximised learning on both sides. Spending time with the GROW’s rubber team interviewing farmers, visiting rubber plantations, talking to tappers meant that ASI’s gender advisor could ask relevant questions whilst, at the same time, gender was becoming an increasingly “real” and relevant focal point for the intervention team (who perhaps weren’t so cognisant of it before). It meant that recommendations were operational, rather than theoretic. (also) it made sense to make use most of existing data: In addition to data collection we made the most of the data we already had, either from our own MRM system or from partners. For the rubber research this meant we could analys how much rubber male and female tappers extract monthly from the rubber trees, to then compare output by gender.
- These principles provided us with: A better understanding of the roles of women in the rubber sector in Liberia (including hidden roles, e.g. family work) to inform gender-responsive interventions ; Understand challenges faced by women to enter the rubber sector and in taking on higher-value roles; and, And, to uncover factors and entry points that have contributed to women successfully entering and thriving in the rubber sector already (of which there was very low visibility on).
- The analysis also revealed the gendered responsibilities for activities along the value chain. Here is map of activities and the symbols indicate what are seen as male and female activities, as described by both genders. What we cn see women here are involved along the value chain but only one activity is a sole female activity. This says that while rubber is perceived to be more geared towards the male sector on the surface, women are actually involved in most activities along the value chain. So, which factors determine which tasks are done by women and which are done by men? - At first sight, the division of labour seems to depend on job attributes: men do physical jobs and women do those that require patience and diligence. Men prepare the land and women tend to nurseries. When it comes to women tapping, and of course there are some exceptions, but in the wider rubber sector, women play a very limited role in tapping (which returns the highest levels of income across the labour options in this VC). Interestingly, many men did believe though that women could tap if they are trained, though few training options were available to women. There is also the perception (mostly among men) that it would not be safe for women to sell as they are more vulnerable to crime. However, in reality, very few people go and sell on their own, it’s done in groups. Education and literacy hinders women from selling the rubber. Prices are transparent but the use of scales requires some numeracy. Men believe that women are easily cheated when they sell rubber by themselves (reflecting a lack of trust between farmers and buyers). There is a wide-spread perception that women cannot tap because it’s physically too hard. However, women do the under-brushing/slashing which, many argue, is at least equally hard. So we quickly started to suspect the physicality of the task is not the complete story. In many cases, of course, the gendered division of roles was described as men being the “provider” and women act as “the carer”. This means men are very prominent in roles that are paid more (e.g. tapping in comparison to slashing/under-brushing) and where money is handled, so when selling rubber. These gendered roles are strong. Women reported that it would be disrespectful not to let men sell. Women are responsible to look after children, and do housework but would also bring food to the men when they clear the land, for example. So even though this was a quick analysis, this shows there are real barriers to higher value chain entry points here but there are also opportunities, which could be brought about by challenging social perceptions through increasing economic opportunity for women. One of GROW’s partners in Margibi County, (close to Kakata for those of you who happen to know Liberia!) has been employing female tappers for many years. Ongoing discussions with her and her management reveals that women are actually deemed more trust-worthy and have played an important role in decreasing incidents of stealing latex by workers. An analysis of the farm’s own administrative data on workers’ daily latex production provides two interesting insights:
- There is no difference between men and women in terms of the monthly average latex output they produce. Absenteeism is lower among women than men. Men are on average absent for 2.8 days while women miss work 2 days/month. This is supported by qualitative data from Key Informants Interviews and FGDs reporting that men are often absent as they pursue other income earning possibilities while women are more diligent despite childcare responsibilities. This data has the potential to provide a convincing argument why it makes business sense to employ women as tappers, and this is what we’re focusing on right now.
- This research was only recently conducted so we’re still in the process of engaging the market actors but current signs are positive. In summary, the purpose of introducing this rapid approach to analysis is that gender and social norms, across existing market or value chain analyses, can be very useful if undertaken in careful and purposeful way. This feeds in to an adaptive and market-responsive approach, with the benefit being that you can then identify weaknesses and opportunities for women in advance of a full gender integration policy or approach. Please do feel free to visit us online or approach me afterwards to discuss where you can more information.
- This slide follows from the earlier slide (5) on the challenges and highlights challenges women face. It’s just a different way to illustrate the challenges. The green circles are in GROW’s remit while grey means things are outside out remit.
- DISCUSSION Do no harm: working conditions are challenging in the sector but we need to ensure we are not making things worse for workers. We will not be able to influence salaries but we see different ways of working when it comes to additional benefits like schooling. What can Bright Farm learn from MRE and how can we use our data to make a business case around this? Upgrading women’s roles from under-brushing to tapping. If we agree this would be an upgrade for women, we need to discuss implications for training and how to identify women to train. Upgrading women’s roles around the female activity of nursery management. Better training and linking to markets could lead to women supplying better trees to farms but also selling their skills to train others in nursery management. But would need general business training, soft skills etc. Family planning is overall one of the greatest challenges for (young) women to take on better paid work. Can we work with partners? Sabine to talk to Women to Women (Kvinna till Kvinna) programme head; maybe also a conversation with SIDA.
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