Presented by Elizabeth M. Waithanji at the Livestock and Fish Gender Working Group Workshop and Planning Meeting, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 14-18 October 2013

1. Gender Transformative Approaches (GTAs)
Best practices for asset interventions in agriculture projects in Africa
and Asia
Elizabeth M. Waithanji
Livestock and Fish Gender Working Group Workshop and Planning Meeting
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 14-18 October 2013

2. Presentation Outline
• The GAAP project impact pathway
• Types of interventions
• Asset categories for each project
• Adjustments – Gender transformative?
• Impacts post adjustments
• Conclusions and recommendations
2

3. GAAP Impact Pathway
Capacity building
Outputs
GTAs
3

4. Types of interventions: Different Asset
Enhancement Interventions
Assets: Natural, Human, Physical, Social, Financial and Political
Intervention Country Projects:
• Bangladesh – capacity building in form of free training of dairy
farmers groups in livestock production and health, as well as
linking groups to markets by providing bulking and chilling
facilities, hence, natural, human, financial and social assets
enhanced
• Kenya and Tanzania – money maker pumps bought by farmers,
hence, physical and financial capital enhanced
• Mozambique – free high yielding cows distributed and
receiving farmers trained on production and health, hence,
natural, financial and human assets enhanced
4

5. Adjustments to Enhance Best Practices:
Gender Transformative Approaches (GTA)?
• Mozambique – early in the project
– Trained a second household member – did not specify gender but
often it was wife of HH head
• Bangladesh – mid course adjustment
– Men encouraged to accompany their wives to attend sick animals so
that women could use skills as community animal health workers
• Kenya – late in the project
– Pump layaway program whereby women groups were encouraged to
pay instalments for pumps which were given to them using the
merry-go-round model
5

6. Impacts – Positive Across All Sites
• Increased household
– production
– Income and
– assets (including pump ownership by women)
• Improved wellbeing in terms of access to
–
–
–
–
More nutrients
Better hygiene (Bangladesh and Mozambique)
Education
Healthcare
• Enhanced self esteem for women and men
– Role models
– Knowledgeable (especially women on dairy hygiene and animal
health)
– Leaders and providers
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7. Impacts - Negative
• Women’s work load increased disproportionately to the increase
men’s workload
– Mozambique, men paid additional labourers to do the extra work and
women delegated house and other work to children and existing servants
• Culture of women seclusion emphasized
– Bangladesh – Seclusion emphasized (women stayed at home and did the
work whereas men delivered the milk to the collection points in the market;
men accompanied women animal health workers as they visited cows to
treat them)
• Women’s and men’s crops redefined
– Kenya and Tanzania – men owned one off harvest and sale crops like green
maize, cabbage and tomatoes, whereas women became owners of repeated
harvest green leafy vegetables such as kale, amaranth, and spinach
• Women’s control of income and assets affected negatively
– Bangladesh, women’s control declined, joint control increased
– Kenya, women (from MHH) could not openly claim pump ownership
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8. KickStart PID – Kenya Men
We cannot say
that we own the
pumps even if
we do… we’ll be
in big trouble.
Once, my wife talked
about owning bananas
on my land… I chopped
them down to show her
who is in charge here.
If he sells
something that I
bought and I did
not want to be
sold, I can report
him to the chief
and have it
confiscated and
returned to me.
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9. KickStart PID – Tanzania Women
There is hardly time
to groom ourselves …
we no longer iron
our clothes.
In case of a divorce,
he would have to go…
I cannot leave my
marital home. It is my
right to stay!
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10. Conclusion and Recommendations for GTA
• A woman buying an asset, having it registered in her name
and, hence, owning it does not signify control of use of the
asset or income/benefit accrued through it
– E.g. women from MHH owning pumps (Kenya) or women animal
health workers (Bangladesh)
• What needs to be transformed is the actual access to, and
control of, benefits accruing from the asset
– At least some access and control of milk income by women from
Mozambique and Bangladesh and crop income for women from
Tanzania and Kenya
• Women knowing their rights and having them protected by
the law, protects them from dispossession of assets
– e.g. Women in Kenya and Tanzania
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11. Acknowledgements: GAAP Partner
Organizations