This document presents a conceptual framework for understanding how gender and assets relate to agricultural development programs. It discusses how access to different types of assets is critical for well-being and livelihoods. The framework examines how gender influences livelihood strategies, responses to shocks, income, consumption, savings, and well-being. It also summarizes findings from several development projects, noting that whether women and men can participate depends on existing asset ownership, and that projects can affect gendered asset use, control, and ownership, with mixed results for narrowing asset gaps.

1. Conceptual Framework
and Key Messages
Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Agnes Quisumbing
International Food Policy Research Institute
Washington DC
May 8, 2014

2. Source: Gender, Assets, and Agricultural Development Programs: A
Conceptual Framework http://www.capri.cgiar.org/pdf/capriwp99.pdf
GAAP conceptual framework

3. Why focus on assets?
• Access to, control over, and ownership of assets are
critical components of well-being
• Productive assets can generate products or services
that can be consumed or sold to generate income
• Assets are stores of wealth that can increase in value
• Assets can act as collateral and facilitate access to
credit, financial services, increase social status
• Assets give individuals the capability to be and to act
• Increasing control over assets enables more
permanent pathways out of poverty compared to
increased incomes or consumption alone

4. Assets
•Natural
•Physical
•Financial
•Human
•Social
•Political
•Use
•Control
•Ownership

5. Assets
•Natural
•Physical
•Financial
•Human
•Social
•Political
•Enable livelihoods
•Resist shocks
•Direct effect on well-being

6. Assets
•Natural
•Physical
•Financial
•Human
•Social
•Political
•Enable livelihoods
•Resist shocks
•Direct effect on well-being

7. Jointness
Women’s Men’s
J
O
I
N
T

8. Jointness
Women’s Men’s
J
O
I
N
T

9. ♀Livelihood Strategies
•What are the livelihood options available
to women and men?
•What assets do those livelihoods require?
•Are women (or men) precluded from good
livelihoods by lack of assets?

10. Shocks
•What are the major shocks that affect
women, men, and households?
•How do women, men respond to shocks?
•What role do assets play in responding to
shocks?

11. ♀Full Income
• Includes cash and direct consumption
• What affects the income women and
men earn?
• What affects the control of income
within the household?

12. ♀Consumption
• Includes food and nonfood
• How are women’s, men’s, and joint
income used for different types of
consumption by different family members?
• What affects decisions on consumption?
(Does control of assets play a role?)

13. ♀Savings/Investment
• Feeds back to + or – asset accumulation
•How are women’s, men’s, and joint
income used for different types of
investment by different family members?
• What affects decisions on investment?
• Are there enough mechanisms for women
to build assets?

14. Well-Being
•Health
•Nutritional status
•Time use
•Stress
•Empowerment
•etc.

15. Project intervention approaches
Partner Country Assets transferred Gender view
of project
BRAC Bangladesh Cattle, goats, poultry
birds, or land for
horticulture
Gender aware
CARE Bangladesh None Gender
transformative
Harvest Plus Uganda Orange Fleshed Sweet
Potato (OFSP) vines
Gender aware
HKI Burkina Faso Hens, seeds Gender
transformative
Kickstart Kenya and
Tanzania
None Gender blind
Landesa India Land titles, basic inputs
(seeds)
Gender aware
Land O’Lakes Mozambique Improved dairy cows and
training inputs
Gender blind
CGIAR CSISA India None Gender blind

16. Project Evaluation design GAAP contribution
Landesa Propensity weighted
regression
Qual work (FGDs, KIIs, life histories); input
into quant survey module
BRAC
CFPR-TUP
Randomized controlled
trial (RCT)
Qual work; input into gender and assets
modules in endline
CARE-SDVC Propensity weighted
regression
Qual work; input into gender and assets
modules, additional modules for endline
LOL MSDDP Early vs. late livestock
recipients
Qual work (FGDs, KIIs, life histories); input
into quant survey module
HKI-EHFP RCT Qual work; input into gender and assets
modules
Harvest
Plus REU
RCT Qual work, including social network analysis;
input into gender and assets modules
CGIAR
CSISA
Econometric
approaches;
Experimental auction
Qual and asset module in mid-line quant
survey; Funding for analysis time to focus on
social networks
KickStart Early vs. late pump
buyers
Funding for qualitative work
Project approaches to evaluation

17. Two main findings that cut across
projects
 Gendered use, control, and ownership of assets
affect the take-up of agricultural interventions
 Agricultural interventions affect the gendered use,
control, and ownership of assets

18. ―if you build it, they will come‖
 ―If you have a good intervention, people will participate‖…not
necessarily
 For example, dairy value chain projects require having a cow!
 Different approaches to this:
 Target households that already have cows: CARE-
Bangladesh
 Transfer cows: BRAC-Targeting Ultra Poor
 Transfer cows and provide training: LandOLakes
Mozambique
 Other projects (e.g. Kickstart treadle pumps) have market
driven approaches—no subsidy on pump buying
 Dissemination of seeds, new varieties, assume use or control
rights over land (even if not ownership)

19. Who gets to come?
In LandOlakes program, training was initially given only to men. But women
are heavily involved in dairy: cows suffered. Training expanded to 2
members per household.

20. Who within the household decides what
to grow?
See presentation by Dan Gilligan and Neha Kumar!

21. Do men and women have equal control of
resources that enable adoption?
Kickstart: Adoption of treadle pumps by women buyers was much
lower than that of male buyers, owing to women’s limited
financial resources.

22. Projects often propose solutions to the ―need
asset to adopt‖ problem
Landesa
• West Bengal allocation of
microplots:
• Allocate microplots to
households, prioritize female-
headed households and widows
• Joint titling to primary male
and female adult
• Odisha government land titling
programs
• Grant title to households
already occupying government
land
• Distribute individual title to
households residing on
previously communally-titled
land.
• Make sure woman’s name on
patta
Burkina HKI Enhanced
Homestead Food Production
project
• Make land available for
community gardens through
agreements with land owners

23. Agricultural interventions can affect the
gendered use, control, and ownership of assets
In HKI’s E-HFP, adoption of home gardens was high among participants and
women maintained control over vegetable and chicken production,
however men took over goats

24. Landesa’s Nijo Griha, Nijo Bhumi (NGNB) program in West Bengal
increased women’s perceived tenure security as compared to control
households where women’s names were not on titles (Santos et al
2013).

25. The Landesa West Bengal study found that where the woman’s name was on
the land title, she was more likely to report participating in household food
purchase and consumption decisions.
Photo credit: Supriya Chatterjee, Landesa

26. Preliminary conclusions
 Projects that unambiguously benefit households may have mixed
effects on individuals within those household, especially women
(BRAC-TUP)
 Many projects succeeded in increasing women’s assets, but
narrowing the gender asset gap is harder
 Strengthening women’s control of assets can enhance their
participation in decisions about how assets are used (Landesa)

27. Preliminary conclusions
 Assets and related livelihood strategies can increase demands on
time, especially for women (CARE-BD)
 Women have a hard time maintaining control of income from assets
(most)
 Intangible benefits, especially related to norms, are important for
women and may signal longer term changes (CARE-BD, BRAC, HKI)