This document summarizes the key findings from gender scoping studies conducted in 7 African countries on improving gender responsiveness in rural advisory services. The main points are: 1) Smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is traditionally practiced and organized along gendered lines, with women responsible for nutrition and food security and men for income generation. 2) For rural advisory services to effectively address gender inequalities, they must become gender responsive and transform social norms. 3) A proposed roadmap includes operationalizing existing gender policies, building understanding of gender equality, promoting gender-sensitive technologies, empowering women's groups, and transforming unequal gender dynamics in smallholder agriculture.

1. Max Olupot and Ann Apekey
Hotel Africana Kampala
Eastern Africa Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services
Policy Dialogue
www.afaas-africa.org
Gender, RAS and Polices; Results from
AFAAS-FARA Gender Scoping Studies

2. Introduction
Gender Context of Small Holder Agriculture in
Sub Saharan Africa:
• Small holder (SH) agriculture is the most
dominant form of livelihood;
• It is practiced both for family/household food
security and deriving income
• small holder agriculture in SSA countries is
carried out as a way of life, influenced by
culturally specific traditional methods and
tools of cultivation and modes of organization
of the production process.
• RAS Perspective !!!!

3. Introduction contd…
• Gender responsive rural advisory
services (GRRAS) are defined as
extension and advisory services that are
designed and implemented in a way
that effectively address the needs
(practical and strategic), interests, and
concerns affecting men, women, male
and female youth farmers in rural areas
(GFRAS 2013).

4. Introduction
•November 2014, AFAAS & FARA
commissioned scoping studies (7 Countries ) on
Gender responsive approaches to rural
advisory services (GRAS) in Africa;
•Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria,
Sudan, & Uganda;

5. Objectives of the Scoping studies
• Identify key innovations that have helped to improve
the productivity of women and youth with a view to
scaling up & out for use by other farmers and RAS
providers;
• Identify and document the good practices of gender
responsive approaches to RAS in the selected
countries that can be shared and scaled up in other
countries in order to improve the access of women
and youth to RAS and promote poverty reduction;
• Determine the drivers, challenges or constraints that
may facilitate or hinder scaling up and out of gender
responsive RAS practices.

6. Rational
• Identify policies, programmes, approaches
and tools that are gender responsive in
providing RAS to farmers, with specific focus
on women and youth;
• Propose a road map for mainstreaming
gender sensitive approaches, tools and
practices into RAS with a view to promoting
sustainable agriculture in Africa.

7. Gender, Smallholder Agriculture in SSA
and RAS
• SH Agric is fused with rural ways of life;
• Carried out as an extension of the
obligations, roles and responsibilities of
different household members in ensuring
household nutrition, food security, earning
income and enhancing social and
economic status not only within households
but also communities.

8. Gender, Smallholder Agriculture contd…
• Gender, the social construction of masculine
and feminine identities, distinguishes and
structures roles, rights and responsibilities of
household members in smallholder agriculture;
• Access to, and control of land, labour and
income are socio-culturally defined, with men,
especially heads of household, making the
broad management decisions of land
allocation, labour organisation,
cropping/animal rearing patterns and income
expenditure.

9. Gender, Smallholder Agriculture contd…
• Nutrition and food security -women’s
responsibilities;
• Income earning-men’s responsibilities;
• Gender is not only a fundamental
principle governing the social
organisation of small holder agriculture
and its benefits;
• Informs the formulation of governmental
and non governmental policies
targeting small holder agriculture.

10. Gender, Smallholder Agriculture contd..
• RAS therefore has considerable scope for addressing
gender inequalities
• RAS acts as the link between agricultural
organisations, including governments and research
institutions, and small holder farmers.
• It is within the small holder agricultural sub sector that
gender inequalities are most entrenched,
reproduced, justified and legitimised through
interlinked household management and farming
norms and practices.
• Therefore, for RAS to address gender inequalities, it
must become gender responsive, thereby
transforming into gender responsive rural advisory
services (GRRAS).

