This document summarizes the work of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) related to gender and social inclusion. It outlines CCAFS' goal of ensuring rural women, youth and vulnerable groups benefit from efforts to reduce poverty, increase environmental resilience, improve food security and nutrition. Key strategies discussed include undertaking research to inform climate-smart solutions that do not increase women's workloads, increase women and youth's control over assets/resources, and promote their participation in decision making. The document also identifies knowledge gaps around gender differences in access to information, institutions, finance and decision making regarding climate-smart agriculture.

1. Sophia Huyer, GSI Leader
Gender and Social Inclusion in
West Africa projects
Photo: N. Palmer (CIAT)

2. CCAFS Gender and Social Inclusion
• Goal: ensure that rural women and youth benefit from CCAFS’
contribution to poverty reduction, enhanced environmental
resilience, improved food security, human health and nutrition.
• Strategy: undertake research to:
 Inform, catalyze and target CSA solutions to women, youth and
vulnerable groups that do not increase their workloads
 Increase the control of women and youth over productive assets and
resources, and
 Promote their participation in decision making
Women are central to agriculture in developing countries within a
broader social context

3. Reduced Poverty
Improved food
& nutrition security
for health
• 11 million farm
households have
adopted improved
varieties, breeds or
trees, and/or improved
management practices
• 9 million people, of
which 50% are women,
assisted to exit poverty
• 6 million more people,
of which 50% are
women, without
deficiencies of one or
more essential
micronutrients
• 160 Mt CO2e yr-1
reduction of agriculture-
related GHG emissions
(4%) compared to BAU
scenario in 2022
• 0.8 million ha of forest
saved from
deforestation
System Level Outcomes
Improved natural
resource systems &
ecosystem services

4. CCAFS Gender Outcomes

5. Gender and Youth IDOs

6. GSI Strategy: Context
• Social inclusion involves gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity,
disability and age (youth and seniors) and affects dynamics around
perspectives, needs and access to resources
• An important element is understanding power relations at all levels.
Scientific information and agricultural assets are set within contexts of
power relationships, so that existing gender roles and power
inequalities will influence climate change impacts and adaptations.
• Three main underlying approaches: vulnerabilities; gender
transformation; and strengthening institutions.
From Huyer et al, 2015, CCAFS GSI Strategy.

7. Partnerships and capacity for scaling CSA
Flagship Program 1 Flagship Program 2 Flagship Program 3 Flagship Program 4
Climate-smart agriculture, gender and social inclusion
CoA 1.3 Enabling policy
environments for CSA
CoA 4.3 Weather-related
agricultural insurance products
and programs
CoA 1.2 Food and nutrition
security futures under
climate change
CoA 2.2 Evidence, investment
planning and application
domains for CSA
technologies and practices
CoA 2.3 Equitable sub-
national adaptation planning
and implementation
CoA 2.4 Business models,
incentives and innovative
finance for scaling CSA
CoA 3.3 Policy, incentives
and finance for scaling up
low emissions practices
CoA 4.4 Climate services
investment planning and
policy
CoA 4.2 Climate information
and advisory services for
agriculture
CoA 3.2 Identifying priorities and
options for low-emissions
development
CoA 1.1 Ex-ante evaluation and
decision support for climate-
smart options
CoA 2.1 Participatory evaluation
of CSA technologies and
practices in CSVs
CoA 4.1 Climate information
and early warning for risk
management
CoA 3.1 Quantifying GHG
emissions from smallholder
systems
Integrating GSI research into
CSA policy and investment
decisions
Understand GSI-differentiated
CSA portfolios to benefit
women and youth; incentive
mechanisms
Increase women’s participation
in LED decision making (part. In
supply chains)
Strengthen understanding of
how CIS and insurance can
meet the needs of women
farmers; scaling

8. GSI in the CCAFS Theory of Change
CSA
Implementation
Policy &
institutional change
CSA, gender and
social inclusion
Partnerships
and capacity for
scaling CSA
Monitoring,
Evaluation &
Learning
Comms &
Knowledge
Management
Key:
Ongoing
activities
Cross-cutting
work
Approach
Objectives

9. Building the evidence for what works in
gender equality and women’s
empowerment
What do we know:
• There is a gender gap in agriculture as it relates to climate change
• Lower levels of access to resources and information and less
stable land tenure access, restricting their ability to act on and
implement climate adaptation practices in agriculture
• Men and women are exposed to different climate shocks and
experience different impacts
• Largely neglected by agriculture and climate information service
providers, and when they do have access to information, have less
capacity to implement it
• Jost et al, 2016; Kristjanson et al, 2017

