Gender Research in A4NH

IMPLEMENTATION RESULTS Recent gender results from A4NH research:

• Three of the seven widely accepted pathways through which agriculture influences nutritional outcomes are found to be explicitly gendered: women’s time, workload, and control of resources. These pathways are informing gender-sensitive and gender-responsive research and programming around agriculture-nutrition linkages.

• Recent review of homestead gardening and dairy projects found mixed results on women’s empowerment. A4NH is working with the CRP on Policies, Institutions, and Markets to explore the usefulness of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI)—a tool jointly developed by USAID, IFPRI, and OPHI—for analyzing nutritional outcomes across a variety of contexts.

• Evidence from two studies suggests that empowerment and nutritional outcomes are influenced less by the type of program than by how the program is implemented. Agricultural programs with demonstrated impacts on diet quality and nutritional status were those which integrated gender and considered women’s multiple roles as caregivers, farmers and value chain actors.

• Assessments of animal-source-food value chains in five countries indicate that men and women face differential exposure to food safety risks due to differences in biology, roles, knowledge, and practices. A4NH will work with the CRP on Livestock and Fish to ensure gender consideration into interventions that reduce exposure at critical points along the value chain.

• Researchers and implementers are learning from A4NH how gender tools and approaches can be integrated in impact evaluations. Results on how gender influences adoption of orange-fleshed sweet potato and how participation in homestead gardening changes control of assets are being used to improve effectiveness of existing programs as they go to scale.

Coordination and capacity building:

• Gender research inventory currently underway to foster collaboration and identify gaps in A4NH. Systematic reviews planned on links between agricultural interventions and women’s time, and agricultural interventions and domestic violence.

• HarvestPlus is conducting a high-level gender assessment to take stock of past experiences and identify lessons for its next phase of delivery at scale.

• Through internal and external expertise, gender is being integrated into the impact pathways and theories of change being developed for each of the major research areas of A4NH, to support planning, implementation, and evaluation.

• December 2013 workshop planned for all CRPs with nutrition intermediate development outcomes (IDOs) to build capacity for gender researchers across the CGIAR to critically apply known methodologies to projects with nutrition objectives.

Gender Implications in the Nutrition Impact Pathway

Partnerships and Capacities The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

• Research on gender power relationships and cassava value chains as well as implications for nutrition and diet quality in Africa south of the Sahara

• Assessment of existing nutrition capacity across Africa south of the Sahara and identifying possible linkages to A4NH centers and projects

Helen Keller International (HKI)

• Capacity development with national partners in support of CAADP processes

• Research on how certain agriculture interventions, like HKI’s homestead food production programs, can produce equitable nutritional and health benefits for men, women, and young children

The Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH)

• Examining implications of agriculture interventions on women’s time and on nutrition/diet quality

This document is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution –Non commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Photo credit: Flickr (Neil Palmer/CIAT) October 2013

CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food secure future

Implementation Challenges • Gender research capacity among A4NH partners is limited by lack of recognition of the

importance of gender in research and programming and/or a narrow supply of trained gender researchers working on agriculture-nutrition issues.

• A challenge for A4NH is to both support gender researchers to focus on high quality research and to address capacity needs of partners; partnerships with organizations with a mandate for capacity building in gender and nutrition are a key strategy to address this challenge.

Key contacts John McDermott: Director, A4NH- J.McDermott@cgiar.org

Agnes Quisumbing: Senior Gender Advisor, A4NH - A.Quisumbing@cgiar.org

Hazel Malapit: Gender Research Coordinator, A4NH - H.Malapit@cgiar.org

Nancy Johnson: Evaluation Coordinator, A4NH - N.Johnson@cgiar.org

Amanda Wyatt: Research Analyst, A4NH – A.Wyatt@cgiar.org

For more information visit our website: a4nh.cgiar.org

Vision Gender is being integrated along all A4NH impact pathways to inform research design, implementation, and evaluation with the following goals.

1. Agricultural researchers use research outputs (methods, tools, approaches) to better understand gender and its influence on nutritional outcomes of agricultural interventions

2. Development implementers and enablers use A4NH research outputs to design agricultural policies and programs that empower women and support households and communities to improve nutritional outcomes, especially for women and young children