1. What the Cows Told Us: Measuring Women's
Empowerment in a Dairy Value Chain
Kakuly Tanvin, SDVC Project Manager, G&T
Nurul Amin Siddiquee, SDVC Team Leader
Shreyas Sreenath, Fulbright Fellow
Strengthening the Dairy value Chain Project

2. Agenda
Project Overview
Gender Approach
Results & Lessons
Measuring Gender Impact
The Road Ahead

3. THE SDVC PROJECT

4. Goal of the Project
35,000 targeted landless and smallholding
households in North and Northwestern
Bangladesh (50% women) have increased
incomes and more sustainable livelihoods
through incorporation into a strengthened
milk value chain (2007-2011)
Objectives of the Project
Improve the milk collection system in rural and remote areas
Increase production by improving access to inputs, markets, and
services by mobilizing groups of poor producers and input service provider.
Improve the breeding/Artificial Insemination (AI) network
Ensure access to quality animal health services at the producer level
Improve the policy environment.

5. Stats
Total Number (# of
Participants Women %
women)
Producer organized & trained 36400 (29745) 82%
Producer Groups formed 1162 (524) 45%
Farmer Leader trained 3425 (2443) 71%
Milk Collector trained 308 (28) 9%
Livestock Health Worker
201 (45) 22%
trained
AI Technicians Trained 52 (5) 10%
Dairy Input Shop 170 (31) 19%

6. Our Target Beneficiaries: A Case
Study
• Hamida Begum is married,
has three children, works
as a day laborer and tends
her family’s two cows
• Average Household:
– Very poor
– Own 0.75 acres of land
– $25 monthly income
– 1-3 cows
6

7. SDVC Theory of Change

8. Why Dairy?
Economic Rationale Gender Rationale
• Growing demand in urban markets • Women’s current role and relative ability
for fresh milk to engage – low barriers to entry
• Growing investment in infrastructure • Proximity to HH and relatively low labor
and processing capacity across requirements
private sector
• Potential to build on cultural legacy that
• High # of poor households already valued women’s engagement in dairy as
involved in dairy an economic activity – combating current
norms and trend toward male dominance
• Potential for doubling income for as dairy sector matures
impact groups.
Other Factors
* Nutritional value * Supportive enabling environment * Potential for Scale

9. THE SDVC GENDER
APPROACH

10. Activity Area Intended Outcome
Target women Increase women’s knowledge, skills, social capital, financial
producers to join inclusion, access to inputs and markets, leadership
production groups capacity, productive capacity, incomes
Identify and promote Improve incomes of most destitute women, challenge
opportunities for traditional gender norms, improve women’s access to
women to take on services tailored to their needs (women for women)
roles traditionally
dominated by men
Engage men and Increase women’s mobility, promote more balanced home
power holders work balance, increase women’s control over assets and
through sensitization incomes
Promote gender- Improve private sector understanding of women’s needs
responsive services and preferences as clients and business partners to
from other market improve women’s inclusion in the dairy sector
actors
Overarching strategy Use cattle keeping as a platform to instigate positive
change in the daily lives of poor women. Redefine societal
beliefs of what is appropriate work for men and women to
do.

11. RESULTS

12. Group Gender Composition
and Income
• Overall, Households within Learning Groups with Female Leaders have incomes that are 3-6%
higher.
• Learning Groups with Female Leaders do relatively better as the Phase progresses

13. Group Leader
Gender & Group
Composition
• Group composition plus leader gender affects
income from milk
• Learning Groups with a high percentage of
women producers with a female group leader
perform the best overall.
• Learning Groups with a high percentage of
women producers and a male group leader
perform the least well.
• Learning Groups with a high percentage of men
producers do moderately well regardless of
group leader gender.

14. Gender, Groups, Ownership & Income
• Households where women own cattle do about 10% better in earning money than
do households where women do not own cattle. However, this relationship is
complex and is changing over time
Households in which women own cattle and women make the cattle selling
decisions are more likely to sell cattle and are more likely to have higher incomes
overall.