11. Road Map
• Road Map for Mainstreaming Gender Sensitive
Approaches, Tools and Practices into RAS With a
View of Promoting Sustainable Agriculture in Africa
• Based on:
 identified key innovations that have helped to
improve the productivity of women and youth;
the documented good practices of gender
responsive approaches to RAS;
drivers and challenges/constraints that may
facilitate or hinder scaling up and out of gender
responsive RAS practices

12. Road Map
 Getting Off the Policy Tables
• Malawi, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Ethiopia have
gender responsive national development and agricultural
sector policies and strategies;
• Most of these policies and strategies have not been
operationalized;
• Lack of specific plans of action within government
documentation for addressing gender disparities within
smallholder agricultural sector (Malindi 2015);
• Gender in most SSA countries seems to be stuck on the tables
where policies are formulated;
• There is need to “breathe life into the policies” so that they get
translated into impact laden measurable actions amongst small
holder farming communities.

13. Road Map
 Need for Shared Understanding of Gender Equality
and Its Significance
• Policy makers and implementers and agricultural
institutions need to be engaged into dialogue to
build shared understanding of gender equality and
why it is important to pursue this goal, especially in
RAS;
• Guide policy makers and implementers in designing
actions for promoting gender equality in RAS at
ideological, organisational, budgetary and logistical
levels, and to become accountable to gender in
their work.

14. Road Map
 Gender Budgeting
• Introduction to the theory and practice of gender
budgeting would allay policy makers’ and
implementers’ unease about extra costs for
promoting GRRAS;
• Resources could be obtained from existing
budgetary allocations through re-adjustments and re-
allocations there-in, and at higher effectiveness of
outcomes.
 Ways of Promoting and Up-Scaling Gender
Responsive Technologies and Innovations for
Reducing Drudgery and Enhancing Productivity along
the Agricultural Value Chains
• Drudgery is one of the key turn offs for youths in agriculture (Quaye 2015).

15. Road Map
 Promotion and Facilitation of Agricultural Small and
Medium Enterprises (Agri-SMEs) that Empower
Women and Youth e.g. Ghana’s Northern Rural Growth Programme
(NRGP)
 Integration of Health and Nutrition into Agricultural Value
Chains
• E.g. Ethiopia’s Empowering New Generations with
Improved Nutrition and Economic Opportunities
(ENGINE) project;
• Developing and adopting appropriate agricultural
technologies that meet farmers’ needs, refines
available technologies to fit actual farmers’
situations, and develops problem solving capacities
amongst farmers

16. Road Map
 Enhancing Participation of Women, Men and Youth
• Explicitly stating within agricultural development
policy, programme and/or project documentation
the proportions of men, women and youths that will
benefit forestalls exclusion of some categories in
society.
 Inclusion Beyond Participation
• Village Savings and Loans (VSL) models foster
financial inclusion since most rural farmers including
women and youth are excluded from formal
financial institutions.

17. Road Map
 Empowerment of Women
• Women and youths may participate and be included
by GRRAS, but on unfavourable terms compared to
men due to internalization of their subordination and
exclusion;
• The structural environment within which women and
youth do operate may also be so male dominated;
• GRRAS should therefore not be content with
heightened participation and inclusion only;
• GRRAS should further have empowerment as its
other goal.

18. Road Map
Transformational GRRAS
• Transforming the unequal gender status quo within
SSA small holder agriculture should be the ultimate
goal of GRRAS
• The COS Sis project in Benin was so transformational
that women not only extended the neem production
skills within Benin but also abroad (Babadankpodji
2015).

19. Conclusion
For GRRAS to be realised,
• It is imperative that national gender responsive policies and
strategies are operationalized;
• Requires conviction of policy makers and implementers about
the significance of pursuing gender equality goals within SH
agric
• Technical expertise for designing and promoting GRRAS exists in
some universities and amongst international NGOS;
• There are also a host of key innovations that have helped to
improve the productivity of women and youth and good
practices of gender responsive approaches to RAS that could
be scaled up and out for promotion of GRRAS to reduce
poverty and gender inequalities in SH Agric in Africa.
• AFAAS now is developing Gender Responsive Strategy

20. Thank you for your attention
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http://www.afaas-africa.org
http://networking.afaas-africa.org

21. Take home questions
• Identify three concrete good practices and
Innovations that are Gender responsive
• How can these good practices be scaled
up & out; for use by RAS providers and
farmers?
• What capacities are needed to deliver
GRRAS
• Who are the potential key actors/
stakeholders in driving the GRRAS forward?