EMPOWERING WOMEN AS KEY DRIVERS OF FOOD SYSTEM CHANGE

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda

• Women comprise 43% of the agricultural labour force in developing countries

• Women account for two-thirds of the world's 600 million poor livestock keepers

• In developing countries, most women’s work is devoted to agriculture. Women are involved in every stage of food production.

• Female farmers receive only 5% of all agricultural extension services worldwide.

The Challenge We Face

Household Assets Vulnerability Assessment (HAVA)Livelihood Capital Assets

Low Moderate High Vulnerability Vulnerability Vulnerability

a comprehensive tool measuring the vulnerability of households and communities in relation to the impact of shocks such as HIV/AIDS, erratic weather patterns, and poverty

From Agriculture to Food SystemATONU Interventions

Crop / animal

husbandry

Aflatoxin control

Storage and

handlingFood

processing

Nutrition knowledge

Fortification

Biofortification

Women Empowerme

nt

Soil fertility

Market Enhancement

Policy environme

nt

Cooking

Labor saving technologies Gender Environmen

t

Germplasm

Why Women Empowerment • Is a means by which other important development

outcomes including improvements in child nutritional status

• Women are primary caretakers in a household, intra-household dynamics that determine allocation of resources (including food)

• Gender division of labour also influences the amount of time women have to care for themselves and children, and women’s power in decision making in farming and expenditure influences the ability to translate economic gains to nutritional improvements

• Lack of women’s empowerment increases maternal under-nutrition, and limits women’s ability to practice positive care behaviours, such as attending ante-natal visits or providing sufficient and nutritious complementary foods

Demystify the ConceptsGender Equality: absence of discrimination based on gender in the allocation of resources, benefits and access to services

Gender Equity: means the just and fair distribution of benefits, rewards and opportunities between women, men, girls and boys

Empowerment: the range of options that create opportunities and reinforce individual and collective capacities to exercise control over the life of individuals and offers them more choices

Empowerment of women is linked to having awareness of themselves, of knowledge, of their skills, their attitude

and aptitude to have a voice

Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture - Index (WEAI)

• Five domains of empowerment

Domain Indicators

decisions about AGRICULTURAL production

Input in productive decisions

Autonomy in production

access to and decision making power over productive

RESOURCES

Ownership of assetsPurchase, sale, or transfer of assetsAccess to and decisions on credit

control over use of INCOME Control over use of income

LEADERSHIP in the communityGroup memberSpeaking in public

TIME useWorkloadLeisure

Ag-Nutrition Pathways

Food production for

household consumption

Income-oriented

production for food, health

and other non-food items

Empowerment of women as agents

Nutrition-Sensitive

Agricultural Growth

Reduction in real food prices associated with

increased agricultural production

We are What We Eat From the Day One of Conception!

Invest in nutrition-sensitive agriculture so that pregnant mothers are well nourished at the onset of pregnancy  - even better if we focus on nourishing every girl child for the benefit of humankind.

This can only happen if :1. decision makers and agriculture investors say no to investments that do not deliver nutrition

outcomes;

2. project designers know how to design nutrition sensitive agriculture interventions;

3. intensified communication on healthy diets and behaviour change; 

4. policies to boost in availability, affordability and accessibility of nutrient dense foods, including animal source foods, fruits and vegetables; and

5. women are empowered.”

• Focus on how agriculture can deliver positive nutrition outcomes to smallholder farm families through the generation of robust evidence

• Target groups: women of child-bearing age and children in first 1,000 days of life, high burden of malnutrition

• Six-year project being implemented in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania for now

1,000 Days

Life cycle

Pre-conception

Conception to birth

0-6 months

6-24 months

Agriculture to Nutrition: ATONU

Agriculture to Nutrition (ATONU) – Key Research Questions for mapping nutrition sensitive interventions (NSI) along the agricultural value chains

Utilisation and consumptionPrimary Production Post harvest and

marketing Inputs: soil, germplasm (seed varieties, breeds), fertilizer, environmental implications

What can soil fertility management, fertilizer use, germplasm (seed variety/ animal breeds), and agrochemical use, do for nutrition? Crop Agronomy and Animal

husbandry What can agronomic and husbandry practices do for nutrition?

What can harvest practices do for nutrition?

Women empowerment - Which entry points along the agricultural value chain have the greatest potential impact for empowering women of child bearing age and improving children’s nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life (from conception to two years)? What aspects of women’s empowerment have the greatest impact on nutritional outcomes (e.g. control over crop/animal choice, decision-making regarding use of income, etc.)

Post-harvest handling, storage, and processing, packaging and marketing

How can product handling and processing (harvesting, processing, storage, food preparation, etc.) contribute to nutrition?How do we ensure that increases in agricultural income lead to improved nutritional outcomes?

