Presentation, Global Affairs Canada workshop on Achieving Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy through Agriculture and Food Systems, September 6-7, 2017, Ottawa, Canada.

1. Sophia Huyer, Gender and Social Inclusion Leader
September 7, 2017
Gender-transformative
innovation and the SDGs

2. Key issues for gender-transformative
innovation
• Increasing women’s resilience and capacity is critical in all SDG
areas, including agriculture, but not adequately supported by
technology and innovation
• Women are agents of change: Women’s choices and
preferences in technology and innovation need to be identified and
addressed
• They need access to the range of resources required for innovative
capacity: land, labor, credit, information, extension, including
appropriate technologies
• The role of innovation to rectify inequities as well as promote
gender equality needs to be explored, in terms of:
 Women’s access to and control of resources and capital
 Support to women’s agency and status,
 Increased decision making and leadership at household, community and
and national levels

3. Paths forward:
1. Promoting women’s economic
empowerment / women’s leadership
• Involves access to and control of
resources including land, labor,
credit, information, extension,
and technology
• Increase quality and quantity of
production
• Increase women’s decision
making about the use of
resources and income, at
household and community levels
• Promising approach: working
through and with women’s
organizations at local and
national levels – Solar Irrigation
with Women in Nepal

4. 2. Gender-transformative agriculture - how
to get there?

5. 3. Extension and information: How to
reach women?

6. Criteria for gender-transformative
technology:
• Meets women’s needs, as defined and articulated by women
• Reduces work burden of women and girls – does not add to their HH labour
obligations
• Improves quality and quantity of production
• Improves nutrition and food security
• Women have access to resources required to access, maintain and benefit
from technologies (e.g., credit/finance, information, training, access/transport to
markets)
• Men are not alienated by the introduction of new technologies for women
• Gender roles around workload and distribution of benefits are analysed so that
unequal patterns are not reinforced
• Technologies are introduced in “gap” areas, or new innovations provide a
window for new opportunities for women
• Women develop new capacities, realized by themselves and recognized by
others, which can open up other livelihood options
• Women are able to assert leadership or control in some way over the use of
and benefits of the technologies, either in collaboration with their husbands,
with the support of their husbands, or through women’s organizations
Yenagi et. al. 2010; Vijayalakshmiet al. 2010; Carr and Hartl, 2010; Huyer, 2016; Edmunds et al, 2013;
Beuchelt and Badstue, 2013; Kantor et al, 2015; Hottle, 2015

7. Partnerships and approaches: What’s missing
• Women are innovators at all levels and need support to expand their innovative
capacity and agricultural–based livelihoods at local and community levels
• Scaling out and up successful innovations for women and the SDGs at
community and national levels is critical
• Blended approaches between government, NGOs, and the private sector are
needed to develop, support and access markets for women’s innovative
activities
• Researchers and government need to develop and support promising
sustainable models for supporting women’s resilience and adaptive capacity,
based on their priorities
• Policy at national, global and organizational levels is needed that recognizes
women’s role in promoting resilience and meeting food security and nutrition
needs in the developing world
• Policy processes should go beyond numerical representation of women to
create active mechanisms to express opinions, take initiatives, and in uence
decisions.
• Needs assessments that explicitly distinguish between women’s and men’s
priorities and opportunities should inform policy and programme design
• What is the role of the global development and climate funds to support
women?

8. Thank you