10. Gender differences in adoption of CSA
• Women and men tend to have different adaptation strategies and
practices
• Based in different preferences in crops and uses for crops
• These depend on GDOL, differing access to and control over resources
participation in decision making and sociocultural norms
Five most common changes made by men and women to adapt to climate change

11. Building the evidence for what works in
gender equality and women’s
empowerment
Knowledge gaps
• Need better understanding of household and village labour roles in
relation to CSA technologies and practices, so that they decrease
women’s labour loads and become more attractive to women
• The role of participatory approaches in understanding differences
among women and traditionally under-represented groups and
building capacity of researchers and development implementers to
do so
• What is the role of women’s organizations and collective action in
providing a platform for gender equality in relation to CSA; and
• CSA approaches that take into account indigenous knowledge,
technology and practices of women

12. Closing the gender gap with Information,
institutions and services
What do we know
• Widen range of institutions and information, from climate-specific
(e.g. access to heat-tolerant crop varieties) to much broader
approaches, such as social protection, health and nutrition.
• Women tend to interact with informal, local-level and family or
social based networks, while men have greater access to
formalized institutions such as governments, extension, and
international NGOs
• Women are not well-served by agro- and climate information
services

13. Gender differences in information and forecast
access

14. Climate information through mobile
phones
Partey et al, 2018
• In Ghana, 51% of 900 respondents used climate information – 17% of
women and 34% of men

15. Closing the gender gap with Information,
institutions and services
Knowledge gaps
• What combination of communication processes best enable
women to understand and act on weather and climate information
• What is the best constellation of institutional services for women
and men?
• How, and to what degree, can rural climate services be scaled up,
while meeting context- gender- and age-specific user needs?
• What gender differences in demand for climate services exist and
why?

16. Promoting women’s leadership and
decision making / gender and climate
policy
What do we know
• Gender is not well integrated into climate change policy at national
or global levels
• Many gaps in representation at local and community levels as well
• Important to include women, women’s organizations in policy
processes/platforms, dialogues, knowledge sharing meetings
• Work with Ministries of Women, Youth, Social Development and/or
other national women’s departments / organizations
Knowledge gaps
• How to work with local level organizations to increase women’s
leadership.
• Question: how can policy take into account gender aspects of
climate change and agriculture, and how can women influence
climate policy formulation?

17. Engendering climate finance mechanisms
What do we know
• Little attention to gender in climate finance at global and local
levels
• Lack of access to finance is one of the major barriers to women’s
adaptation to climate change in agriculture
• Constraints of financial literacy, collateral, land ownership,
education, household decision making
• Index insurance is one option where women do participate
Knowledge gaps
• What are the barriers and enabling strategies for women to access
and use financial services such as insurance?
• What kinds of investments and financial services most directly lead
to increased women’s control of productive assets?
• What is the role of collective finance organizations at the village /
sub-national level, VSLAs, Women’s Banks?

18. Key tools and approaches
• Collecting sex-disaggregated data and doing gender impact
assessments on participation and benefits
• Identification of gender-positive CSA practices and technologies
• Sex-disaggregated data on climate-smart agriculture in CCAFS
publications
• A Gender-Responsive Approach to CSA: Evidence and guidance
for practitioners
• Gender and CSA Country Profiles (WA) currently under
development
• CCAFS Gender and Social Inclusion Tools

19. CCAFS Youth Strategy
Goal: Target and equip youth with CSA knowledge and technologies to
increase productivity and employment opportunities for young people
(CCAFS 2016).

20. CCAFS Youth Strategy – Focus Areas
1. Inclusion of age- (and sex) disaggregated indicators (data) in
monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) processes and all
projects
2. Youth engagement in policy at global/national policy levels
(e.g. through CSOs, social media, youth networks, negotiation
processes) and in programming at subnational level
3. Examining the role of youth along CSA value chains in
CCAFS and priority value chains in AFS-CRPs
4. Research on the use of ICT technologies and engagement
processes to meet the CSA and climate information needs of
youth to strengthen youth entrepreneurship and climate
resilience
5. Capacity strengthening through participatory learning
approaches (e.g. participatory video, theatre, ICTs).
Rwanda Youth in Agriculture Forum (RYAF) members were trained in managing climate
risks in agriculture through the Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture
(PICSA) training.

21. Promising approaches for working with
youth
• CSAYN
• Other youth platforms, i.e. university developer clubs, hackathons
• Innovative business models that incorporate digital technologies
• Youth as designers but also users
• Crowd-sourcing

22. Thank you
JL Urrea (CCAFS)