15. • Female LHW with basic training
achieve a 33% higher income
increase than men
• Female LHW with advanced training
achieve a 22% higher income
increase than men
• Female LHW with both basic and
advanced training achieve a 17%
higher income increase than men
• Female LHW with loans have a 35%
higher increase in income than men
• Female LHW without loans have a
24% higher increase than men

17. How we got here
Targeted women farmers, trained farmers leaders, & service
providers
Built the leadership capacity of women farmers’ groups and
informed them about fair prices, animal husbandry and farm
management practices.
Included spouses and other family and community members
during the selection process and in other activities through
sensitization sessions
Developed barrier checklists, followed up the results with
interventions in the household and community level
Engaged men to explore their perspectives & to ensure their
participation in sharing the labor that is put into cattle rearing.
Facilitated network and linkage building for women groups in
particular with private sector and government service providers

18. SDVC MEASURING WOMEN’S
EMPOWERMENT

19. M&E System Components
Evaluation Gender, Assets & Agriculture
Project
- Partnered with IFPRI & Data
- Partnered with IFPRI
- Baseline / Midline / Endline
-Focus on enhancing qualitative
-Multiple Control Groups to understanding of change in
capture both spillover in SDVC women’s empowerment
communities and maintain
counterfactual in ‘like’ areas w/o - To explore and examine the
activity sustainable impacts on women
and men’s asset acquisition,
- Sex disaggregated data asset ownership, and related
impacts on household and
- Explicit questions on women’s community gender dynamics
inclusion, changes in Agency and
Relations -Multi-method approach and
tools

20. The Tools We Used
Tools Purpose Tool type
FGD Explore women’s access to asset ownership, to Research and M&E
mkt & credit and project impact on WE
Life History Analysis Explore project impact and WE process Research and M&E
PPT Group performance assessment (ranking) by Research and M&E
members & develop improvement plan
Group Progress Regular monitoring on milestones including Research and M&E
Survey gender
Gender equity format To aware on gender discrimination and Gender Awareness
analysis importance of equity
24 hr clock analysis To reduce women’s workload Gender Awareness
Asset ownership To aware on importance of asset ownership Gender Awareness
pattern analysis and access to income
Women barrier Follow up on barriers for women in DVC Gender Awareness,
Checklist research /M&E
Barrier Tree analysis To aware on barrier, its cause, consequences Gender Awareness
Peer review To assess men and women’s perception on Gender Awareness,
their need and document project impact on the research and M&E
change

21. Select Key Findings
Economic interventions have high spillover ratio, empowerment
interventions do not – IFPRI MTE
Change at agency level fosters an increase in asset ownership
( 7.4% increase in cattle owner ship)
Cattle keeping can be used to empower women to step into new
spaces traditionally closed off by ensuring participation in various
parts of the value chain. (GAAP baseline study)

22. THE ROAD AHEAD

23. What we learned/Road Ahead
• Women are likely to be empowered when livelihood activities that they
already participate in (i.e. cattle keeping) are strengthened through an
agricultural intervention, but there are two caveats:
– First, women are empowered from cattle keeping because it is close to
the spaces they interact with, and SDVC has to make sure the
infrastructure it builds stays close to women.
– Second, if SDVC wants to continue empowering women to participate
further up the value chain, it should also use the leverage that cattle
keeping activities have to help women participate in new spaces.
• SDVC recognizes that there are challenges to women’s participation when
they are exposed to increased production and commercialization of the
dairy value chain, as men are more likely to control activities at this level.
– So, it will use the two points above as a framework to help women
producers enter commercial markets while continuing to empower them.
– It will also engage men’s perspectives and participation in designing &
implementing policies targeted towards women’s empowerment.

24. Thank You
Learn more at
http://edu.care.org
Or email: Nurul Amin Siddiquee siddiquee@bd.care.org
Kakuly Tanvin kakuly@bd.care.org
Shreyas Sreenath sreenath.shreyas2@gmail.com