Quality of food on the plate 

Behaviour Change - How can best practices in nutrition and health, including behaviour change, be integrated into agricultural programmes and projects to improve the nutrition status of women and young children?

What are the best delivery mechanisms for educating farming households about nutrition?

Cross-Cutting Issues

Programme Design - How can agricultural programmes be designed to improve nutritional outcomes within smallholder farm families? What are the appropriate indicators and “standards of credible evidence” for measuring the nutritional impact of agricultural interventions across the value chain?

Capacity development - How can multi-sectoral agriculture-nutrition decision makers, practitioners and policy advocates be most effectively equipped with knowledge/evidence and their capacity strengthened to support and advocate for the integration of agriculture and nutrition, and up-scaling of successful programs?

Delivery Mechanism - How can agriculture and health help to effectively reduce hunger and malnutrition among women of child bearing age and children?

ATONU Frameworks and Technical Assistance

ATONU has developed frameworks that may be used to do the following:• Assess country readiness for nutrition-sensitive agriculture

• Assess project/program suitability for integrating nutrition-sensitive interventions

• Selection and design of nutrition-sensitive interventions

• Impact evaluation of nutrition-sensitive interventions

ATONU is available to provide technical assistance to existing and pipeline projects that would like to deliver positive nutrition outcomes.

ILRI Chicken Genetic Gains Project

• Ethiopia and Tanzania:‾ African Chicken Genetic Gains (ACGG)

• The ACGG Project’s aim is to improve the production and productivity of chickens by smallholder households by introducing improved and tropically adapted genotypes in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania

• The ATONU project activities are being embedded within the ACGG Project.

II. Nutrition and

Hygiene Education

III. Women empowerment

for income decision making

IV.Vegetable

production

BCC• Optimal diets in

(MIYCF) Maternal Infant and Young Child Feeding

• Maternal and young child feeding (MIYCF) care group model learning sessions

• Hygiene in food processing, preparation and handling

• Community mobilization and sensitization on gender

• Men sensitization on child and maternal nutrition

• Joint financial planning and budgeting lessons

• Alternative energy and time saving technologies

• Vegetable production

• Processing

• Storage

• Utilization

Rigorous evaluation of the nutrition-sensitive interventions

ILRI – ATONU NSIs to Achieve Nutrition Outcomes

I. Improved

Consumption of Animal Source

Foods

• Intake of chicken meat

• Intake of eggs

Six Steps to Empower Women in Agriculture to Nutrition: ATONU

Measure the assets and food needs in communitiesEvaluate the food systems cycle from inputs to production, distribution, processing, consumption, and waste

management

1. Food System Assessment

Undertake health needs assessment to describe prevailing health problems to deduce malnutrition related problems . 2. Health Status Assessment

Determine who makes decisions about: (1) Agriculture production; (2) access to agriculture resources; (3) use of income-oriented production for food, health and other non-food items (4) leadership in community; (5) time use

3. Women Empowerment Status

Healthy diets & diet diversity: the household and individual-level ones (woman and child) are good indicators of diet quality associated with micronutrient adequacy of the diet4. ATONU Outcomes

Potential NSIs: (1) Labor saving technologies; (2) Biofortification; (3) Intercropping and rotation; (4) Animal husbandry; (5) Aflatoxin control; (6) Storage and handling; (7) Food processing, fortification and cooking; (8) Market

Enhancement; (9) Women Empowerment; (10) Nutrition knowledge; (11) Behavior Change Communication; (12) Policy environment

5. Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Identified,

Designed and Implemented

(1) Coordination mechanisms and partnerships for a food systems wide view; (2) involvement of communities to identify nutrition problems and develop interventions; (3) knowledge on nutrition quality of traditional and herbal

foods; (4) capacity to design and implement NSIs that deliver evidence for ATONU impact; (5) appropriate tools to identify opportunities for agriculture interventions for NSIs within the broader context; (6) communities of practice

6. Capacity Development of all

Actors

Healthy Food Systems & Health People

What Will Success Look Like by 2030?

EMPOWERED WOMEN

Well-nourished women and children in rural smallholder

farm families

Policy makers and investors incorporate nutrition in the

design of agricultural policies and programmes

Validated evidence of nutrition-sensitive

interventions

Ag-Nutrition community of practice

equipped to design nutrition-sensitive

agriculture projectsAgricultural experts working

with nutrition and health experts to deliver positive

nutrition outcomes

Women’s empowerment is a key driver of food systems

change, from food production to consumption.

When women are empowered to make decisions, children’s

education, health and nutrition improve

Take Home Message

When women are empowered to make decisions about the food system from the

dining table to the farm, children’s education and health improve.