Strengthening Adaptive Capacity of Extensive
Livestock Systems for Food and Nutrition
Security and Low-emissions Development in
ESA
Women’s Empowerment in
Livestock Index (WELI)
Auma Joseph, ILRI
AICCRA-ILRI project stakeholder workshop
Nairobi, 19-20 September 2022

Inception Workshop
Strengthening Adaptive Capacity of
Extensive Livestock Systems for Food
and Nutrition Security and Low-
emissions Development in ESA
19 -20, September 2022

Alessandra Galiè, Nils Teufel and Luke Korir
International Livestock Research Institute
ILRI, Oct 2019
Adapted from;

A tool standardized to measure women’s empowerment in the livestock sector
• WE in livestock sector is essential to make progress toward gender equality (SDGs).
• Women more easily control livestock (e.g., SR and poultry ) compared to other high-
value assets e.g., land, thus provide key opportunities for WE.
• Livestock also provide ASF that help underpin women’s traditional role in securing
household nutrition.
What is WELI?
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Measure changes in women’s empowerment related to livestock
• Gender roles in livestock: Who in the hh is doing what to raise livestock?
• What livestock interventions and activities can support women’s empowerment?
In different livestock species
Why an empowerment index for livestock?
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Originally developed in 2015 by ILRI with Emory University
Based on:
• General dimensions of empowerment from the literature
• Existing dimensions and indicators of the WEAI (IFPRI in 2012)
• Formative studies conducted in Tanzania
• Consultations with ILRI livestock experts
E D I T F O O T E R T O A D D P R E S E N T A T I O N H E A D I N G | D A T E
Origin of WELI

• WELI enables development practitioners, project planners, donor organizations and
other decision-makers to assess how their livestock interventions affect the EW involved in
the sector
• Better at understanding what interventions work best for providing empowering
opportunities, refine these interventions and, in the long term, provide better
empowering opportunities for women involved in livestock.
Who is this method for?
E D I T F O O T E R T O A D D P R E S E N T A T I O N H E A D I N G | D A T E

WELI is designed to measure WE in livestock and crop farming,
focusing specifically on key decisions of livestock production, animal health, breeding, feeding as
well as use of livestock products, such as ASF processing and marketing.
Includes 6 key domains of WELI—
• Decisions on agricultural production
• Decisions related to household nutrition
• Access to and control over resources
• Control and use of income
• Access to and control of opportunities
• Workload and control over own time
WELI data quantitative and qualitative components
How can I use this method?
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Empowerment dimensions, indicators, weights and adequacy indicators
E D I T F O O T E R T O A D D P R E S E N T A T I O N H E A D I N G | D A T E

Empowerment dimensions, indicators, weights and adequacy indicators
used in the pilot WELI
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• WELI is a work in progress and information on the tool and its development has been shared
widely to provide opportunities for feedback.
• Empowerment is a complex process of change, which brings about two main methodological
challenges when developing and implementing the WELI.
 Combination of both quantitative and qualitative approaches may result in contradictory
findings, which poses the challenge of reconciling these two approaches.
 Challenge arises from the need to balance universal comparability and local relevance.
While using universal indicators of empowerment provides a “neutral” and widely
comparable measurement, it is also essential to understand and assess empowerment
within each local social context.
Conclusion
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Examples
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Thanks