Engendering Research in LIVES Value Chain
Development Interventions
Ephrem Tesema and Kathleen Colverson
LIVES Research Planning Workshop
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 26-28 March 2013

Outline
• Why engender research in LIVES?
• How does LIVES gender work intersect with
ILRI’s CG research plan on Livestock and Fish?
• Research approaches to incorporating
gender in all VC /Commodity work
• Concluding Remarks/Questions

Why “engender” research?
• In many countries, women make up a larger
percentage of the agricultural labor
• Women participate along the entire agricultural
value chain, contributing as producers, distributors,
processors, storers, and marketers, as well as, being
responsible for feeding their families

Women, on average,
comprise 43% of the
agricultural labor
force in developing
countries and
account for an
estimated two-thirds
of the world’s 600
million poor livestock
keepers.
Farming First (http://www.farmingfirst.org/women)

A significant share of households in all regions are headed by
women, yet their access to productive resources and services are
limited.
Farming First (http://www.farmingfirst.org/women)

Women have:
• Less access to land, less money to buy land, using
more borrowed or illegal land
• Fewer head of livestock than male-headed
households
• Higher number of orphans living in female-headed
households than male headed
USAID, 2003

• Fewer agricultural inputs, such as
improved seed and fertilizer, used by
female-headed households
• Less access to extension services and
improved technologies

Could increase yields on farms by
20 – 30 percent which…
Could raise total agricultural
output in developing countries
2.5 – 4 percent which…
Could reduce the number of
hungry people in the world by 12
– 17 percent
State of Food and Agriculture FAO 2011

CRP 3.7 Livestock and Fish Gender
Outcome and Outputs
Outcome:
“Poor women, men and marginalized groups have
improved and more equitable access to affordable
animal source foods through gender equitable
interventions”
http://livestock-
fish.wikispaces.com/Gender+and+Learning

CRP 3.7 Gender Outputs:
Output 1: Increased gender capacity within CG, partner
organizations, and value chain actors to diagnose and
overcome gender based constraints within value chains
Output 2: Strategies and approaches developed through
which women and marginalized groups improve the
nature and level of participation in livestock and fish
value chains

CRP 3.7 Gender Outputs (Continued):
Output 3: Strategies and approaches that increase
women and marginalized groups entitlement to
access markets and control resources, technologies,
labor, power and the benefits of their work
Output 4: Strategies and approaches to promote
increased level and equity in animal source food
consumption within poor households

LIVES Gender Objectives
To increase equity of gender roles in value chain
nodes and chain governance of high value livestock
commodities and irrigated crops
To increase gender sensitive knowledge
management and capacity building interventions
in high value livestock commodities and irrigated
crops
To ensure gender sensitive approaches are used by
LIVES’s research and development partners

Gender Sensitive Research Steps in
Value Chain Development
• Map Gender Roles & Relationships along the VC
• Identify gender constraints along the VC
• Assess the consequences of the gender constraints
• Identify and implement actions to overcome
constraints
• Carry out Action Research
• Measure outcomes of implementations

Integrating Gender in Agricultural VC
1. Mapping
6.Measuring Gender Roles
Outcomes and Relations
along the VC
2. Moving
from
5. Action Gender
Research inequality
to
Constraints
3. Assessing the
4. Taking
Consequences of
Action
Constraints
Source: Adopted from Gender Equitable Opportunities in Agricultural Value Chains, USAID, 2010

Gender sensitive knowledge management and
capacity building research approach
• Identify formal/informal institutions involved in
brokering knowledge and capacity development
• Identify knowledge and capacity development methods
used by different institutions
• Identify knowledge magt/capacity building institutions
and methods that ensure access for men and women
• Identify constraints and its implications on gender
• propose gender sensitive knowledge/capacity
development intervention
• Action Research
• Measuring the outcomes of the intervention/action

Gender sensitive Knowledge Management and
capacity building Research outputs/outcomes
• Diagnostic research output
– Role of informal institutions/farmer to farmer in
knowledge sharing by and for women
– Couples training
– Involvement of young family members in FHH
• Action research

Final Remarks
• The VC for all types of High value commodities
should be seen through a gender lens while
research agenda is set for LIVES
• Gender sensitive diagnostic and action research
need to give insight on innovative ways of
Knowledge Management and Capacity building
interventions

Thank You!!
www.lives-ethiopia.org