The document discusses key gender concepts relevant to livestock projects, highlighting the social construction of gender roles, the importance of gender equality and equity, and the necessity of gender analysis in development planning. It emphasizes the role of empowerment and gender mainstreaming in achieving equitable outcomes for both men and women, while explaining the benefits of addressing gender disparities in agricultural research. The document also outlines the potential economic gains from reducing gender inequalities and the current challenges in integrating gender considerations into agricultural programs.

1. Some gender concepts
Jemimah Njuki
Team Leader: Poverty, Gender and Impact
FAO-ILRI Workshop on Integrating Gender in Livestock Projects and Programs,
ILRI, Addis Ababa, 22-25 November 2011

2. Key Concepts
Gender
• Refers to the socially constructed roles and status of
women and men, girls and boys. It is a set of
culturally specific characteristics defining the social
behaviour of women and men, boys and girls, and
the relationships between them.
• Gender roles, status and relations vary according to
place (countries, regions, and villages), groups (class,
ethnic, religious, caste), generations and stages of
the lifecycle of individuals.
• Gender is, thus, not about women but about the
relationship between women and men.

3. Gender equality
• Entails the concept that all human beings, both men
and women, are free to develop their personal
abilities and make choices without the limitations
set by stereotypes, rigid gender roles, or prejudices.
• Gender equality means that the different
behaviours, aspirations and needs of women and
men are considered, valued and favoured equally.
• It does not mean that women and men have to
become the same, but that their rights,
responsibilities and opportunities will not depend
on whether they are born male or female.

4. Gender equity
• Means fairness of treatment for women and
men, according to their respective needs.
• This may include equal treatment or treatment
that is different but considered equivalent in
terms of rights, benefits, obligations and
opportunities.
• In the development context, a gender equity
goal often requires built-in measures to
compensate for the historical and social
disadvantages of women.

5. Gender analysis
• Is a tool /set of tools to assist in strengthening development
planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and
to make programmes and projects more efficient and
relevant.
• Gender analysis should go beyond cataloguing differences
to identifying inequalities and assessing relationships
between women and men.
• Gender analysis helps us to frame questions about women
and men's roles and relations in order to avoid making
assumptions about who does what, when and why.
• The aim of such analysis is to formulate development
interventions that are better targeted to meet both
women's and men's needs and constraints.

6. Empowerment
• Implies people – both women and men – taking
control over their lives by setting their own
agendas, gaining skills (or having their own skills
and knowledge recognized), increasing their self-
confidence, solving problems, and developing
self-reliance.
• It is both a process and an outcome.
• Empowerment implies an expansion in women's
ability to make strategic life choices in a context
where this ability was previously denied to them.

7. Gender mainstreaming
• Is a strategy for making women's, as well
as men's, concerns and experiences an
integral dimension in the design,
implementation, monitoring and
evaluation of policies and programmes in
all political, economic and social spheres so
that women and men benefit equally and
inequality is not perpetuated.
• The ultimate goal is to achieve gender
equality

8. Approaches
• Gender-neutral approaches do not account for the
differences between women and men and do not consider
how women and men may be marginalized and harmed or
may not benefit from research, programs and policy.
• Gender aware (or responsive) approaches are designed to
meet both women’s and men’s needs. These approaches
ensure that both women and men will benefit, and neither
will be harmed by research, programs and policy, such as,
for example, by exacerbating their work burdens.
• Gender transformative approaches actively strive to
examine, question, and change rigid gender norms and the
imbalance of power as a means of achieving development
goals as well as meeting gender equity objectives. These
research, programmatic and policy approaches challenge
the distribution of resources and allocation of duties
between men and women.

9. Why Gender: The Business Case for Gender
Mainstreaming
• Consistent gender disparities in access to
and benefits from technologies, services
and inputs across developing countries.
• Participation in and benefits from
markets: Low female membership in
agricultural marketing cooperatives, lack
of important information on prices for
marketing systems etc.
• Men and women are impacted differently
by technologies, interventions and other
emerging threats such as climate change,
HIV/AIDs on women.
• Focus on gender can increase the
productivity of agriculture and livestock
systems, and improve food security and
nutrition.

10. The Business Case for Gender Mainstreaming
• Findings have shown the importance of
the explicit focus on gender in promoting
household poverty reduction.
• Meaningful representation in both men
and women decision making and policy
bodies, in management positions, in
research and development is an
important component of reducing gender
inequalities.
• The participation of men and women in
agriculture research and development
leads to better decision outcomes, better
performance, creativity and innovation
and this has been shown in a variety of
settings, occupations, and organizations
(Pelled et al, 1999; Hamilton et al, 2003).

11.  The potential gains from reducing gender disparities
• If women had the same resources as men, they could increase
yields on their farms by 20-30%
– raise agricultural output by 2.5-4% and reduce hungry people
by 100-150 million (FAO, 2011)
• There is evidence that income under the control of women is more
likely to be used to improve family welfare
– women spend upto 90% of their income on their families,
while men spend 30-40%
– strengthening marital bargaining power and "voice" within the
household decision-making
 Extent of gender mainstreaming /integration in agriculture
research and development programs remains adhoc
– There is no evidence on what potential entry points bring the
most benefits or catalyse change