Gender, Agriculture and Assets Project:
A model for research & capacity building
Nancy Johnson,
International Livestock Research Institute
on behalf of GAAP team
Organized Symposium on “Innovations in methods for
analyzing the gender-asset gap in agriculture”
IAAE
Foz do Iguaçu
August 22, 2012

Goals of GAAP
Works with agricultural development projects in
SSA and SA to:
 Generate evidence on the role of assets in
projects and the impacts of projects on
women’s assets and the gender‐asset gap
 Build capacity among project implementers
and project evaluators to incorporate gender
and assets in their work

GAAP Partners

Mid-term Workshop
BRAC, Nov 2011

Outline
• Conceptual framework
• Methods for evaluation
• Methods for capacity building

Why have a conceptual framework?
Photo credit: Agnes Quisumbing

Why have a conceptual framework?
• To clarify HOW:
 Gendered asset distribution affects outcomes
 Outcomes of agricultural programs differ by gender
 Building assets takes place in a way that is gendered
• To guide attention to key processes for
evaluation
• To provide a basis for comparison and learning
across different case studies
• To offer an organizing frame for synthesis

Context: Ecological, Social, Economic, Political factors, etc.
Shocks
Consumption
Livelihood
Assets Strategies Full Incomes Well‐being
Savings/
Investment
Legend:
Women Joint Men

Each component is gendered
Women’s JOINT Men’s
• Women and men have separate assets, activities, consumption, etc.
• Households also have some joint assets, activities, consumption, etc.
• Shading of each component as a reminder that we need to consider
gender—separation and jointness in each
• Meinzen‐Dick et al, 2011, Gender, Assets, and Agricultural
Development Programs: A Conceptual Framework,” CAPRi Working
Paper No. 99. http://dx.doi.org/10.2499/CAPRiWP99

Assets
Natural Physical
Human
Financial
Social Political

Mapping projects to the framework
Asset distribution
Shocks
(eg land, livestock,
training, support
to groups)
Consumption
Livelihood
Assets Strategies Full Incomes Well‐being
Savings/
Investment
Question: Who gets the asset and what implications for
that have for LS, well being and the gender-asset gap?

Mapping projects to the framework
Promotion of new/ improved
Shocks livelihoods strategies (technologies,
businesses)
Consumption
Livelihood
Assets Strategies Full Incomes Well‐being
Savings/
Investment
Questions: What assets are required to adopt? How does
adoption affect outcomes, well being and the G-A gap?

Evaluation approach:
Mixed methods
All projects had quantitative baseline surveys, but
variables not gender disaggregated
 GAAP complemented existing surveys with new
modules and/or rounds of data collection
Few projects planned qualitative analysis as part of their
evaluations
 GAAP funded qualitative work on the meaning and
importance of assets to men and women, and the
links between assets, project activities, and outcomes

Modifications to quant surveys
New or revised modules:
 Full household roster (including cows in
one case!)
 Gender disaggregation in:
• Assets (current and retrospective)
• Labor
• Control over key inputs, outputs, income
 Didn’t always ask men and women
http://gaap.ifpri.info

Qualitative
• Mainly focus group discussions
• Depending on dates, purpose was to
inform quantitative and explore project
impacts and evaluation findings

Own‐project funded With GAAP support
Name of project/ Intervention and Compari Baseline and other quant Qual Qual work Endline
country definition of son surveys
treatment group group
BRAC: Challenging Grants of RCT Baseline: May‐Dec 2007 ‐ Feb‐Jun Quant add‐on
Frontiers of Poverty livestock, land, (26,977 households sampled); 2011 survey with
Reduction‐Targeting or funds, 1st follow‐up: Jul‐Dec 2009; gender/assets
Ultra Poor
training; 2nd follow‐up: Mar‐Jul 2011 focus: Jan‐Apr
(Bangladesh)
2012
CARE‐BD: Organizes/ PSM Quant including sex‐ Jan 2011 Sept 2011 Endline planned
Strengthening Dairy trains dairy disaggregated asset module: for Sep‐Oct 2012
Value Chain farmer groups, Baseline in 2008 (1,500 Nov‐Dec
group leaders,
(Bangladesh) households sampled) 2012
milk collectors,
and livestock
health workers
LOL: Mozambique Transfer of dairy Early v Baseline 2009 and endline in Apr‐May Midline conducted
Dairy Production cows; training late 2012 (~650 hh) and endline 2011 2011
recipient 2012
HKI: Homestead Training through: RCT Baseline in 2010 Operations Gender‐assets
Food Production (1) farmers 2011; Social network census, research modules in endline
(Burkina Faso) groups; or (2) Operations research 2012 2012
grandmothers

Own‐project funded With GAAP support
Name of Intervention and Comparison Quant Qual Qual Endline
project/country treatment group group
HPlus: Reaching Providing vines, extension Randomized Baseline 2007 Qual work Social
End User program messages, and nutrition control trial Endline 2009 2011 network
of Orange Sweet messages to farmers Social network survey survey (add
Potato (Uganda) groups (intense/less 2011 on)
intense)
KS: Treadle pumps Market driven Comparison Baseline June‐Nov May 2011.
(Tanzania, Kenya) intervention, treadle of early vs 2010, 6 month follow
pumps for micro‐irrigation late buyers up for anthro Jan‐Feb
2011 in Kenya only.
(~615 hhlds /cohort )
Cereal Systems in Resource‐conserving Nearby Baseline in 2010 (~350) Qual work in Midline in
South Asia (CSISA technologies provided in villages, non‐ 2011 2012
(India) CSISA hubs adopter
households
(likely 2‐
stage
regression)
Landesa (India) Regularization of land PSM (likely) Baseline between June August‐Sept Midline
titles 2010‐July 2011. 2012 (funded by
Microplots (Odisha), Baseline in WB is GAAP) will
purchase and allocation of ‘rolling’ meaning after take place in
land (WB) title but before move Sept‐Oct
(T=803, C = 570), 2012
Baseline in Odisha, T =
551, C = 789.

Some emerging findings
• Jointness of ownership and control is very
nuanced and very important
• Project investments in women’s human and
social capital may have direct and indirect
impacts
• Need to involve men in projects that target
resources to women
• Many agricultural development projects
increase women’s workload

Experience of working with
development projects
• Generally positive, and not related to
direction of impacts
• Some documented uptake of methods and
lessons in new projects, by implementers and
evaluation partners
• Commissioning an evaluation of the impact of
capacity building impacts of GAAP (ALINe)
• Will produce a “Practitioners guide” that will
update Quisumbing and McClafferty, 2006